This is the funniest definition of "uncoherent ramblings" I have ever seen. You, sir, have a career ahead of you as a stand-up comedian.
Seriously, Mr Head's post was the most concentrated good sense on this topic I've seen in several hundred pages.
This response, on the other hand, makes it pretty clear that the comments whamhammer1 made on this thread look to be right on the money.
If not for the fact that intelligent, thoughtful people are being insulted and abused by certain members of this thread (the "four or five" mentioned by oldravenman3025), I'd be sitting back with a tub of popcorn, being vastly entertained by the comedians who seem to believe that they can represent for their favorite ship by behaving in ways that, among responsible adults, are considered counterproductive, at the very least. However, the fact that the best response those Galaxy fans can come up with to a well-reasoned, respectful, intelligent and detailed post is "holy uncoherent ramblings, Batman" says something about the quality of argument they bring to the table. It also says something about how likely it is that they'll ever get what they want, since it is human nature to dig in and refuse to give in to that type of behavior, even if the ones displaying that behavior were (as is not the case in this instance) right.
Welcome to the "Evil Empire" of the thread... smoking or non-smoking?
Kevlar helmets and flak jackets are in the left hand cabinets.
Yes, the ship is fine because it works fine for the things that the players that matter use it for. Most of that is unoptimized PvE, where the point is to just play and have fun, and not try to stress other players out with some meaningless epeen measuring contest about who does enough DPS to be "useful" in finishing a mission not just before the optional timer ends, but in some new arbitrary standard for what is "good enough". Most people just don't play the game the way you do, or the way you and others think they should. The fact is, STO isn't the kind of sharply engineered, finely tuned, mechanically elegant competition engine you seem to want it to be, and "fixing" the Galaxy isn't going to change that. You sound like one of those clowns who constantly wants to tell you how fast their car will do a quarter mile, as if that were a thing that matters. Yeah, sure, great, you've got such torques and so revs, I'm happy for you. I'm not here to race, or whatever, I'm just here to have fun driving my little car in a way that I enjoy.
so your not into the competitive meta, but your high and mighty enough to pass judgment on it? backed up by most people? how does it hurt the average player if suddenly a poor performing ship, an especially iconic one, was one day better? was this a good enough rational for the regent's creation? it certainly seemed to be. most people this, most people that. these most people that dont care if they are using their ship to more then 10% of its potentual arent the people that spend any money on the game ether. to them balance is a meaningless as long as its possible for them to complete the content they have before them. to them, a particular ship being good or bad isnt part of the equation when they dont know enough, or dont care to know enough about how to build a ship to its potentual. what business do these people have sticking their nose into any balance related discussion? leave that to the eppens, because you wont notice a difference ether way.
Point 1) The game is, to all appearances, surviving just fine - even thriving. I'm sure the usual doomsayers will come out and talk about how the game is a failure and how it is doomed to be closed soon because of (reasons), but they have no evidence to back up those claims, and their track record is not so great - after all, most of them have been saying the same thing for nigh on to 4 years.
Point 2) Even if you believe the game is indeed in trouble, the odds that it's the Galaxy class' representation in the game that's the problem are... vanishingly slight. The people that matter (see above) don't give a fig about it - they just want the next cool mission, the next new ship, etc. If the game IS doomed, it's not going to be the Galaxy that causes the collapse, nor will it save the game.
Point 3) The literal "need" for a Galaxy change is thus precisely zero. The demonstrated, empirical proof is that the Galaxy class doesn't need to be anything other than what it is for the game to work. What does the game ACTUALLY need to survive? We don't know for sure, I think, but given that the worst time in the game's history was the year of no content, I'd say "new content" is pretty high on everyone's list. Also up there is "new ships", which certainly is something a Galaxy overhaul is likely to trade off with.
Point 4) Since the game doesn't need a Galaxy overhaul to survive, the only remaining justification for such a change is that doing so would provide a net benefit to the game - that is, the benefits would outweigh the costs. This is a real sticking point in this thread, since so far people have been (as far as I can tell) utterly blase about exactly what kind of cost such a change could incur, both in terms of political capital with the player base, and in terms of actual money. While I'm sure the Galaxy fans would like to think it's just a matter of a few keystrokes and done, I'm pretty sure it isn't. For starters, most people want to swap around the console slots and bridge officer seating. Sounds easy, but consider that most ships already have those slots filled with officers and items - what happens when the slots change? Historically, Cryptic as avoided making these types of changes precisely because they are difficult to implement. Adding things isn't so bad, because you can just run a single script and hey presto new ability or open item slot. Changing existing slots, though - rare, because it's much more difficult than people want to believe. Of course, the more radical the proposed solution (like the idea of a new Galaxy 3-pack), the higher the costs are likely to be.
Point 5) The pro change lobby is also remarkably ineffective in their demonstration that making a change would provide a substantial benefit to the game as a whole, despite their constant proclamations at having "proven" a problem exists. Don't get me wrong, they are very good at demonstrating that there would be benefit to themselves, but they can't get past that emotional sense of "I want" to see the bigger picture - At best, changing the Galaxy really benefits only those people who want to fly a Galaxy in the first place, who have a problem with the current rules, who would be satisfied with the specific change made, and who would not be even happier with some entirely different solution. That's like a sub-sub-sub-sub section of the game's population. Even if you assumed the Galaxy was the single most popular ship in Star Trek Fandom (and I'm pretty sure it's not), that's still a small minority of the player base as a whole, and we only make the slice of the pie we're talking about smaller from there.
Point 6) Given the previous two points, the benefits of this change to the average STO player are uncertain at best, and the existence of any kind of net benefit to the game as a whole it thus highly suspect. This means that, in effect, the pro change club is asking for the entire player base to pay the cost in lost dev hours, delayed new content and ships, and additional forum drama (as groups wonder why the Galaxy got special attention and their pet issue didn't), yet only a very very small number of players can expect to see any benefit. This is on face not persuasive to me. If there's no existential need for change to save the game, and there's no net benefit to the majority of the player base, why should we support spending any resources on it?
Point 7) The recent history of this thread has shown that the compromises that reasonable people might support, like a broader overhaul to Eng powers, or granting cruisers in general additional functions (cruiser commands), have been widely panned because they didn't target the Galaxy specifically, and thus didn't solve the perceived problem that the Galaxy is the "worst ship". This might sound reasonable, until you realize that the implication is essentially that they are explicitly not interested in making the game better for the player base as a whole, but rather only in serving the narrow interests of the true Galaxy faithful. If you don't intend to fly a Galaxy, they don't want you to gain an advantage to your own playstyle, because if you did, the changes might not serve their purpose of making it easier for them to use the Galaxy to "beat" you in a game that's generally not a competition in the first place.
On balance, there just isn't a compelling reason for Cryptic to act on their own, and there isn't a compelling reason for the majority of the player base to rise up and demand change, because the majority of players won't get anything out of it. It sucks for the people who can evidently only enjoy the game if they are in a Galaxy and "beating" other players. Happily, the players that actually matter (the rest of us) seem to be able to get on just fine.
strawman 1-3 are incredibly pointless, the health of the game was never in question here. if the literal "need" for a Galaxy change is thus precisely zero, i want you all to smile and thank cryptic when the new anniversary ships are stat clones of the galaxy R. theres strawman 4 for you, if the galaxy doesn't have a net affect on the game ether way, the only remaining justification is we need more ships like it!
oh dear, you wouldn't like those anniversary ships like that? but you just went on and on about things like stat details being inconsequential, and the stuff of eppen bullys. how about strawman 5, what we have proved but otheres just refuse to accept. how about i prove the oposite too? obviously theres nothing wrong with that setup the ship has, and if it should propagating to other ships that would be no problem at all. in fact from now on all the ships yet to be release should have stats as bad as the galaxy's or worse, because for most players it doesn't mater!
if its not meaningless off base strawmans, its you making it sound like anyone who pvp's is some terrible person. if only we could just kill the other player in real life, right? we are competitive, its a mater of pride that when we do something, we dont half TRIBBLE it, we do it well. so we care about things like balance, and we hate anomalies in the balance. the biggest anomaly is the galaxy R.
seriously, theres no need for you to care if theres a change.
theres money to be made, releasing a ship thats actually pretty good, wile also being something iconic. this will appeal to the masses more then any cryptic design will. want to know what sells cryptic designs? desirable stats. oh, but most people dont care about that. then most people arent grinding and spending money on ships are they, oh wait. why are they doing that? because the eppens say they are good so they want whats good? that cant be right, most people just don't play the game the way we do, or the way we and others think they should. well, maybe most people actually do care about stats, maybe they are playing to win, and just about all trek fans proboly care about canon ships more then cryptic designs.
how they go about releasing it or revising it is a formality, a simple process actually.
to institute these changes, it would be very simple.
monday week 1- announce a stop sell of galaxy and intrepid retrofit, and removal of fleet versions from the fleet store on the patch on thrursday. note that the c store versions will remain available to reclaim for only anyone who bought them.
thursday week 1- follow through
monday week 2- dev blog on the new retrofit relaunchs, to go live next thursday's patch.
thursday week 2- follow through
simple. they have already stopped sale on things in the past, like tier 5 costumes becoming exclusive to fleet ships and EVA suits becoming vet rewards.
what reason is there not to make a bunch of money by releasing an iconic ships thats good for something? do they think its the last ship that will sell? got mah gud galaxy, dont need to buy notin ever again! stats sell ships, no 6 turn, not battlecloaking, plus sized cruiser will ever be some all encompassing god ship that satisfy everyone's ship needs, no mater how good it is. escorts, sci ships and yes also cruisers will still be sold on thier superior stats. its more likely that they dont touch this issue because they haven't eloquently solved the problem of adapting gen 2 saucer sep to the galaxy X, with its 3rd stupid nacelle sticking up in the way.
This is the funniest definition of "uncoherent ramblings" I have ever seen. You, sir, have a career ahead of you as a stand-up comedian.
Seriously, Mr Head's post was the most concentrated good sense on this topic I've seen in several hundred pages.
This response, on the other hand, makes it pretty clear that the comments whamhammer1 made on this thread look to be right on the money.
If not for the fact that intelligent, thoughtful people are being insulted and abused by certain members of this thread (the "four or five" mentioned by oldravenman3025), I'd be sitting back with a tub of popcorn, being vastly entertained by the comedians who seem to believe that they can represent for their favorite ship by behaving in ways that, among responsible adults, are considered counterproductive, at the very least. However, the fact that the best response those Galaxy fans can come up with to a well-reasoned, respectful, intelligent and detailed post is "holy uncoherent ramblings, Batman" says something about the quality of argument they bring to the table. It also says something about how likely it is that they'll ever get what they want, since it is human nature to dig in and refuse to give in to that type of behavior, even if the ones displaying that behavior were (as is not the case in this instance) right.
First of all, thank you - I was actually trying to be a bit funny with a dose of sarcasm.
Now, it's the first time I've seen you post in the thread, so I asuume you're new here (to the thread) and if you were around but just haven't posted, than I'm sorry for my premature conclusion.
However, let me try to explain a few points that lead to my reaction:
Mr.Head usually drops in here from time to time, usually around once a month and usually always repeating the same stuff he posted in the previous post. He also tends to intepret his opinions on the matter as buletproof facts. So instead of getting into another deep and utterly useless debate (which has proven before to be pointless and without conclusion), I decided to be funny and sarcastic. Shame on me.
But there is a praticular reason this time why I catogorized that post as uncoherent ramblings and in short I'll try to explain to you why:
-His point 1: Completely out of the discussion taking part here, apart for maybe 3-4 random people/posts in more than 5.5k replies, the game being doomed and being a faliure is not discussed here. What is being discussed is the Galaxy, the percieved shortcommings and ways to improve it. So his point one is similar to someone entering an astrophysics conference and start explaining the ingredients for the recipe of his favourite cheese cake.
-His point 2: Pretty much same as point 1, discussing something about the game being doomed out of the blue with the aded benefit of once again stating his opinions as facts "people that matter..." (so we here don't matter) "..don't give a fig about it".
-His point 3: Continuing rambling about what the game needs or doesn't need to survive, once more having nothing to do with the topic at hand in this thread.
-His point 4: He's finally slowly approaching the topic of the discussion - the Galaxy, but once again trying to pass his personal views about the cost effectivenes of any change to the ship as facts, and again unnecessary rambling about the survival of the game. Let me underline the following - the survival of STO was never a discussion here. He's just pulling stuff out of a hat trying to divert the discussion.
-His point 5: More of him trying to pass his opinions as buletproof facts. "At best, changing the Galaxy really benefits only those people who want to fly a Galaxy in the first place, who have a problem with the current rules, who would be satisfied with the specific change made, and who would not be even happier with some entirely different solution." Look at this for a minute - he "knows" for a "fact" who will only benefit from any changes to the Galaxy.
Furthermore, take a look at that last part I quoted - "entirely different solution" from what? There are at least a dozen suggestions that are continuously being repeated on how to improve the Galaxy made by different people. His attempt to portray the whole thread as a sum of only 1 idea is very transparent to anyone that has been here for a while. Click my sig. for one of those. Then go 2 pages back and see my post about improvements to the tanking role and engineering class - they're completely different. There is no 'one' idea that everyone is forcing here.
-His point 6: Continuing his attempt to pass his own opinions as facts. He "knows" new content and new ships will be delayed if a dev. decides to try and change a console or a Boff on the Galaxy. He also "knows" the amount of people that would benefit from such change and he "knows" that is only a small amount.
-His point 7: This is actually the only point where he's mostly talking on a subject related to the thread and the topic discussed.
On some things he mentioned here he's right, on others he's wrong. He's wrong that there was and is no support for Eng.powers overhaul - many people have confirmed their support for those here. He's wrong that there is no support for the cruiser commands - most of the people here were/are in support of this afaik. Again, see my post 2 pages back - improvements to the tanking role and game mechanics would benefit all of the cruisers. I made many posts here discussing the role of cruisers and game mechanics, search the thread if you like. Those are suggested improvements for the entire class of ships. Unfortunately, Mr.H will not mention those because they don't fit the light in which he wants to portray the Galaxy fans.
He's right that most of the people requested special changes for the Galaxy, because as it stands it's right down at the bottom of least usefull ships in STO, if not the least usefull as mentioned by others. We support any changes that would benefit the cruiser class, but that wouldn't change the Galaxy being the least usefull in the lineup. Our view here is that the Galaxy class doesn't deserve to be the least usefull cruiser in the game. The ship currently has no role, not even a niche one and everything she can do another ship can do better. The Galaxy is one of the 3 iconic ships of Star Trek that have a place to be in this game - the Intrepid, the Galaxy and the Defiant. (The Connnie and NX being too old for 2409) Neither of these 3 ships deserves to be the least usefull in STO, they are the ST classics.
So you see, when you sum it up - out of 7 points he made 1 is on topic; 3 are attempts to pass his personal opinions as facts on stuff none of us can clearly know and 3 have nothing to do with the topic and the thread. So yeah, I think "Holy uncoherent ramblings, Batman!" is quite apropriate. Especially given the fact that this is not his first time to make a post like this.
But the worst thing he does is group everyone in one single group assuming or trying to portray that the Galaxy fans have a hive mind like the Borg. To me personally, that is insulting.
So now you need to ask yourself the question: "Why is this individual so adamant against any changes/improvements to the Galaxy class?"
That's the mystery many of us would like to know.
If they chose to make content that is more of a challenge then the current content, then the Galaxy will be in no way fine. It's behind the others ships and there's no need for it to be so.
No ship should be as flawed as the Galaxy to the point it's a unenjoyable ship to play. Most people are not asking for the Galaxy to be the best ship in the game. They just want it to be more playable. Just changing the ensign slot to either uni, tac or sci would be a major improvement and make many happy.
But the worst thing he does is group everyone in one single group assuming or trying to portray that the Galaxy fans have a hive mind like the Borg. To me personally, that is insulting.
There are plenty of people who do that, including some of the "biggest proponents" of the Galaxy in this thread, they just call them haters, illogical, etc. I am not condoning either side doing it, just pointing it out and it does turn people off to contributing.
So now you need to ask yourself the question: "Why is this individual so adamant against any changes/improvements to the Galaxy class?"
That's the mystery many of us would like to know.
It could be that he thinks its fine, just as much as you, I and others think that there does need to be some change. The man is entitled to an opinion and express it in this thread (albeit if that is his opinion, I disagree with it), is he not?
If they chose to make content that is more of a challenge then the current content, then the Galaxy will be in no way fine. It's behind the others ships and there's no need for it to be so.
No ship should be as flawed as the Galaxy to the point it's a unenjoyable ship to play. Most people are not asking for the Galaxy to be the best ship in the game. They just want it to be more playable. Just changing the ensign slot to either uni, tac or sci would be a major improvement and make many happy.
Actually, many argue that the problem is the boffs, consoles and turn. Changing the one ensign will not make them happy. Plus, making and ensign sci just makes it a slower Star Cruiser and an ensign tac makes it a Gal-X without a lance, DHC (which is kinda silly if equipped with more than one, IMHO), and cloak capability.
If they were to make a uni, a LT would make more sense, but the problem, IMHO, is that the engineering abilities need to be brought up to par with sci and tac. People generally don't complain about a tac or sci skewed ship, fix it so an engie skewed doesn't get complained about either.
There are plenty of people who do that, including some of the "biggest proponents" of the Galaxy in this thread, they just call them haters, illogical, etc. I am not condoning either side doing it, just pointing it out and it does turn people off to contributing.
And that's what I'm trying to say as well. There is no 'consortium of Galaxy fans'. I only speak for myself. Sometimes I agree with the rest of the Galaxy fans in this thread and sometimes, like in the case of giving her a hangar for ex., I don't.
I am also not condoning anyone generalizing people for his/hers own agenda, but I'm also not going to 'police' people, especially on internet forums. I'll only react when I feel I'm called upon, like in the case of being a Galaxy fan and being generalized. Noone should expect me to react if someone generalizes a group I have not relation to. No, it's not nice and it's insulting when anyone does it, I may react to such things when they happen IRL, but not on an internet forum if I'm not personally concerned.
I'm saying this just to be clear that just like you, I don't condone this behavior, but I'm also not going to 'police' anyone that didn't adress me personally or as a part of a group. I say this because there have been people that wanted some of 'us' to "police" (exact word used) the rest of 'us'.
That's not my role here. If myself and player A share opinion on topic 1, that doesn't mean that I'll wave my finger and say 'naughty, naughty!' if player A is insulting towards player B. However if player B says I'm an TRIBBLE because player A insulted him and I happen to share an opinion on topic 1 with player A, I'll give him/her a piece of my mind.
It could be that he thinks its fine, just as much as you, I and others think that there does need to be some change. The man is entitled to an opinion and express it in this thread (albeit if that is his opinion, I disagree with it), is he not?
He is. But there's a slight difference in the narative. That's why I used the word 'adamant'.
It's not him comming here and simply saying "I think you're all overreacting. The ship is fine, I do 12k DPS with her." like kimmym did, and I happened to agree with a large portion of her points.
He comes here trying to convince the Galaxy supporters how 'insignificant' they are, how noone in the universe cares about the ship, how it would prevent devs to make new ships, how it would make Cryptic lose money, etc, etc.....you get my point.
There's a strong difference in the narrative and maybe it's just me, but that tone that has been pretty constant throughoht his posts here leads me to believe of some personal issues related to this ship.
Actually, many argue that the problem is the boffs, consoles and turn. Changing the one ensign will not make them happy. Plus, making and ensign sci just makes it a slower Star Cruiser and an ensign tac makes it a Gal-X without a lance, DHC (which is kinda silly if equipped with more than one, IMHO), and cloak capability.
If they were to make a uni, a LT would make more sense, but the problem, IMHO, is that the engineering abilities need to be brought up to par with sci and tac. People generally don't complain about a tac or sci skewed ship, fix it so an engie skewed doesn't get complained about either.
I do not disagree with you at all. I was saying the ensign change would please many to help solve the useless 3rd ensign problem it has of right now.
I agree engineering does need a major overhaul and that could solve the problem it's self. I just feel that is a major undertaking and could take time. The ensign change could be done right away and has zero downside to anyone. It's not a great solution but it's better then nothing for now.
IMHO the problem with the Galaxy, the problem with many cruisers is that the content does not need them and often is hampered by them. This is a game that appears to want a trinity system but lacks it. The Galaxy as is, would make a good tank, would fill the role well and perform well at it. The problem is that in a game where dps is the only thing that matters being a tank is pointless.
The content either needs to start to match the ships in the game or the ships need to match the content in it. As of right now that's the failing of the Galaxy and many other less then popular ships. They can do the content but they cann't do it great.
Actually, many argue that the problem is the boffs, consoles and turn. Changing the one ensign will not make them happy. Plus, making and ensign sci just makes it a slower Star Cruiser and an ensign tac makes it a Gal-X without a lance, DHC (which is kinda silly if equipped with more than one, IMHO), and cloak capability
them, doesn't seem like the only people not happy with just that, by the way you describe it.
The Galaxy as is, would make a good tank, would fill the role well and perform well at it. The problem is that in a game where dps is the only thing that matters being a tank is pointless.
Even assuming "tanking" was EVER a desirable goal, rather than spreading out the damage across multiple combatants so that the enemy has to cut through the mitigation defenses of 4 or 5 players instead of just one, even if that one has the defensiveness of two, the Failaxy still fails at this role: A ship that can't DPS can't tank, because threat generation requires DPS. Even if you attempt to fit Threat-increasers to artificially inflate the enemy's desire to kill the Failaxy, you can't mount as many of them as, say, the Star Cruiser, a boat that would actually have superior tanking ability, because it has additional Sci power to toughen it up. An extra Engi Team 1 will not help you, since it conflicts with the best "tanking" skill, Tactical Team. Engi Team cannot quadruple the shields you present at an attacker, and Engi Team 1 is barely capable of healing anything at all...and using it essentially has you pulling your pants down as your shields fall by 75%, likely resulting in swift destruction.
In short, the Galaxy is not only aimed at a role that is and always was rather silly, but also fails at that role. It isn't even unique: the Eng Oddy is its clone in boff layout and even console ability, except that the Eng Oddy doesn't HAVE to emulate this clearly horrid boff layout, and is thus better again. The Galaxy is a ship outclassed in every possible role you could put it to by another ship, including its intended one.
The best thing that could be done is to create a second Fleet Galaxy that serves some useful role, and make it qualify for a discount by owning the C-Store one. Hell, this could be a new trend: Secondary Fleet versions of C-Store ships that encourage the sales of the original through the discount.
Instead of just trying to fix the Galaxy, I think we need something that more can get behind then those that want to fly it.
I think they should fix this with crafting. Allow people to change the boff layouts with the use of crafting. Then people can change the layout of any ship they find lacking. It would also make crafting useful.
Just have some basic rules with it. For Fleet ships and other t5 ships, you can change the stations how ever you want. Only allow for one commander slot. Then after that it's up to you.
If you want a Galaxy with cmd uni, two lt cmd uni and a lt uni. You could make it. Just make it somewhat costly to do these changes and charge a different amount for the type of station you want.
Instead of just trying to fix the Galaxy, I think we need something that more can get behind then those that want to fly it.
I think they should fix this with crafting. Allow people to change the boff layouts with the use of crafting. Then people can change the layout of any ship they find lacking. It would also make crafting useful.
Just have some basic rules with it. For Fleet ships and other t5 ships, you can change the stations how ever you want. Only allow for one commander slot. Then after that it's up to you.
If you want a Galaxy with cmd uni, two lt cmd uni and a lt uni. You could make it. Just make it somewhat costly to do these changes and charge a different amount for the type of station you want.
This is the holy grail of PvPers, we've been asking for this forever and forever never comes. The diversity and flexibility for PvPers and for that matter any STO player will be incredible, the game would benefit, the players would benefit and Cryptic would benefit. It would open the doors to all sorts of weird and wonderful builds, with the inevitable "how did he do that?" comments in Kerrat and other arenas. Alas, Cryptic haven't touched the so called crafting system since beta to my knowledge and seem just as unlikely to do so any time soon.
In fact I have never seen another company sit on so many goldmines whilst selling hot dogs to make a living as Cryptic does, as a businessman and Star Trek nut, I'm pretty sure I could triple their turnover in one year, what's more I'm pretty sure that many of you guys, my fellow gamers, could do so too. I find it hard to believe their hands are so tightly bound and their eyes so closely blinkered as to miss the obvious and massive lucrative potential of this game and yet....
Final Nail in the coffin of Crafting is the fact that it costs more to craft something than it does to buy something.
Until i have the option to craft things that are rare Mk XII with 4 mods of MY CHOICE, than it will always be a failed crafting system.
But thats just my opinion, and you are right matt, cryptic doesnt focus on making their content better, or reworking the stuff that has been broken a long long time, instead they concentrate on the newest and greatest, useless waste of space.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
This is the holy grail of PvPers, we've been asking for this forever and forever never comes. The diversity and flexibility for PvPers and for that matter any STO player will be incredible, the game would benefit, the players would benefit and Cryptic would benefit. It would open the doors to all sorts of weird and wonderful builds, with the inevitable "how did he do that?" comments in Kerrat and other arenas. Alas, Cryptic haven't touched the so called crafting system since beta to my knowledge and seem just as unlikely to do so any time soon.
In fact I have never seen another company sit on so many goldmines whilst selling hot dogs to make a living as Cryptic does, as a businessman and Star Trek nut, I'm pretty sure I could triple their turnover in one year, what's more I'm pretty sure that many of you guys, my fellow gamers, could do so too. I find it hard to believe their hands are so tightly bound and their eyes so closely blinkered as to miss the obvious and massive lucrative potential of this game and yet....
I recall a series of forum threads about making a more flexible BOFF slot arrangement, and even adding a few slots here and there through leveling to allow for a linear progression in additional abilities.
From what I recall the only responses were "nah, we don't want MORE boff powers" and "NAH, we don't want ships that we can use boffs however we like on!"
Apparently people were really ANGRY that their precious space-graphics weren't given the same form of creepy admiration by everyone else.
It's a little late to really be saying that though isn't it? Almost 5500 posts in this thread. And I don't even remember the last time Warbird1988 posted in this thread.
(After checking, according to the forum search, it was almost an entire year ago, post #33).
So the OP hasn't even posted in this epic thread in almost 12 full months.
It's a little late to really be saying that though isn't it? Almost 5500 posts in this thread. And I don't even remember the last time Warbird1988 posted in this thread.
(After checking, according to the forum search, it was almost an entire year ago, post #33).
So the OP hasn't even posted in this epic thread in almost 12 full months.
as a matter of fact, he came back to this thread but on a different account because the first one have been ban for some reason.
my guess is that he express himself a little to agressivly toward the dev, but i don't really known.
he make a quick appearance ( 3 pages ) 200 or 300 pages ago and state he was warbird wich i didn't bielieve in the first place.
To be fair, for the most part, no-one has really said that it isn't possible to be effective using the Galaxy. I still use mine, with my Eng, quite often - it's a good ship.
But the underlying 'issue' remains that, whilst it is good - and can be made to be pretty darn effective (especially as a tank) - it simply doesn't do anything that a Ambassador/Sovereign/Excelsior class couldn't do better.
I mean, if I straight-swap equipment off my Fleet Excelsior onto my Fleet Galaxy, like it or not, I wind up with a less effective ship. Not INeffective; LESS effective.
And that is my, personal, issue: The age between the classes notwithstanding, I don't enjoy feeling that swapping from an Excelsior to a Galaxy class is a 'downgrade'.
That is one of the main issues i have with the Galaxy, changing from a Fleet Heavy Cruiser which uses the Cheyenne skin, the Excelsior or Ambassador to a Galaxy should not and never be a downgrade regardless that the Galaxy is supposed to fill a different role. (Sit and be shot at). The Galaxy all the way through TNG and DS9 was talked up and accepted by other powers as Starfleets most powerful ship. It should be above all 3 of these classes i mentioned in terms of tanking and tactical ability.
Only 4 other ships should out class her, the Tact Odyssey, the Sovereign (debatable on phaser power but certainly from ST. Nemesis she carried more torpedo coverage) the Galaxy-X and
the Avenger.
Can you imagine Picard at SF Command being told congratulations Captain you have been put in charge of our new flagship. The pride of Starfleet engineering and development, But she is still outperformed by a 80 year old design despite carrying heavier more advanced phaser arrays, a higher shield grid, bigger and faster launching torpedo tubes, a more powerful warpcore and more advanced science labs, sensor arrays, ect.
The Klingons,Romulans,Cardassians,The Ent-D own crew in Conundrum, all have accepted that the Galaxy is a battleship. The Borg have stated the Galaxy is the Federations most powerful starship. So why do people have such a hard time believing what has been acknowledged on screen. And see the Galaxy as a nothing more than a luxury cruiser because it had civilians aboard. Did the Saratoga a miranda class starship not have civilians aboard during the battle of Worf 359.
During a time of war or during a conflict the Galaxy is used in a battleship role, she is certainly armed for combat, if you watch the TOS and the Alien of the week, Kirk's Enterprise rarely overpowered anyone with brute force, he outsmarted most opponents. Same with the TNG they outsmarted and solved most issues with technobabble.
To be fair, for the most part, no-one has really said that it isn't possible to be effective using the Galaxy. I still use mine, with my Eng, quite often - it's a good ship.
But the underlying 'issue' remains that, whilst it is good - and can be made to be pretty darn effective (especially as a tank) - it simply doesn't do anything that a Ambassador/Sovereign/Excelsior class couldn't do better.
I mean, if I straight-swap equipment off my Fleet Excelsior onto my Fleet Galaxy, like it or not, I wind up with a less effective ship. Not INeffective; LESS effective.
And that is my, personal, issue: The age between the classes notwithstanding, I don't enjoy feeling that swapping from an Excelsior to a Galaxy class is a 'downgrade'.
it should be stressed that your significantly less effective, to the point of being ineffective in certain content, like pvp. if you step into a galaxy from almost any other cruiser, this is not a minor down grade. most have a fairly significant specialization 1 way or another, wile the galaxy has none. having more eng powers then you can use effectively, wile not having enough of what you could make useful, is not specialization. the star cruiser is a specialized eng centered healer, the galaxy R is just broken.
it should be stressed that your significantly less effective, to the point of being ineffective in certain content, like pvp. if you step into a galaxy from almost any other cruiser, this is not a minor down grade. most have a fairly significant specialization 1 way or another, wile the galaxy has none. having more eng powers then you can use effectively, wile not having enough of what you could make useful, is not specialization. the star cruiser is a specialized eng centered healer, the galaxy R is just broken.
Its true. The effectiveness of its tanking ability isnt a huge problem, but its ability to tank is diminished by the fact that you cannot generate the threat and keep it effectively. It is also diminished by the fact that NPC's use alot of AoE attacks like FAW, and only focus when they are 1 hit killing.
The second problem is engineering skills in and of themselves.
Look at the way they work. 4 of them share a CD (EPtX), 3 more share a CD(Aux2X). ET shares a CD with all other teams. RSP and ES share a CD, there are very few skills that do not share a CD.
For a change look at science skills. Yuo can make a build utilizing an intrepid filling all science slots and have a full setup with no skills tripping over each other. There are very few that get in the way of each other. TB and TBR, GW and TR, generally at most shared with one other skill.
Tactical ones!
CRF, shares CD with CSV. HY and TS share a CD. Beams suffer the most due to BO, BFAW and 4 TSX(Target Subsystem X), the Attack patterns only have 3 skills that interlink with CDs.
So there you have it, builds heavy on other skills dont have as much of a problem because the skills have enough seperation where you can round out a build without tripping on each other too much.
I am assuming at this point that the DEV team started with Tactical, then made Science, and then started on Engineering and said TRIBBLE it we will just toss random things in that tie in together.
Eng powers suffer due to miassive CDs on some skills (admittedly some of those need it or they would be OP) and too many skills interlinking.
A good Start would be removing the Shared CD between the teams, my Engineers are not going and doing Tactical, or Science and my Science guys arent doing that either. Why do i have only one team to do everything? Answer is i dont, but i apparently can only pay one to work at a time. Fix that, remove their shared CD's.
A way to fix EPtX abilities could also be made to be broken up into parts. Add another power level in. Now hear me out on this before you have a fit.
EPtX You can activate 2 and it puts the EMERGENCY POWER on a CD, so you hit EPtW and EPtS, power is removed from the emregency power and the abilities activate, then the power recharge goes into a CD, it isnt instantly replenished like other abilities.
Or you could just set it to be able to activate up to 2 powers, putting the other two at their normal Global CD but the two you activated get their normal 45s CD after activation. So instead of only having EPtW and EPtS on a cycle you have more incentive to use the other two.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Comments
Welcome to the "Evil Empire" of the thread... smoking or non-smoking?
Kevlar helmets and flak jackets are in the left hand cabinets.
so your not into the competitive meta, but your high and mighty enough to pass judgment on it? backed up by most people? how does it hurt the average player if suddenly a poor performing ship, an especially iconic one, was one day better? was this a good enough rational for the regent's creation? it certainly seemed to be. most people this, most people that. these most people that dont care if they are using their ship to more then 10% of its potentual arent the people that spend any money on the game ether. to them balance is a meaningless as long as its possible for them to complete the content they have before them. to them, a particular ship being good or bad isnt part of the equation when they dont know enough, or dont care to know enough about how to build a ship to its potentual. what business do these people have sticking their nose into any balance related discussion? leave that to the eppens, because you wont notice a difference ether way.
strawman 1-3 are incredibly pointless, the health of the game was never in question here. if the literal "need" for a Galaxy change is thus precisely zero, i want you all to smile and thank cryptic when the new anniversary ships are stat clones of the galaxy R. theres strawman 4 for you, if the galaxy doesn't have a net affect on the game ether way, the only remaining justification is we need more ships like it!
oh dear, you wouldn't like those anniversary ships like that? but you just went on and on about things like stat details being inconsequential, and the stuff of eppen bullys. how about strawman 5, what we have proved but otheres just refuse to accept. how about i prove the oposite too? obviously theres nothing wrong with that setup the ship has, and if it should propagating to other ships that would be no problem at all. in fact from now on all the ships yet to be release should have stats as bad as the galaxy's or worse, because for most players it doesn't mater!
if its not meaningless off base strawmans, its you making it sound like anyone who pvp's is some terrible person. if only we could just kill the other player in real life, right? we are competitive, its a mater of pride that when we do something, we dont half TRIBBLE it, we do it well. so we care about things like balance, and we hate anomalies in the balance. the biggest anomaly is the galaxy R.
seriously, theres no need for you to care if theres a change.
theres money to be made, releasing a ship thats actually pretty good, wile also being something iconic. this will appeal to the masses more then any cryptic design will. want to know what sells cryptic designs? desirable stats. oh, but most people dont care about that. then most people arent grinding and spending money on ships are they, oh wait. why are they doing that? because the eppens say they are good so they want whats good? that cant be right, most people just don't play the game the way we do, or the way we and others think they should. well, maybe most people actually do care about stats, maybe they are playing to win, and just about all trek fans proboly care about canon ships more then cryptic designs.
how they go about releasing it or revising it is a formality, a simple process actually.
what reason is there not to make a bunch of money by releasing an iconic ships thats good for something? do they think its the last ship that will sell? got mah gud galaxy, dont need to buy notin ever again! stats sell ships, no 6 turn, not battlecloaking, plus sized cruiser will ever be some all encompassing god ship that satisfy everyone's ship needs, no mater how good it is. escorts, sci ships and yes also cruisers will still be sold on thier superior stats. its more likely that they dont touch this issue because they haven't eloquently solved the problem of adapting gen 2 saucer sep to the galaxy X, with its 3rd stupid nacelle sticking up in the way.
Well the poster does have a compelling point:
"it works fine for the things that the players that matter use it for."
See? It works fine for the players that matter.
/thread?
Nah, probably not.
First of all, thank you - I was actually trying to be a bit funny with a dose of sarcasm.
Now, it's the first time I've seen you post in the thread, so I asuume you're new here (to the thread) and if you were around but just haven't posted, than I'm sorry for my premature conclusion.
However, let me try to explain a few points that lead to my reaction:
Mr.Head usually drops in here from time to time, usually around once a month and usually always repeating the same stuff he posted in the previous post. He also tends to intepret his opinions on the matter as buletproof facts. So instead of getting into another deep and utterly useless debate (which has proven before to be pointless and without conclusion), I decided to be funny and sarcastic. Shame on me.
But there is a praticular reason this time why I catogorized that post as uncoherent ramblings and in short I'll try to explain to you why:
-His point 1: Completely out of the discussion taking part here, apart for maybe 3-4 random people/posts in more than 5.5k replies, the game being doomed and being a faliure is not discussed here. What is being discussed is the Galaxy, the percieved shortcommings and ways to improve it. So his point one is similar to someone entering an astrophysics conference and start explaining the ingredients for the recipe of his favourite cheese cake.
-His point 2: Pretty much same as point 1, discussing something about the game being doomed out of the blue with the aded benefit of once again stating his opinions as facts "people that matter..." (so we here don't matter) "..don't give a fig about it".
-His point 3: Continuing rambling about what the game needs or doesn't need to survive, once more having nothing to do with the topic at hand in this thread.
-His point 4: He's finally slowly approaching the topic of the discussion - the Galaxy, but once again trying to pass his personal views about the cost effectivenes of any change to the ship as facts, and again unnecessary rambling about the survival of the game. Let me underline the following - the survival of STO was never a discussion here. He's just pulling stuff out of a hat trying to divert the discussion.
-His point 5: More of him trying to pass his opinions as buletproof facts. "At best, changing the Galaxy really benefits only those people who want to fly a Galaxy in the first place, who have a problem with the current rules, who would be satisfied with the specific change made, and who would not be even happier with some entirely different solution." Look at this for a minute - he "knows" for a "fact" who will only benefit from any changes to the Galaxy.
Furthermore, take a look at that last part I quoted - "entirely different solution" from what? There are at least a dozen suggestions that are continuously being repeated on how to improve the Galaxy made by different people. His attempt to portray the whole thread as a sum of only 1 idea is very transparent to anyone that has been here for a while. Click my sig. for one of those. Then go 2 pages back and see my post about improvements to the tanking role and engineering class - they're completely different. There is no 'one' idea that everyone is forcing here.
-His point 6: Continuing his attempt to pass his own opinions as facts. He "knows" new content and new ships will be delayed if a dev. decides to try and change a console or a Boff on the Galaxy. He also "knows" the amount of people that would benefit from such change and he "knows" that is only a small amount.
-His point 7: This is actually the only point where he's mostly talking on a subject related to the thread and the topic discussed.
On some things he mentioned here he's right, on others he's wrong. He's wrong that there was and is no support for Eng.powers overhaul - many people have confirmed their support for those here. He's wrong that there is no support for the cruiser commands - most of the people here were/are in support of this afaik. Again, see my post 2 pages back - improvements to the tanking role and game mechanics would benefit all of the cruisers. I made many posts here discussing the role of cruisers and game mechanics, search the thread if you like. Those are suggested improvements for the entire class of ships. Unfortunately, Mr.H will not mention those because they don't fit the light in which he wants to portray the Galaxy fans.
He's right that most of the people requested special changes for the Galaxy, because as it stands it's right down at the bottom of least usefull ships in STO, if not the least usefull as mentioned by others. We support any changes that would benefit the cruiser class, but that wouldn't change the Galaxy being the least usefull in the lineup. Our view here is that the Galaxy class doesn't deserve to be the least usefull cruiser in the game. The ship currently has no role, not even a niche one and everything she can do another ship can do better. The Galaxy is one of the 3 iconic ships of Star Trek that have a place to be in this game - the Intrepid, the Galaxy and the Defiant. (The Connnie and NX being too old for 2409) Neither of these 3 ships deserves to be the least usefull in STO, they are the ST classics.
So you see, when you sum it up - out of 7 points he made 1 is on topic; 3 are attempts to pass his personal opinions as facts on stuff none of us can clearly know and 3 have nothing to do with the topic and the thread. So yeah, I think "Holy uncoherent ramblings, Batman!" is quite apropriate. Especially given the fact that this is not his first time to make a post like this.
But the worst thing he does is group everyone in one single group assuming or trying to portray that the Galaxy fans have a hive mind like the Borg. To me personally, that is insulting.
So now you need to ask yourself the question: "Why is this individual so adamant against any changes/improvements to the Galaxy class?"
That's the mystery many of us would like to know.
No ship should be as flawed as the Galaxy to the point it's a unenjoyable ship to play. Most people are not asking for the Galaxy to be the best ship in the game. They just want it to be more playable. Just changing the ensign slot to either uni, tac or sci would be a major improvement and make many happy.
There are plenty of people who do that, including some of the "biggest proponents" of the Galaxy in this thread, they just call them haters, illogical, etc. I am not condoning either side doing it, just pointing it out and it does turn people off to contributing.
It could be that he thinks its fine, just as much as you, I and others think that there does need to be some change. The man is entitled to an opinion and express it in this thread (albeit if that is his opinion, I disagree with it), is he not?
Actually, many argue that the problem is the boffs, consoles and turn. Changing the one ensign will not make them happy. Plus, making and ensign sci just makes it a slower Star Cruiser and an ensign tac makes it a Gal-X without a lance, DHC (which is kinda silly if equipped with more than one, IMHO), and cloak capability.
If they were to make a uni, a LT would make more sense, but the problem, IMHO, is that the engineering abilities need to be brought up to par with sci and tac. People generally don't complain about a tac or sci skewed ship, fix it so an engie skewed doesn't get complained about either.
And that's what I'm trying to say as well. There is no 'consortium of Galaxy fans'. I only speak for myself. Sometimes I agree with the rest of the Galaxy fans in this thread and sometimes, like in the case of giving her a hangar for ex., I don't.
I am also not condoning anyone generalizing people for his/hers own agenda, but I'm also not going to 'police' people, especially on internet forums. I'll only react when I feel I'm called upon, like in the case of being a Galaxy fan and being generalized. Noone should expect me to react if someone generalizes a group I have not relation to. No, it's not nice and it's insulting when anyone does it, I may react to such things when they happen IRL, but not on an internet forum if I'm not personally concerned.
I'm saying this just to be clear that just like you, I don't condone this behavior, but I'm also not going to 'police' anyone that didn't adress me personally or as a part of a group. I say this because there have been people that wanted some of 'us' to "police" (exact word used) the rest of 'us'.
That's not my role here. If myself and player A share opinion on topic 1, that doesn't mean that I'll wave my finger and say 'naughty, naughty!' if player A is insulting towards player B. However if player B says I'm an TRIBBLE because player A insulted him and I happen to share an opinion on topic 1 with player A, I'll give him/her a piece of my mind.
He is. But there's a slight difference in the narative. That's why I used the word 'adamant'.
It's not him comming here and simply saying "I think you're all overreacting. The ship is fine, I do 12k DPS with her." like kimmym did, and I happened to agree with a large portion of her points.
He comes here trying to convince the Galaxy supporters how 'insignificant' they are, how noone in the universe cares about the ship, how it would prevent devs to make new ships, how it would make Cryptic lose money, etc, etc.....you get my point.
There's a strong difference in the narrative and maybe it's just me, but that tone that has been pretty constant throughoht his posts here leads me to believe of some personal issues related to this ship.
I do not disagree with you at all. I was saying the ensign change would please many to help solve the useless 3rd ensign problem it has of right now.
I agree engineering does need a major overhaul and that could solve the problem it's self. I just feel that is a major undertaking and could take time. The ensign change could be done right away and has zero downside to anyone. It's not a great solution but it's better then nothing for now.
IMHO the problem with the Galaxy, the problem with many cruisers is that the content does not need them and often is hampered by them. This is a game that appears to want a trinity system but lacks it. The Galaxy as is, would make a good tank, would fill the role well and perform well at it. The problem is that in a game where dps is the only thing that matters being a tank is pointless.
The content either needs to start to match the ships in the game or the ships need to match the content in it. As of right now that's the failing of the Galaxy and many other less then popular ships. They can do the content but they cann't do it great.
them, doesn't seem like the only people not happy with just that, by the way you describe it.
In short, the Galaxy is not only aimed at a role that is and always was rather silly, but also fails at that role. It isn't even unique: the Eng Oddy is its clone in boff layout and even console ability, except that the Eng Oddy doesn't HAVE to emulate this clearly horrid boff layout, and is thus better again. The Galaxy is a ship outclassed in every possible role you could put it to by another ship, including its intended one.
The best thing that could be done is to create a second Fleet Galaxy that serves some useful role, and make it qualify for a discount by owning the C-Store one. Hell, this could be a new trend: Secondary Fleet versions of C-Store ships that encourage the sales of the original through the discount.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
My name is Rage, and I too support a revised Galaxy family.
I think they should fix this with crafting. Allow people to change the boff layouts with the use of crafting. Then people can change the layout of any ship they find lacking. It would also make crafting useful.
Just have some basic rules with it. For Fleet ships and other t5 ships, you can change the stations how ever you want. Only allow for one commander slot. Then after that it's up to you.
If you want a Galaxy with cmd uni, two lt cmd uni and a lt uni. You could make it. Just make it somewhat costly to do these changes and charge a different amount for the type of station you want.
I like it.
Final Nail in the coffin of Crafting is the fact that it costs more to craft something than it does to buy something.
Until i have the option to craft things that are rare Mk XII with 4 mods of MY CHOICE, than it will always be a failed crafting system.
But thats just my opinion, and you are right matt, cryptic doesnt focus on making their content better, or reworking the stuff that has been broken a long long time, instead they concentrate on the newest and greatest, useless waste of space.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Second off, yeah, and at risk of sounding like an arrogant TRIBBLE, I must just fly her better then the rest.
Third, have fun with your whine thread... I have DPS to spit...
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
I recall a series of forum threads about making a more flexible BOFF slot arrangement, and even adding a few slots here and there through leveling to allow for a linear progression in additional abilities.
From what I recall the only responses were "nah, we don't want MORE boff powers" and "NAH, we don't want ships that we can use boffs however we like on!"
Apparently people were really ANGRY that their precious space-graphics weren't given the same form of creepy admiration by everyone else.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Nobody flies anything in Star Trek Online.
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K.
You call it what you call it, we'll call it what we want to call it. That okay?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
My name is Rage, and I too support a revised Galaxy family.
I am glad to say it preforms better than I thought, but... Yeah
It's a little late to really be saying that though isn't it? Almost 5500 posts in this thread. And I don't even remember the last time Warbird1988 posted in this thread.
(After checking, according to the forum search, it was almost an entire year ago, post #33).
So the OP hasn't even posted in this epic thread in almost 12 full months.
Which made it all the more funny when the Ambassador-class was released with a more science based slant.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
Even funnier becuase wasnt the Ambassador built in a warlike time too? :rolleyes:
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
as a matter of fact, he came back to this thread but on a different account because the first one have been ban for some reason.
my guess is that he express himself a little to agressivly toward the dev, but i don't really known.
he make a quick appearance ( 3 pages ) 200 or 300 pages ago and state he was warbird wich i didn't bielieve in the first place.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=528931&page=271
That is one of the main issues i have with the Galaxy, changing from a Fleet Heavy Cruiser which uses the Cheyenne skin, the Excelsior or Ambassador to a Galaxy should not and never be a downgrade regardless that the Galaxy is supposed to fill a different role. (Sit and be shot at). The Galaxy all the way through TNG and DS9 was talked up and accepted by other powers as Starfleets most powerful ship. It should be above all 3 of these classes i mentioned in terms of tanking and tactical ability.
Only 4 other ships should out class her, the Tact Odyssey, the Sovereign (debatable on phaser power but certainly from ST. Nemesis she carried more torpedo coverage) the Galaxy-X and
the Avenger.
Can you imagine Picard at SF Command being told congratulations Captain you have been put in charge of our new flagship. The pride of Starfleet engineering and development, But she is still outperformed by a 80 year old design despite carrying heavier more advanced phaser arrays, a higher shield grid, bigger and faster launching torpedo tubes, a more powerful warpcore and more advanced science labs, sensor arrays, ect.
The Klingons,Romulans,Cardassians,The Ent-D own crew in Conundrum, all have accepted that the Galaxy is a battleship. The Borg have stated the Galaxy is the Federations most powerful starship. So why do people have such a hard time believing what has been acknowledged on screen. And see the Galaxy as a nothing more than a luxury cruiser because it had civilians aboard. Did the Saratoga a miranda class starship not have civilians aboard during the battle of Worf 359.
During a time of war or during a conflict the Galaxy is used in a battleship role, she is certainly armed for combat, if you watch the TOS and the Alien of the week, Kirk's Enterprise rarely overpowered anyone with brute force, he outsmarted most opponents. Same with the TNG they outsmarted and solved most issues with technobabble.
it should be stressed that your significantly less effective, to the point of being ineffective in certain content, like pvp. if you step into a galaxy from almost any other cruiser, this is not a minor down grade. most have a fairly significant specialization 1 way or another, wile the galaxy has none. having more eng powers then you can use effectively, wile not having enough of what you could make useful, is not specialization. the star cruiser is a specialized eng centered healer, the galaxy R is just broken.
Its true. The effectiveness of its tanking ability isnt a huge problem, but its ability to tank is diminished by the fact that you cannot generate the threat and keep it effectively. It is also diminished by the fact that NPC's use alot of AoE attacks like FAW, and only focus when they are 1 hit killing.
The second problem is engineering skills in and of themselves.
Look at the way they work. 4 of them share a CD (EPtX), 3 more share a CD(Aux2X). ET shares a CD with all other teams. RSP and ES share a CD, there are very few skills that do not share a CD.
For a change look at science skills. Yuo can make a build utilizing an intrepid filling all science slots and have a full setup with no skills tripping over each other. There are very few that get in the way of each other. TB and TBR, GW and TR, generally at most shared with one other skill.
Tactical ones!
CRF, shares CD with CSV. HY and TS share a CD. Beams suffer the most due to BO, BFAW and 4 TSX(Target Subsystem X), the Attack patterns only have 3 skills that interlink with CDs.
So there you have it, builds heavy on other skills dont have as much of a problem because the skills have enough seperation where you can round out a build without tripping on each other too much.
I am assuming at this point that the DEV team started with Tactical, then made Science, and then started on Engineering and said TRIBBLE it we will just toss random things in that tie in together.
Eng powers suffer due to miassive CDs on some skills (admittedly some of those need it or they would be OP) and too many skills interlinking.
A good Start would be removing the Shared CD between the teams, my Engineers are not going and doing Tactical, or Science and my Science guys arent doing that either. Why do i have only one team to do everything? Answer is i dont, but i apparently can only pay one to work at a time. Fix that, remove their shared CD's.
A way to fix EPtX abilities could also be made to be broken up into parts. Add another power level in. Now hear me out on this before you have a fit.
EPtX You can activate 2 and it puts the EMERGENCY POWER on a CD, so you hit EPtW and EPtS, power is removed from the emregency power and the abilities activate, then the power recharge goes into a CD, it isnt instantly replenished like other abilities.
Or you could just set it to be able to activate up to 2 powers, putting the other two at their normal Global CD but the two you activated get their normal 45s CD after activation. So instead of only having EPtW and EPtS on a cycle you have more incentive to use the other two.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]