Strategically? Yes, seriously, escorts are seriously overpowered.
Before tactical captain or bridge officer abilities. They have the power to bring pain on demand anywhere on the field. That's not the problem though. It's that there is no ability left to balance that.
Tactically? Yes, seriously over powered.
They have the power to bring enough pain in bursts that someone has to lean heavily into the defence. Again, not the problem directly. It's that that's the only option to surviving it. The option is doubly worse because a defender can do nothing but defend.
They affectively don't have the power to "fill their role as being damaged focus". They have to power to kill anything on the field on demand or make it indifferent from a rock formation.
I don't think you're thinking it through, what prevents an engi or sci captain from benefiting just as much as a tac from the streamlined tac skills?
Oh! That's right! NOTHING.
Oh, I don't know... could it be their role?
Go skill up your sci captain to do full science abilities and tank and come back and tell me how many skill points it could put in weapons. Any build you make will be focused on only ONE set of sci skills requiring stats. Aka either graviton+particle based abilities or flow capacitor based abilities or countermeasures based abilities for example. This is besides the skill points that are mandatory in engineer boxes to be able to shield tank at least (power transfer, warp core speed, resists).
Go skill up your engineer so he can do full engineer abilities to fulfill a tank & fleet support role. You almost literally have to fill up all resists, repair, max hp, speed and power transfer and warp core boxes to be a tank. Then the sci shield abilities, power insulators and dampeners. See how much points you've left for weapon abilities after you've filled up threat control.
Go skill up your tac to do full tac role and tank. All tac boxes except threat control and stealth for a fed (unless they fly defiant). Speed, armor resists, warp core boxes, power allocation boxes and hitpoint boosting boxes. Science shield boxes. You know? You have enough left over to fill up a couple more skill boxes. HOW NICE.
The problem is right there. If you don't see it then you're simply content playing a cookie-cutter for all / no roles other than tank & dps game.
Tac captains used to require as much point skill investment as the other capt. types to merely be able to DO their role: damage. Now with them having basically half of their skill points once used up in tac boxes free to be spent elsewhere they gain the tankyness of engineers and some of sci versatility. The other 2 capt. types cannot do this IF they spec to do their role.
It was that spending requirement that USED to have tac captains not have anywhere near the shield or hull tanking abilities the other 2 capt. types had. Escorts flown by tacs used to be VERY crunchy but had a nasty punch. Now they have a ludicrously strong punch AND they can tank like a cruiser. Where's the balance in that?
And that is where your argument fails. You simply say that sci and engineers can spec just like a tac capt and do the same thing....damage. Not science, not tanking/team healing & support.
Pre-F2P this game had an amazing variety of ship builds and roles. People knew other captains by name due to their build specializations. Now any tac captain does what all other captains can do, engineer captains can mostly do what tac captains do and sci captains helplessly punch their sci ability to receive blue screen of death messages.
haha get it? Blue screen of death... because sci is blue... *cough* :P
The problem has never been 'tactical is op', they have been doing what they were intended to do from the start, the problem is that the other two (Sci and engineer) are rubbish. Nerfing Tacs will not help in the slightest, in fact it will just make your stfs that much longer.
No the problem that needs to be solved is making sci and engineering more of a viable play style than it is now. In addition the 'dps fast for rewards!' mentality needs to be removed, and re tooled. Instead, it should be combined effort of the whole team (Incoming damage recived, healing done to other members, npcs cc'ed).
In pvp its more of the same.
In short, Fix both the sci and eng classes and re-balance the group content rewards based off of combined team effort before you start yelling "NERF!", after all thats the reason sci is in its current sorry state.
Also why is there a '1st' place in 'team' missions anyway?
Go skill up your engineer so he can do full engineer abilities to fulfill a tank & fleet support role. You almost literally have to fill up all resists, repair, max hp, speed and power transfer and warp core boxes to be a tank. Then the sci shield abilities, power insulators and dampeners. See how much points you've left for weapon abilities after you've filled up threat control.
I still manage to fill out my weapon skills on both and tank just fine on my engineer.
You are also not required to fill threat control, to be honest Ive never noticed a diffrence with it full or not. With the embasy sci consoles slotted, and doffs I never really had a problem.
Odd thing is even though my engineer pilots a cruiser, his build is very like my tacs build, minus the full up in threat control (which to be fair I have never needed in stfs on either character, fleet sci consoles and doff abilities ftw!)
But hey, you may need that threat control, even so its not going to stop you from putting points into weapon skills..I mean..what weapon skill are you skimping on? are you not as an engineer, cycling at least one emergancy power to weapons? weapon batteries? Just curious.
Strategically? Yes, seriously, escorts are seriously overpowered.
Tactically? Yes, seriously over powered.
They have the power to bring enough pain in bursts that someone has to lean heavily into the defence. ...
I can put things simply as well, learn to play. Or as its called by the cool kids: L2P.
If you can't build a ship to survive an escort's burst you're doing it wrong. About the only exceptions are some of the silly uber mine crit builds. Everything else? Its really two ships ganging up on you, someone debuffing/shield stripping and an escort bursting. The way PvP works though its easy to miss that, especially since escorts are usually the ones making the kills after their team softens up a target.
Doubt what I say? Try dueling an escort with an escort... 1 on 1. Unless there is a huge skill or build difference, or someone is flying a bugship you will stalemate. Escorts can't even get thru another escort's defenses.
PvP really IS all about team play. Unless one side is substantially worse off than the other.
The problem is not that tacs are OP but that kills are the only thing that matter. We need more long term disables and injuries for ships to recover from. Also make the repairs take time, especially in PvP. The different injuries heal at a faster or slower rate based on ship ie: science - shield and targeting injuries heal faster, cruiser - hull and power level injuries heal faster tactical - weapons injuries heal faster. On top of this reduce heal time by 5 or 10 or some other percent for the Cruiser and science ships. I love how a ship can have cracked hull, multiple critical injuries and be repaired in a hot second from a couple mouse clicks. In PvP this is especially beneficial for the overall flow of the battle. Couple this new repair system with the ability to inflict injuries with a sort of "super crit" or special cruiser/science ship power and you have a more effective alternative damage platform. In Star Trek cannon more ships were disabled and forced to withdraw or surrender than disabled then killed. For all the hoopla about maintaining canon this game goes the Star Wars, scorched earth approach.
Earlier post from another thread if you are interested:
My main desire is to increase the relevance of the cruiser and science. I have one of each branch in both factions and I cannot get over how much faster the "money maker" pve missions are with an escort. I understand there are different roles, but the sci and eng roles are too marginalized in most content for dilithium and marks.
I have 1 wish at each level short, mid and long
Short term
Make science ships scanning go much faster than cruisers and cruisers scanning faster than escorts. Similarly make satellite heals and such faster on the cruiser, second fastest on the science and slowest with the escort. This creates flexibility in mission design where a science ship can get things done before reinforcements arrive, while the tac will have to face down the incoming waves because they are not as efficient scanning or repairing. I am thinking specifically of Azure Nebula and Gorn minefield. The science ship would lower the tractors in Azure much faster than the escort, and might be able to get them down between enemy volleys which makes up for the massive disparity in effectiveness of the dps dealers. Cruisers would be slightly faster or have a higher resistance to take fire and not "break their concentration" on lowering the tractors with incoming fire. This optimizes each ship's role.
Mid Term
Fix balance for PvP and PvE in one shot. Create a separate skill tree for pvp and pve, also have a "A" and "B" load out for the ship. for PvP and Pve. This would allow us to not have to swap out things based on the drastically different game play and yet allow the programers to have powers work as intended in pvp, yet that is different in the other by nerfing or buffing each.
Long Term
While I would have liked the space battles to feel more like the shows/movie where you watch your hull bleed down slower and caveat that with the fact that if your ship actually gets destroyed you lose everything on it. (this would mean there would be more tactical withdraws and disables that were more common in startrek shows) I think that it would be best if there were more injuries taken to the ship before it was actually destroyed that took time to heal, not just the repair kit and a mouse click. THis would give the sci and eng more options in combat other than just causing massive DPS like the tac escourt in pvp.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Go skill up your sci captain to do full science abilities ......
Go skill up your engineer so he can do full engineer abilities.....
If you do that you are committing yourself to not doing much damage. You DO realize that tanks in STO are damage dealing tanks don't you? The idea is to strike the balance between defenses and doing as much damage as you can.
Of course, you can choose to sink all your points into engineering or sci but then why would you expect to do good dps? You want to do excell at everything? You can't.
You talk as if you think you HAVE to spec all of your corresponding skill tree.... that's wrong, you're under no obligation fill in everything.... to do so would make incredibly gimped builds. One of the key reasons there are so few tac "boxes to fill" is so that EVERYONE can get asmuch benefit from them as they can.
Doubt what I say? Try dueling an escort with an escort... 1 on 1. Unless there is a huge skill or build difference, or someone is flying a bugship you will stalemate. Escorts can't even get thru another escort's defenses.
And the underlined part strikes you as balanced, and good for gameplay?
PvP really IS all about team play. Unless one side is substantially worse off than the other.
I don't doubt what you say. (I'd make a few exception, but nothing worth fighting over if that's stance you will take.) That is part of the problem. There's super offense, super defense, and nothing in between. Everything else has been killed out.
This is not a formula for balanced mmo play. That's the formula for a single player arcade shooter.
Let me just preface this by saying I haven't read the 11 or so pages on this topic.
In one way I totally agree with you.
I have three Captains, one of each type - Tac, Eng, Sci.
The Tac captain is my preferred. Yet I believe the Eng captain is the "strongest".
The problem is that the content of the game (The STF and so on) is just created in such a way that is prefers DPS. The only "serious" enemies hit so hard they one hit even the ENG captain. "Tanking" as a concept in this game is laughable... so we are just left with DPS as king.
Point being... the issue isn't the types of class, I think they are pretty good... its just that the game is so heavily in favorable in DPS...
Well, I run a BoP and an escort with 2 Tacs, and the difference is HUGE.
When running the BoP (3/4 of the hull of the escort and less shields) I die like 5 more times in STFs (I lack in my BoP EPtS, hope nobody says now that EPtS is OP and it needs a nerf because of this) and barely do almost the same burst damage than with the escort (even though is DPS oriented).
Is the escort OP? I dont think so, it just does DPS, nothing more, nothing less, nothing especial. Its his job.
Is the BoP Weak? Hell, yes it is, a lot. More than any other ship. But is fast and more fun to play and it has BC and space for science or engi habilities that makes him worth playing with.
You could also say APB or APO is OP, but then TT is OP, and also EPtS is OP, HE is OP, TSS is OP, AUX2BAT with the technicians is OP, TB...
I have even read a post were someone was saying the BoP is OP.
Also, nobody heals me in STFs when running my escort or in my BoP against a group of spheres or raptors with spread damage. I even say "thank you" when it happens, because it is so unusual. Now if your only objective is killing and you dont give a dime about healing or tanking... Why didnt you take a Tac?
Not Tacs strength, nor the lack of eng and sci dps in many builds.
The problem is the thing that matters most in this game is kills. There is no disables for victory, there is no surrenders, there is no forcing a withdrawl. The whole game is so far from Star Trek that made the cruiser and the Science ship powerful. "Worf target their weapons and fire" Battle over, there was no repairing them quickly, none of that.
Not saying 1 shot should disable, but disables should be healed at much greater disparity between ship classes than currently done. Those ship injuries should be permitted before losing your ship. If you get hit by some sort of super crit then you get cracked hull or some other injury. Injuries are not healed instantly by a mouse click but on a timer, and that timer depends on what type of ship you have.
They have these function in the game to various degrees but dps is spades and all the others are insignificant.
I love the art, I love the friendships, and I do not intend to give this game up anytime soon. But it is so one sided it is not funny. Yes the eng and sci have roles, but those roles are not needed to the capacity a great dps dealer is needed, especially in pve.
I would get into the need to separate the PvP and PvE skill trees and load outs into separate entities to enhance balance in each, but I have posted that elsewhere yesterday.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Not Tacs strength, nor the lack of eng and sci dps in many builds.
The problem is the thing that matters most in this game is kills. There is no disables for victory, there is no surrenders, there is no forcing a withdrawl. The whole game is so far from Star Trek that made the cruiser and the Science ship powerful. "Worf target their weapons and fire" Battle over, there was no repairing them quickly, none of that.
Not saying 1 shot should disable, but disables should be healed at much greater disparity between ship classes than currently done. Those ship injuries should be permitted before losing your ship. If you get hit by some sort of super crit then you get cracked hull or some other injury. Injuries are not healed instantly by a mouse click but on a timer, and that timer depends on what type of ship you have.
They have these function in the game to various degrees but dps is spades and all the others are insignificant.
I love the art, I love the friendships, and I do not intend to give this game up anytime soon. But it is so one sided it is not funny. Yes the eng and sci have roles, but those roles are not needed to the capacity a great dps dealer is needed, especially in pve.
I would get into the need to separate the PvP and PvE skill trees and load outs into separate entities to enhance balance in each, but I have posted that elsewhere yesterday.
While I agree with most of what you have said, I can also say that when a good healer and/or tank is around in any elite STF the difference is noticeable. All elite STFs need to be done as a team, and while the objective might be to destroy everithing, an straightforward aproach of DPS with no healing abilities and no tank abilities means lots of deaths and respawns resulting in failing the optional, and is not the optimal way to do things.
A full Tac team doesnt need to be good at all (I rarely find a good full Tac team). Thanks god there are some sci/eng captains that know how to do their job and they do it awesome well (but its also difficult to find one of these because most try to kill cubes themselves faster thant tacs, and forget about their team, or even wait for the tacs to take the agroo before attacking). And this doesnt mean that some sci/eng cant do a big amount of damage too. The build and the ship, as well as the skill of the player, are more important.
It's a little difficult for me to take what you're saying seriously due to your avatar... which shows you aren't really looking at this objectively... just saying...
Yes, I tend to prefer escorts, but that doesnt mean Im against some changes to the game.
Its just this week alone I have seen 2 threads aimed at nerfing something, first tac captains (im an engineer, BTW) and now escorts... so basically what this poster is looking for is an across the board nerf specifically targeted at making tac captains less powerful... I never thought they were OP to begin with.
[SIGPIC]InGame - @Darth_Tauri[/SIGPIC]
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
Just for fun how about instead of "Nerf Tac" we look at "Buff Sci/Engy"?
Always with MMO crowds it's "nerf this" instead of "boost that to match this"...it hasn't made sense to me since I first heard it back on the VN boards for Asheron's Call, and it still doesn't.
Ok don't touch the tac captains in escorts they are fine like they are now ! Devs you need to enhance the cruiser /eng class, and why ?? There is so much whining on the forum that must mean only one thing they need a fix not some new ship or console but something basic. Anyway the current dil/zen ratio is great for earning zen and buying yourself new ship slots on your account for your cruiser museum no of use ships Please no saying now that they aint good for anything :P
While I agree with most of what you have said, I can also say that when a good healer and/or tank is around in any elite STF the difference is noticeable. All elite STFs need to be done as a team, and while the objective might be to destroy everithing, an straightforward aproach of DPS with no healing abilities and no tank abilities means lots of deaths and respawns resulting in failing the optional, and is not the optimal way to do things.
A full Tac team doesnt need to be good at all (I rarely find a good full Tac team). Thanks god there are some sci/eng captains that know how to do their job and they do it awesome well (but its also difficult to find one of these because most try to kill cubes themselves faster thant tacs, and forget about their team, or even wait for the tacs to take the agroo before attacking). And this doesnt mean that some sci/eng cant do a big amount of damage too. The build and the ship, as well as the skill of the player, are more important.
In PvP I totally agree that the Sci and ENg are essential. My fleetmates and I have done stupid things like an all escort PvP against a pug opponent and we typically lose (just to test things out and such). But in an STF we like all escorts because it goes faster. We have the fleet gear and my Patrol never dies even with agro. 2 TT and 2 EmPtoS keep me pretty well off and we all have cannon spread and rapid fire tets and disrupt so things poof easy enough. We actually label each other tards if we do actually die. (i secretly hope for a third more difficult STF level in the future, not with more one shots, but maybe a KASE with 3 portals to play goalie with)
I would never say that eng and sci can't do these, but the very fact that the whole game is overwhelming geared to dps and there is no "alternative" win condition that you could code a cruiser or sci into giving them a disadvantage in purpose. Healing and such are support roles, but I would like more primary roles for my bigger and wiser brothers and sisters.
Consider if the the science ship could scan farther away or much faster than the escort in the Azure nebula, perhaps the sci ship could complete a scan in 2 seconds, easily between weapon bursts and the cruiser had enough "constitution" to not have its scan interupted by weapons fire at some level of probability. They could more easily avoid Tholian engagements with Science related sensor abilities. This would give the science ship and cruiser an advantage that honors the Star Trek way of avoiding conflict with brains and ingenuity.
Like i say i dont want to nerf tac dps or buff cruiser/sci dps. I just want win conditions not solely tied to killing all the enemies.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
In PvP I totally agree that the Sci and ENg are essential. My fleetmates and I have done stupid things like an all escort PvP against a pug opponent and we typically lose (just to test things out and such). But in an STF we like all escorts because it goes faster. We have the fleet gear and my Patrol never dies even with agro. 2 TT and 2 EmPtoS keep me pretty well off and we all have cannon spread and rapid fire tets and disrupt so things poof easy enough. We actually label each other tards if we do actually die. (i secretly hope for a third more difficult STF level in the future, not with more one shots, but maybe a KASE with 3 portals to play goalie with)
I would never say that eng and sci can't do these, but the very fact that the whole game is overwhelming geared to dps and there is no "alternative" win condition that you could code a cruiser or sci into giving them a disadvantage in purpose. Healing and such are support roles, but I would like more primary roles for my bigger and wiser brothers and sisters.
Consider if the the science ship could scan farther away or much faster than the escort in the Azure nebula, perhaps the sci ship could complete a scan in 2 seconds, easily between weapon bursts and the cruiser had enough "constitution" to not have its scan interupted by weapons fire at some level of probability. They could more easily avoid Tholian engagements with Science related sensor abilities. This would give the science ship and cruiser an advantage that honors the Star Trek way of avoiding conflict with brains and ingenuity.
Like i say i dont want to nerf tac dps or buff cruiser/sci dps. I just want win conditions not solely tied to killing all the enemies.
As I said, you need supporting abilities for your escort tac team, you cant only use DPS. And yes, you can do elite STF with just Tacs, or just Sci, or Eng.
But have you and your full tac team escorts tried elite hive onslaught? Or no win scenario? Just curious.
I am not on frequently enough to be in the no win teams in the fleet. Since I dont really pug them I dont do the hive and no win. If I could be on more then I would be more familiar with it. My main focus is PvP, I only PvE for dilithium and reputation stuff. No win requires some significant healing. I do wonder if you could do no win with 5 science with the proper coordination and abilities/equipment. That could be a fun test.
I am glad you brought those up because I bet they would be more enjoyable for me. I just need to break into the group that does them regularly.
Thanks!
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Yes, I tend to prefer escorts, but that doesnt mean Im against some changes to the game.
Its just this week alone I have seen 2 threads aimed at nerfing something, first tac captains (im an engineer, BTW) and now escorts... so basically what this poster is looking for is an across the board nerf specifically targeted at making tac captains less powerful... I never thought they were OP to begin with.
Hm... yeah... well if you look earlier, you will see my view, it was a rather long post... I think I said something... gimme a sec, I'll find it... ah, here it is...
Nerf Tacs? No. Reason: They are doing their job of dealing damage. Possibly too well. But that's the nature of a DPS based game. When your score/loot/effectiveness in PvE content in a PvE based game is determined by your damage output, naturally he who deals the most damage will get the best loot, and as such be able to do his job better. That's a game design error, not an overpowered career.
Adjust them? Yes. How? Do not affect their damage ability. Just adjust what they affect. Tactical abilities really should not affect science abilities. That's one of the most ridiculous things that happened with the switch to F2P. All of a sudden, APA and APO are affecting Science powers. What? Ew. Thankfully Tactical powers don't affect Engineering abilities... or do they? You get the idea. Adjust tactical powers so they affect ONLY TACTICALLY BASED DAMAGE (aka damage from weapons. ONLY. Because let's face it, a GW2 from a Tactical using APA3 does more damage than a GW3 from a Sci using full particle generators and graviton generators. WHAT????)
Buff Engineers/Science? Yes and no. How? Let's face it, tanking in this game is a joke. The main reason being: the main tanking skill is a permanent skill. Threat Control. Not only is it high up in the skill tree, but you can't turn it off. I would use that skill with no qualms, except for one little problem: my Engi doesn't always run cruisers. And tbh, an escort with Threat Control is an escort asking to die. Which then begs the question: what can we do about it? I have heard this suggested elsewhere, but giving cruisers (the games tanks) naturally higher threat generation (as in equal to 3 or 4 points in that skill) is a start. Add in the threat consoles from the Embassy, and all of a sudden we have use for a tank again. Another possible buff to Engineers would be to adjust CDs on their abilities. Nadion (the main weapon of a lot of engis, especially those in cruisers) could use a slight reduction in CD (bring it from 3 minutes down to 2.5), and MW could use a little more in the hull heal department (let's face it, the 10k you get you can do with an ET3). Other than that, I would not recommend any additional alterations.
As for Science? I don't really want to touch this one, but I will. Science doesn't need to be buffed persay, just re-adjusted back so that science abilities are more heavily affected by actual science skills. As I pointed out earlier, a GW2 from a tac using APA3 does more damage than a GW3 from a fully specced sci captain. It's ludicrous. And as for the snare and hold ability? It's a bloody joke. My Odyssey can escape from most Gravity wells with no points in inertial dampeners. There's something majorly wrong there. Now if science went back to how it was pre-F2P with it actually doing exotic damage, not kinetic, and it being affected by particle generators and not being affected at all by attack patterns, I think a lot of the sci imbalance would disappear as quickly as it appeared in the first place.
As for the adjustments to sci and engi? It's simple. Make there be some incentive to doing things other than outright damage. Engineers and Science can never come close to a tac when it comes to damage. That's how it's supposed to be. It's a little odd though that a Tactical can tank as well as an engi, and can CC as well as a science, but that's another discussion for another time. But why have the other careers in game at all when they only see heavy usage in PvP and ground (two things that aren't stressed at all in this game) and are considered to be partially sub-optimal for PvE? Make it so that content is not a pure damage blitz. Make there a reason for CC and healers. That's the only real thing I can think of that would solve this problem without doing as the OP suggested and outright nerfing Tactical captains (which is funny, you're punishing them for doing their job well).
Sorry for the long response...
Tl;dr
Don't nerf tacs so much as adjust them and the other classes.
As you can see, I don't really want tacs nerfed either, just adjusted. And I do want the other classes looked at, which is really what this comes down to.
Nerf bat not needed.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
I am not on frequently enough to be in the no win teams in the fleet. Since I dont really pug them I dont do the hive and no win. If I could be on more then I would be more familiar with it. My main focus is PvP, I only PvE for dilithium and reputation stuff. No win requires some significant healing. I do wonder if you could do no win with 5 science with the proper coordination and abilities/equipment. That could be a fun test.
I am glad you brought those up because I bet they would be more enjoyable for me. I just need to break into the group that does them regularly.
Thanks!
It would be a good test. My best results in "no win scenario" have been with 2 strong DPS ships and a couple of strong healers in the group. If we are all tacs I already know that at best we will get to the 5th wave just to see how the freighter explodes in 15 seconds (and probably some of us in the meantime).
In the elite hive onslaught you need some good tanks/healers or you wont be able to stand enough time in front of the enemy to make any damage. 1 or 2 good DPS ships are of course allways welcome to make things go faster, but a healing/tanking is a priority there.
When your score/loot/effectiveness in PvE content in a PvE based game is determined by your damage output, naturally he who deals the most damage will get the best loot, and as such be able to do his job better
I agree with you that damage is too important in Gorn/Federation Minefield (though if you are not careful and have no decent healing/protection, in the facilities you might easily explode). But starbase 24 is another story. Survival becomes more important, even though DPS is still a priority you dont need an escort at all to get 1st place. That said, I dont like much the reward/competitive system of these missions where instead of working like a team, the primary objective (over DPS) is to step on the rest of the players, wich I dont think is good in any ways.
-snip-
I agree with you that damage is too important in Gorn/Federation Minefield (though if you are not careful and have no decent healing/protection, in the facilities you might easily explode). But starbase 24 is another story. Survival becomes more important, even though DPS is still a priority you dont need an escort at all to get 1st place. That said, I dont like much the reward/competitive system of these missions where instead of working like a team, the primary objective (over DPS) is to step on the rest of the players, wich I dont think is good in any ways.
Really it's an issue that only damage is scored, we know they can keep track of healing, why isn't it in the metrics for these events?
Not sure how a CC'er would be counted, since controll abilitys don't do much damage.
Maybe it should be changed to a team reward, Each instance auto teams you and there are enough players for 4 teams. So the team that has the best overall score gets a 1st place prize and so on. Then maybe we can have an elite version:-p
As a time traveller, Am I supposed to pack underwear or underwhen?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Maybe it should be changed to a team reward, Each instance auto teams you and there are enough players for 4 teams. So the team that has the best overall score gets a 1st place prize and so on.
You don't start a thread out with "I'm going to be "respectful" and turn around by disrespecting 33% of the player-base.
If you believe tactical officers are so OP, why aren't you playing one as a main? You know statistical data on what players gravitate toward is the best indicator for PWE to know what class is OP and what class is UP.
Instead of disrespectfully proposing NERFS, try proposing what can be done to raise your class to the level you obviously believe it is not yet at.
Tactical officer abilities are SHEET. Absolute SHEET. The only thing that is "decent" is tactical initiative and attack pattern alpha if you have the skills to back it up. Science officers get to summon an entire fleet of ships and engineers get a "near invulnerability" buff and you're complaining about tactical? Obviously your intent was to come in and do just that -- sleekly offer your disrespect to a third of the community.
Let me show you how balance works with your proposals:
1. Nerf DPS -- You have to raise hull/shields (innately)
2. Nerf Tactical Initiative -- You have to nerf photonic fleet and rotate shield frequency
3. Nerf Loot -- You have to make them immune to injury (because they die the most)
Let me wrap it up just by stating, for every positive you see a tactical officer has, there is a negative, the same for every other class. If you nerf one, then be prepared to have the nerf stick taken to your own.
Just remember, knives are safe if played with in the road.
Said NO to Arc. Gets punished by not being given a free outfit, free lobi, and free shuttle. Now forced to use Arc's site when trying to get to STO site. Still not rewards for beta testing the Arc website by force. Bravo Cryptic.
You can nerf photonic fleet? :eek: come to think of it, you can nerf anything science has? :eek:
Its practically a light show now, nothing more, at least tactical initiative actually does something
If you want to see what really needs to be done for balance please see this.
After reading that escorts should be a kind of a bird of prey (of course withouth the BC and without the turnrate) and something about nerfing DHCs I thought it was enough. It is not worth the time reading that post. I can tell by reading the first 4 paragraphs (I didnt read anymore) in that post he havent got an escort nor a tac and probably never used one.
And as I said before, if you want DPS, get a tac and an escort (thats what they were mean to). But dont pretend to keep your healing/tanking rate and also match tacs in escorts in damage too.
After reading that escorts should be a kind of bird of prey (of course withouth the BC and without the turnrate)
That's what you implied they already are yet my tac/scort can tank the gateway in ISE without much issue and with a little more than 50% hull and shields I can follow that up with the Tac cube fore dessert (hardly a BoP)...
And as I said before, if you want DPS, get a tac and an escort (thats what they were mean to). But dont pretend to keep your healing/tanking rate and also match tacs in escorts in damage too.
I know my way around this game (I've flown 7 out of 9 possible captain ship type combos) I can make an eng beamboat do 1k damage with every hit broadsiding, I can make a sci/sci deal some meaningful damage and still make a tac captain wonder what happened to his damage using sci skills or do what I mentioned above in a tac/scort and I can tell you now that anything you need to do in this game you can do with a tac captain in an escort.
My balance suggestion would make the other classes worthwhile in PvE content while NOT making tac/scorts worthless, they'd still be kings of burst doing hit and runs (like they are meant to (hence speed and turn rates) while the other combos can actually contribute something.
Comments
Strategically? Yes, seriously, escorts are seriously overpowered.
Before tactical captain or bridge officer abilities. They have the power to bring pain on demand anywhere on the field. That's not the problem though. It's that there is no ability left to balance that.
Tactically? Yes, seriously over powered.
They have the power to bring enough pain in bursts that someone has to lean heavily into the defence. Again, not the problem directly. It's that that's the only option to surviving it. The option is doubly worse because a defender can do nothing but defend.
They affectively don't have the power to "fill their role as being damaged focus". They have to power to kill anything on the field on demand or make it indifferent from a rock formation.
Oh, I don't know... could it be their role?
Go skill up your sci captain to do full science abilities and tank and come back and tell me how many skill points it could put in weapons. Any build you make will be focused on only ONE set of sci skills requiring stats. Aka either graviton+particle based abilities or flow capacitor based abilities or countermeasures based abilities for example. This is besides the skill points that are mandatory in engineer boxes to be able to shield tank at least (power transfer, warp core speed, resists).
Go skill up your engineer so he can do full engineer abilities to fulfill a tank & fleet support role. You almost literally have to fill up all resists, repair, max hp, speed and power transfer and warp core boxes to be a tank. Then the sci shield abilities, power insulators and dampeners. See how much points you've left for weapon abilities after you've filled up threat control.
Go skill up your tac to do full tac role and tank. All tac boxes except threat control and stealth for a fed (unless they fly defiant). Speed, armor resists, warp core boxes, power allocation boxes and hitpoint boosting boxes. Science shield boxes. You know? You have enough left over to fill up a couple more skill boxes. HOW NICE.
The problem is right there. If you don't see it then you're simply content playing a cookie-cutter for all / no roles other than tank & dps game.
Tac captains used to require as much point skill investment as the other capt. types to merely be able to DO their role: damage. Now with them having basically half of their skill points once used up in tac boxes free to be spent elsewhere they gain the tankyness of engineers and some of sci versatility. The other 2 capt. types cannot do this IF they spec to do their role.
It was that spending requirement that USED to have tac captains not have anywhere near the shield or hull tanking abilities the other 2 capt. types had. Escorts flown by tacs used to be VERY crunchy but had a nasty punch. Now they have a ludicrously strong punch AND they can tank like a cruiser. Where's the balance in that?
And that is where your argument fails. You simply say that sci and engineers can spec just like a tac capt and do the same thing....damage. Not science, not tanking/team healing & support.
Pre-F2P this game had an amazing variety of ship builds and roles. People knew other captains by name due to their build specializations. Now any tac captain does what all other captains can do, engineer captains can mostly do what tac captains do and sci captains helplessly punch their sci ability to receive blue screen of death messages.
haha get it? Blue screen of death... because sci is blue... *cough* :P
The problem has never been 'tactical is op', they have been doing what they were intended to do from the start, the problem is that the other two (Sci and engineer) are rubbish. Nerfing Tacs will not help in the slightest, in fact it will just make your stfs that much longer.
No the problem that needs to be solved is making sci and engineering more of a viable play style than it is now. In addition the 'dps fast for rewards!' mentality needs to be removed, and re tooled. Instead, it should be combined effort of the whole team (Incoming damage recived, healing done to other members, npcs cc'ed).
In pvp its more of the same.
In short, Fix both the sci and eng classes and re-balance the group content rewards based off of combined team effort before you start yelling "NERF!", after all thats the reason sci is in its current sorry state.
Also why is there a '1st' place in 'team' missions anyway?
I still manage to fill out my weapon skills on both and tank just fine on my engineer.
You are also not required to fill threat control, to be honest Ive never noticed a diffrence with it full or not. With the embasy sci consoles slotted, and doffs I never really had a problem.
Odd thing is even though my engineer pilots a cruiser, his build is very like my tacs build, minus the full up in threat control (which to be fair I have never needed in stfs on either character, fleet sci consoles and doff abilities ftw!)
But hey, you may need that threat control, even so its not going to stop you from putting points into weapon skills..I mean..what weapon skill are you skimping on? are you not as an engineer, cycling at least one emergancy power to weapons? weapon batteries? Just curious.
I can put things simply as well, learn to play. Or as its called by the cool kids: L2P.
If you can't build a ship to survive an escort's burst you're doing it wrong. About the only exceptions are some of the silly uber mine crit builds. Everything else? Its really two ships ganging up on you, someone debuffing/shield stripping and an escort bursting. The way PvP works though its easy to miss that, especially since escorts are usually the ones making the kills after their team softens up a target.
Doubt what I say? Try dueling an escort with an escort... 1 on 1. Unless there is a huge skill or build difference, or someone is flying a bugship you will stalemate. Escorts can't even get thru another escort's defenses.
PvP really IS all about team play. Unless one side is substantially worse off than the other.
Earlier post from another thread if you are interested:
My main desire is to increase the relevance of the cruiser and science. I have one of each branch in both factions and I cannot get over how much faster the "money maker" pve missions are with an escort. I understand there are different roles, but the sci and eng roles are too marginalized in most content for dilithium and marks.
I have 1 wish at each level short, mid and long
Short term
Make science ships scanning go much faster than cruisers and cruisers scanning faster than escorts. Similarly make satellite heals and such faster on the cruiser, second fastest on the science and slowest with the escort. This creates flexibility in mission design where a science ship can get things done before reinforcements arrive, while the tac will have to face down the incoming waves because they are not as efficient scanning or repairing. I am thinking specifically of Azure Nebula and Gorn minefield. The science ship would lower the tractors in Azure much faster than the escort, and might be able to get them down between enemy volleys which makes up for the massive disparity in effectiveness of the dps dealers. Cruisers would be slightly faster or have a higher resistance to take fire and not "break their concentration" on lowering the tractors with incoming fire. This optimizes each ship's role.
Mid Term
Fix balance for PvP and PvE in one shot. Create a separate skill tree for pvp and pve, also have a "A" and "B" load out for the ship. for PvP and Pve. This would allow us to not have to swap out things based on the drastically different game play and yet allow the programers to have powers work as intended in pvp, yet that is different in the other by nerfing or buffing each.
Long Term
While I would have liked the space battles to feel more like the shows/movie where you watch your hull bleed down slower and caveat that with the fact that if your ship actually gets destroyed you lose everything on it. (this would mean there would be more tactical withdraws and disables that were more common in startrek shows) I think that it would be best if there were more injuries taken to the ship before it was actually destroyed that took time to heal, not just the repair kit and a mouse click. THis would give the sci and eng more options in combat other than just causing massive DPS like the tac escourt in pvp.
If you do that you are committing yourself to not doing much damage. You DO realize that tanks in STO are damage dealing tanks don't you? The idea is to strike the balance between defenses and doing as much damage as you can.
Of course, you can choose to sink all your points into engineering or sci but then why would you expect to do good dps? You want to do excell at everything? You can't.
You talk as if you think you HAVE to spec all of your corresponding skill tree.... that's wrong, you're under no obligation fill in everything.... to do so would make incredibly gimped builds. One of the key reasons there are so few tac "boxes to fill" is so that EVERYONE can get asmuch benefit from them as they can.
And the underlined part strikes you as balanced, and good for gameplay?
I don't doubt what you say. (I'd make a few exception, but nothing worth fighting over if that's stance you will take.) That is part of the problem. There's super offense, super defense, and nothing in between. Everything else has been killed out.
This is not a formula for balanced mmo play. That's the formula for a single player arcade shooter.
And this is balanced?
If even the damage dealer can't get through another damage dealer's defences what hope does anyone else have?
Sorry but that is part of the problem
In one way I totally agree with you.
I have three Captains, one of each type - Tac, Eng, Sci.
The Tac captain is my preferred. Yet I believe the Eng captain is the "strongest".
The problem is that the content of the game (The STF and so on) is just created in such a way that is prefers DPS. The only "serious" enemies hit so hard they one hit even the ENG captain. "Tanking" as a concept in this game is laughable... so we are just left with DPS as king.
Point being... the issue isn't the types of class, I think they are pretty good... its just that the game is so heavily in favorable in DPS...
Well, I run a BoP and an escort with 2 Tacs, and the difference is HUGE.
When running the BoP (3/4 of the hull of the escort and less shields) I die like 5 more times in STFs (I lack in my BoP EPtS, hope nobody says now that EPtS is OP and it needs a nerf because of this) and barely do almost the same burst damage than with the escort (even though is DPS oriented).
Is the escort OP? I dont think so, it just does DPS, nothing more, nothing less, nothing especial. Its his job.
Is the BoP Weak? Hell, yes it is, a lot. More than any other ship. But is fast and more fun to play and it has BC and space for science or engi habilities that makes him worth playing with.
You could also say APB or APO is OP, but then TT is OP, and also EPtS is OP, HE is OP, TSS is OP, AUX2BAT with the technicians is OP, TB...
I have even read a post were someone was saying the BoP is OP.
Also, nobody heals me in STFs when running my escort or in my BoP against a group of spheres or raptors with spread damage. I even say "thank you" when it happens, because it is so unusual. Now if your only objective is killing and you dont give a dime about healing or tanking... Why didnt you take a Tac?
What do you mean?
The problem is the thing that matters most in this game is kills. There is no disables for victory, there is no surrenders, there is no forcing a withdrawl. The whole game is so far from Star Trek that made the cruiser and the Science ship powerful. "Worf target their weapons and fire" Battle over, there was no repairing them quickly, none of that.
Not saying 1 shot should disable, but disables should be healed at much greater disparity between ship classes than currently done. Those ship injuries should be permitted before losing your ship. If you get hit by some sort of super crit then you get cracked hull or some other injury. Injuries are not healed instantly by a mouse click but on a timer, and that timer depends on what type of ship you have.
They have these function in the game to various degrees but dps is spades and all the others are insignificant.
I love the art, I love the friendships, and I do not intend to give this game up anytime soon. But it is so one sided it is not funny. Yes the eng and sci have roles, but those roles are not needed to the capacity a great dps dealer is needed, especially in pve.
I would get into the need to separate the PvP and PvE skill trees and load outs into separate entities to enhance balance in each, but I have posted that elsewhere yesterday.
While I agree with most of what you have said, I can also say that when a good healer and/or tank is around in any elite STF the difference is noticeable. All elite STFs need to be done as a team, and while the objective might be to destroy everithing, an straightforward aproach of DPS with no healing abilities and no tank abilities means lots of deaths and respawns resulting in failing the optional, and is not the optimal way to do things.
A full Tac team doesnt need to be good at all (I rarely find a good full Tac team). Thanks god there are some sci/eng captains that know how to do their job and they do it awesome well (but its also difficult to find one of these because most try to kill cubes themselves faster thant tacs, and forget about their team, or even wait for the tacs to take the agroo before attacking). And this doesnt mean that some sci/eng cant do a big amount of damage too. The build and the ship, as well as the skill of the player, are more important.
Yes, I tend to prefer escorts, but that doesnt mean Im against some changes to the game.
Its just this week alone I have seen 2 threads aimed at nerfing something, first tac captains (im an engineer, BTW) and now escorts... so basically what this poster is looking for is an across the board nerf specifically targeted at making tac captains less powerful... I never thought they were OP to begin with.
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
Just for fun how about instead of "Nerf Tac" we look at "Buff Sci/Engy"?
Always with MMO crowds it's "nerf this" instead of "boost that to match this"...it hasn't made sense to me since I first heard it back on the VN boards for Asheron's Call, and it still doesn't.
In PvP I totally agree that the Sci and ENg are essential. My fleetmates and I have done stupid things like an all escort PvP against a pug opponent and we typically lose (just to test things out and such). But in an STF we like all escorts because it goes faster. We have the fleet gear and my Patrol never dies even with agro. 2 TT and 2 EmPtoS keep me pretty well off and we all have cannon spread and rapid fire tets and disrupt so things poof easy enough. We actually label each other tards if we do actually die. (i secretly hope for a third more difficult STF level in the future, not with more one shots, but maybe a KASE with 3 portals to play goalie with)
I would never say that eng and sci can't do these, but the very fact that the whole game is overwhelming geared to dps and there is no "alternative" win condition that you could code a cruiser or sci into giving them a disadvantage in purpose. Healing and such are support roles, but I would like more primary roles for my bigger and wiser brothers and sisters.
Consider if the the science ship could scan farther away or much faster than the escort in the Azure nebula, perhaps the sci ship could complete a scan in 2 seconds, easily between weapon bursts and the cruiser had enough "constitution" to not have its scan interupted by weapons fire at some level of probability. They could more easily avoid Tholian engagements with Science related sensor abilities. This would give the science ship and cruiser an advantage that honors the Star Trek way of avoiding conflict with brains and ingenuity.
Like i say i dont want to nerf tac dps or buff cruiser/sci dps. I just want win conditions not solely tied to killing all the enemies.
As I said, you need supporting abilities for your escort tac team, you cant only use DPS. And yes, you can do elite STF with just Tacs, or just Sci, or Eng.
But have you and your full tac team escorts tried elite hive onslaught? Or no win scenario? Just curious.
I am glad you brought those up because I bet they would be more enjoyable for me. I just need to break into the group that does them regularly.
Thanks!
Hm... yeah... well if you look earlier, you will see my view, it was a rather long post... I think I said something... gimme a sec, I'll find it... ah, here it is...
As you can see, I don't really want tacs nerfed either, just adjusted. And I do want the other classes looked at, which is really what this comes down to.
Nerf bat not needed.
It would be a good test. My best results in "no win scenario" have been with 2 strong DPS ships and a couple of strong healers in the group. If we are all tacs I already know that at best we will get to the 5th wave just to see how the freighter explodes in 15 seconds (and probably some of us in the meantime).
In the elite hive onslaught you need some good tanks/healers or you wont be able to stand enough time in front of the enemy to make any damage. 1 or 2 good DPS ships are of course allways welcome to make things go faster, but a healing/tanking is a priority there.
I agree with you that damage is too important in Gorn/Federation Minefield (though if you are not careful and have no decent healing/protection, in the facilities you might easily explode). But starbase 24 is another story. Survival becomes more important, even though DPS is still a priority you dont need an escort at all to get 1st place. That said, I dont like much the reward/competitive system of these missions where instead of working like a team, the primary objective (over DPS) is to step on the rest of the players, wich I dont think is good in any ways.
Really it's an issue that only damage is scored, we know they can keep track of healing, why isn't it in the metrics for these events?
Not sure how a CC'er would be counted, since controll abilitys don't do much damage.
Maybe it should be changed to a team reward, Each instance auto teams you and there are enough players for 4 teams. So the team that has the best overall score gets a 1st place prize and so on. Then maybe we can have an elite version:-p
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
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Cool idea.
FAIL
You don't start a thread out with "I'm going to be "respectful" and turn around by disrespecting 33% of the player-base.
If you believe tactical officers are so OP, why aren't you playing one as a main? You know statistical data on what players gravitate toward is the best indicator for PWE to know what class is OP and what class is UP.
Instead of disrespectfully proposing NERFS, try proposing what can be done to raise your class to the level you obviously believe it is not yet at.
Tactical officer abilities are SHEET. Absolute SHEET. The only thing that is "decent" is tactical initiative and attack pattern alpha if you have the skills to back it up. Science officers get to summon an entire fleet of ships and engineers get a "near invulnerability" buff and you're complaining about tactical? Obviously your intent was to come in and do just that -- sleekly offer your disrespect to a third of the community.
Let me show you how balance works with your proposals:
1. Nerf DPS -- You have to raise hull/shields (innately)
2. Nerf Tactical Initiative -- You have to nerf photonic fleet and rotate shield frequency
3. Nerf Loot -- You have to make them immune to injury (because they die the most)
Let me wrap it up just by stating, for every positive you see a tactical officer has, there is a negative, the same for every other class. If you nerf one, then be prepared to have the nerf stick taken to your own.
Just remember, knives are safe if played with in the road.
You can nerf photonic fleet? :eek: come to think of it, you can nerf anything science has? :eek:
Its practically a light show now, nothing more, at least tactical initiative actually does something
If you want to see what really needs to be done for balance please see this.
After reading that escorts should be a kind of a bird of prey (of course withouth the BC and without the turnrate) and something about nerfing DHCs I thought it was enough. It is not worth the time reading that post. I can tell by reading the first 4 paragraphs (I didnt read anymore) in that post he havent got an escort nor a tac and probably never used one.
And as I said before, if you want DPS, get a tac and an escort (thats what they were mean to). But dont pretend to keep your healing/tanking rate and also match tacs in escorts in damage too.
That's what you implied they already are yet my tac/scort can tank the gateway in ISE without much issue and with a little more than 50% hull and shields I can follow that up with the Tac cube fore dessert (hardly a BoP)...
I know my way around this game (I've flown 7 out of 9 possible captain ship type combos) I can make an eng beamboat do 1k damage with every hit broadsiding, I can make a sci/sci deal some meaningful damage and still make a tac captain wonder what happened to his damage using sci skills or do what I mentioned above in a tac/scort and I can tell you now that anything you need to do in this game you can do with a tac captain in an escort.
My balance suggestion would make the other classes worthwhile in PvE content while NOT making tac/scorts worthless, they'd still be kings of burst doing hit and runs (like they are meant to (hence speed and turn rates) while the other combos can actually contribute something.