That's the problem: Escorts are just as survivable as Cruisers and do more damage. Why is it that a five-deck-high Defiant class ship can take as much damage as a 40+ -deck Odyssey? Escorts SHOULD be glass cannons, not neutronium ones.
You say this, and I know you truly believe it. Its why I say you have no clue of what you are talking about.
Another idea to help kill the DPS-worship is to allow only one of each console on a ship. No stacking four phaser relays. You have four tactical console slots, you fill them with four different consoles. One phaser relay, one prefire chamber, one zero-point and one warhead yield chamber.
Unncessary DPS-hate aside, I think this is a good idea provided some of the consoles would be rebalanced first.
You say this, and I know you truly believe it. Its why I say you have no clue of what you are talking about.
I believe it because I have SEEN it. I have SEEN Escorts suck up damage and spit it back out. Don't insult me by saying I don't know what I'm talking about. I do.
Another idea to help kill the DPS-worship is to allow only one of each console on a ship. No stacking four phaser relays. You have four tactical console slots, you fill them with four different consoles. One phaser relay, one prefire chamber, one zero-point and one warhead yield chamber.
Why have all these consoles in the game if no one ever uses more than five or six of them?
Besides capping DPS, this would have the following benefits:
- making people actually think about what consoles they want to use, instead of just "Neutronium x3, emitter amp x2, disruptor coil x5, goodbye to everyone in a 45-degree firing arc!"
- making people choose their ships based off more than just how many tac consoles it has. More ship diversity is a good thing. I don't like being surrounded by excelsiors and defiants everywhere I go.
- balancing out the prices of certain items on the exchange. 5million ec for a Mk XI purple Neutronium console, are you freaking kidding me?
Hm, there's a good idea. Someone said "Diminishing Console Returns," but this is better.
Unncessary DPS-hate aside, I think this is a good idea provided some of the consoles would be rebalanced first.
This isn't "DPS-hate," and it most CERTAINLY is not unnecessary. You're clearly someone that loves DPS and doesn't want the status quo changed, even though the status quo is AWFUL. As I said in my replies, I FLY DPS ships. I LIKE DPS ships. I've SEEN what they can do, but it's not fair. It's TOTALLY unbalanced. It NEEDS to change.
What you really need to do here (to the original poster) is all about really learning the game. Once you learn the game, you will realize that there are some uber builds out there for all types of ships and classes. I have seen engineer captains in cruisiers out DPS a tac in an escort.
This game has the following percentage points in these areas:
80% Skill
18% Gear/Ship/Class/Whatever else the game throws you as a bone
2% Luck
Its time we get over this mentallity of "Nerf this class, nerf this ship, nerf this abillity etc". There are too many threads across the forums already.
The tools are there in game to get you to where you want to be... Question is, will you learn to adapt, learn a new skill or are you just going to cry nerf in the corner and hope it gets fixed because you refuse to adapt and change to meet the demands of the game and your playstyle?
I had a nice build on my wells for my sci captain using tric mines which allowed it to function nicely but not overpowered in elite STF. It could do a nice amount of damage to things and take out a cube in KASE (took quite a bit longer than tacticals and escorts though) and with forward planning you could kill multiple weak/medium enemies with gravity well, CPB and sensor scan. The tactical captains that could get 290-500k crits due to captain abilities caused tric mines to be nerfed into not being useful anymore. Now I must find a new source of high damage for my lt.comm tactical station.
Also to be fair that cruiser that out DPS'd the escorts, the escorts were most likely exceedingly bad. I have done it myself with an engineer in an ody, it's not to say I DPS like a king it's just those others that were THAT bad.
I must say, its a very nice Nerf Escorts thread. I dont see how it does more than merely turn the tables on escorts but doesnt really solve anything towards balance in my opinion.
I prefer to support other ideas that I agree with towards making beams better, adding more BOff options, bolstering Cruisers and Science ships instead of the ideas found in this thread.
Oh, the game has never been balanced. It has merely had faults, bugs, tactics and power design changes that have favored one class over the others at different times through STOs history. First Science vessels then Cruisers and now Escorts until the next sudden changes tilt the favor toward the next class of vessels or toon.
Such is why I feel the OPs and some of the following ideas do nothing but continue the "tilting of favor" without fixing any issues
I must say, its a very nice Nerf Escorts thread. I dont see how it does more than merely turn the tables on escorts but doesnt really solve anything towards balance in my opinion.
I prefer to support other ideas that I agree with towards making beams better, adding more BOff options, bolstering Cruisers and Science ships instead of the ideas found in this thread.
Except that we've done that. Section One, Subsections Two, Four and Five. Included is a HUGE beam buff, a proposal to rework Science abilities, and a buff TO all non-Escorts.
In my experiance in online games the word balance means please bring the game down to the posters level of gameplay. This is a diverse game with endless ways to fit and equip your crew and ship and it needs NO BALANCE that would take away from the game and turn it into just another booring mmo.
Except that we've done that. Section One, Subsections Two, Four and Five. Included is a HUGE beam buff, a proposal to rework Science abilities, and a buff TO all non-Escorts.
No, you merely tilt the favor around again. Nothing seems to me to be solved or balanced.
I believe it because I have SEEN it. I have SEEN Escorts suck up damage and spit it back out. Don't insult me by saying I don't know what I'm talking about. I do.
There you go again, you just keep proving your relative point of comparison is all wrong. Whatever damage you think you've seen an escort spit back out I've seen cruisers soak up 3 or 4 times as much, continously. I get that you're talking based on what you know, and what you've seen. I'm telling you this, your body of knowledge and experience is lacking. I also understand that the worst thing to tell someone that feels wronged is to wait up and invest time and effort into learning but that's what I think you need to do.
Its not necessarily your fault, the game does a terrible job of educating players.. I would say it actively teaches the wrong way to play!
In my experience in online games the word balance means please bring the game down to the posters level of gameplay. This is a diverse game with endless ways to fit and equip your crew and ship and it needs NO BALANCE that would take away from the game and turn it into just another boring mmo.
Says the one whose very forum avatar is a worship of what's wrong with the game. There IS no real variety. If you're not a DPS build, you're not nearly as effective. You're downright USELESS, unless that alternate buildis so over-the-top that it might actually DO something.
There you go again, you just keep proving your relative point of comparison is all wrong. Whatever damage you think you've seen an escort spit back out I've seen cruisers soak up 3 or 4 times as much, continuously. I get that you're talking based on what you know, and what you've seen. I'm telling you this, your body of knowledge and experience is lacking. I also understand that the worst thing to tell someone that feels wronged is to wait up and invest time and effort into learning but that's what I think you need to do.
Its not necessarily your fault, the game does a terrible job of educating players.. I would say it actively teaches the wrong way to play!
Okay... so you are LEGITIMATELY trying to tell me that, after MAXING half a dozen characters and playing this game for TWO YEARS... that my body of knowledge is "lacking?" It's not LACKING when I've seen my point proven SO THOROUGHLY that it disproves yours. I've got a tank build that can, and HAS, taken on EVERY NPC battleship IN THIS GAME at the same time, on ELITE no less, and not only WON, but survived the entire engagement.
That same build can't last two minutes in PvE. So, you are trying to tell me that builds that have more power than fourteen Elite Battleships can be countered by anything, when I know for a FACT you are wrong?
There wasn't one smart idea in that OP. It would be different if you touched on why certain classes and abilities cause so much damage, but you didn't. "DHC" is not an answer, it's just a symptom.
There wasn't one smart idea in that OP. It would be different if you touched on why certain classes and abilities cause so much damage, but you didn't. "DHC" is not an answer, it's just a symptom.
It's acc/def/crit.
Anyways cheers!
Okay, so to hell with making Cruisers and Science vessels being relevant EVER, we should all just fly Escorts.
No. If you didn't see the point of the OP, it's understandable that you wouldn't think of it as "smart." The point is to make Cruisers and Science Ships relevant. The peoblem in this game has nothing to do with "acc/def/crit," it's a simple matter of Tactical Officers in Escorts being GROSSLY more powerful than everything else by the fact that 4 DHCs, 3 turrets and a few buffs can destroy everything in the game through sheer damage output. The why is simple: Tactical buffs, whether from BOffs or Captains, are far more effective than anything else. It's INCREDIBLY one-sided. So, you try to make that side weaker and strengthen the other two.
Each ship/class has its perks. Until you learn to fly all ships/class and their combos and what each one does then I suggest you do. Until then, don't come to the forums crying for change. Maybe then it will make more sense.
The "Escort" is not the end all be all like you suggest. Yes they are great but being a tac escort, I am just as comparable to the next skilled player in any other ship/class.
Each ship/class has its perks. Until you learn to fly all ships/class and their combos and what each one does then I suggest you do. Until then, don't come to the forums crying for change. Maybe then it will make more sense.
I DO know how to fly each of the ships. I HAVE done so, MANY MANY times. Hell, at one time, I had a Sci IN a Sci ship, an Engineer in a Cruiser, and a Tac in an Escort. Each character was in the ship designed to fit their class. The Tac's overall effectiveness (in both damage and survivability) beat each of the others, with the SOLE exception of my TANK's survivability, and my Sci had a GOOD BUILD for a Sci ship. I've DONE it. I KNOW how these ships work. I have SEEN how big the imbalance is, and I decree that it is wrong.
A cap on the number of DHC hardpoints is likely the most absurd thing I've seen on these forums to date. And you people have really come up with some gems.
But if we're going to touch on the subject of weapon hardpoints and arcs, where exactly are your beam arrays mounted? Are they all mounted along the very edge of the ship? Are some dorsal and some ventral? Either way the ventral mounts could not fire at a dorsal target neither could the port arrays hit a target inside a certain range of starboard. Just sayin'.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
pve should be more like pvp. if you want a little more excitement in your game and you really want to balance things out, then pve should be more like pvp.
allow me to elaborate. the disparity among hull hp and shield hp between the two classes is too great at the moment to allow for proper balancing of one class without negative effects on the other class. meaning, any changes made to pve will greatly affect the experience of pvp players and vice versa.
proposal:
pve enemy hull and shield hitpoints are brought more in line with player ships and such. however, pve enemies use a lot more skills designated for their class (tac, engi, sci) represented by the ship they are flying. pve enemy skills should be divided among healing skills, damage skills and other such skills, similar in comparison to the captains fighting them. this will allow for an overall re-balancing of weapons damage and the skills that affect it, if need be.
this will necessitate the need for other ships and classes such as engineers and science captains as well as their respective ships. this will allow for a greater variety of cross captain and ship combinations, without the need for sheer dps.
these changes alone opens up opportunity for the devs to focus on strategy versus sheer quantity of enemies. granted, racking up 5m in damage is fun, but it's not challenging at all. especially when targets aren't really firing back at you and are just sitting there.
in pvp, these squishy ships that we fly can take quite a beating and can give them in return. each ship type and captain class can perform admirably when the team works together. tacs in science vessels can unleash stronger than usual science abilities to crush the opponents. engineers in escorts don't have to rely on others for heals and buffs as much and can stay in the game longer. science in cruisers... they can debuff and heal and deal moderate damage. it allows for more diversity because we're not locked into a mission that's a race against an imaginary clock. dps does not have to reign supreme if this is the case.
hive onslaught space elite is perhaps the better example of my idea in action. where the queen and to a lesser extent, the unimatrix ships all use a wide variety of skills and debuffs that throws captains off their game. it requires more than just 5 tactical captains in 5 escorts for you to succeed. that's the way true balance should be. granted, with these changes, you won't need 8 tactical cubes and 16 spheres for the first round. give them abilities to heal themselves and offensive abilities other than high yield and fire at will. also, it wouldnt hurt to have many of these skills randomized by instance. so we're not fighting the same battle over and over and over again. it would be a true test of teamwork and skills, versus steamrolling dps and yawn.
tl:dr - bring pve more in line with pvp in terms of hull hit points, shield hit points and skill abilities. let pve enemies use skills in the same range of the captains they are fighting against. randomize said skills for each instance so each fight is different than the last ensuring each instance and the overall experience is not the same.
oh, if you don't want asinine tactical captains in escorts pretending they're superman and flying into each enemy face first... then institute a real death penalty with consequences. it will make squishy pilots think twice about diving head first into a bunch of pve enemies without support. but really, i like the idea i listed above a lot more than this simple cryptic worthy (act first, think later) approach
pve should be more like pvp. if you want a little more excitement in your game and you really want to balance things out, then pve should be more like pvp.
allow me to elaborate. the disparity among hull hp and shield hp between the two classes is too great at the moment to allow for proper balancing of one class without negative effects on the other class. meaning, any changes made to pve will greatly affect the experience of pvp players and vice versa.
proposal:
pve enemy hull and shield hitpoints are brought more in line with player ships and such. however, pve enemies use a lot more skills designated for their class (tac, engi, sci) represented by the ship they are flying. pve enemy skills should be divided among healing skills, damage skills and other such skills, similar in comparison to the captains fighting them. this will allow for an overall re-balancing of weapons damage and the skills that affect it, if need be.
this will necessitate the need for other ships and classes such as engineers and science captains as well as their respective ships. this will allow for a greater variety of cross captain and ship combinations, without the need for sheer dps.
these changes alone opens up opportunity for the devs to focus on strategy versus sheer quantity of enemies. granted, racking up 5m in damage is fun, but it's not challenging at all. especially when targets aren't really firing back at you and are just sitting there.
in pvp, these squishy ships that we fly can take quite a beating and can give them in return. each ship type and captain class can perform admirably when the team works together. tacs in science vessels can unleash stronger than usual science abilities to crush the opponents. engineers in escorts don't have to rely on others for heals and buffs as much and can stay in the game longer. science in cruisers... they can debuff and heal and deal moderate damage. it allows for more diversity because we're not locked into a mission that's a race against an imaginary clock. dps does not have to reign supreme if this is the case.
hive onslaught space elite is perhaps the better example of my idea in action. where the queen and to a lesser extent, the unimatrix ships all use a wide variety of skills and debuffs that throws captains off their game. it requires more than just 5 tactical captains in 5 escorts for you to succeed. that's the way true balance should be. granted, with these changes, you won't need 8 tactical cubes and 16 spheres for the first round. give them abilities to heal themselves and offensive abilities other than high yield and fire at will. also, it wouldnt hurt to have many of these skills randomized by instance. so we're not fighting the same battle over and over and over again. it would be a true test of teamwork and skills, versus steamrolling dps and yawn.
tl:dr - bring pve more in line with pvp in terms of hull hit points, shield hit points and skill abilities. let pve enemies use skills in the same range of the captains they are fighting against. randomize said skills for each instance so each fight is different than the last ensuring each instance and the overall experience is not the same.
oh, if you don't want asinine tactical captains in escorts pretending they're superman and flying into each enemy face first... then institute a real death penalty with consequences. it will make squishy pilots think twice about diving head first into a bunch of pve enemies without support. but really, i like the idea i listed above a lot more than this simple cryptic worthy (act first, think later) approach
This would be fun, but I don't know if they have the tech to implement this. It'd make PvE a bit harder, but you would never be able to make a definite PvE build. Plus, if it's just RANDOM BOff powers, some PvE ships would have NO power (inevitably, they'd have Photonic Officer, and Emergency Power to Aux, or some other useless power), and some would be INSANELY OP. In the end, it MIGHT do more harm than good. Great idea,but it'd have to be heavily worked on before implementation.
oh and sorry. one last thing. hangers for all is STILL an asinine idea.
1. the extra entities flying around from all the cruisers, sci ships, escort carriers and carriers not only creates more on screen lag, but network lag as well. each entity and the weapons they fire and the projectiles they create are all logged, processed and run through the same servers we use. by giving everyone all these extra pets, you create unnecessary waste that further clogs up the servers, resulting in a worse play experience for all.
example 1: ever notice how in a 20 person space fleet mission, everyones computer seems to slow down a bit? increase the amount of plasma weapons, plasma fires and ewp trails and such and fps slows to an absolute crawl? you can have the best possible computer, but if the network connection and servers arent able to process all that is going on, youre going to lag.
2. from a non-technical standpoint: increasing overall damage from pets for pve might result in you getting through the instance a bit quicker and perhaps, dying, a little less, but it severely impacts pvp play. imagine everyone and their mother launching shuttlecrafts with their bothersome tractor beams. no one will be able to move in pvp. you escape one tractor beam, maybe 2, but with everyone an their mother having shuttles with tractors, where are you going to go? how about elite scorpion fighters? or the elite hanger pets many people will be getting? all the spam from those high yield plasma torpedos will do no one good.
3. from a non pvp or technical standpoint: youre taking one class of ship and completely throwing it under the bus, just so you can make your preferred class of ship fun to use. if you want hanger pets, fly a carrier. it's as simple as that. the changes you recommend make carriers nearly obsolete. who cares if you can only support 1 wing at a time per hanger? theyre pretty much disposable anyway. you just keep summoning. spam spam spam. what the hell is the point of that?
and just in case you forgot: the link to your original post on the idea. i know you have a hard on for escort pilots and their melty ways, but increasing the damage potential of all will just result in them making pve enemies with more shield and hp. it's still a vicious cycle leading to no where.
oh and sorry. one last thing. hangers for all is STILL an asinine idea.
1. the extra entities flying around from all the cruisers, sci ships, escort carriers and carriers not only creates more on screen lag, but network lag as well. each entity and the weapons they fire and the projectiles they create are all logged, processed and run through the same servers we use. by giving everyone all these extra pets, you create unnecessary waste that further clogs up the servers, resulting in a worse play experience for all.
example 1: ever notice how in a 20 person space fleet mission, everyones computer seems to slow down a bit? increase the amount of plasma weapons, plasma fires and ewp trails and such and fps slows to an absolute crawl? you can have the best possible computer, but if the network connection and servers arent able to process all that is going on, youre going to lag.
2. from a non-technical standpoint: increasing overall damage from pets for pve might result in you getting through the instance a bit quicker and perhaps, dying, a little less, but it severely impacts pvp play. imagine everyone and their mother launching shuttlecrafts with their bothersome tractor beams. no one will be able to move in pvp. you escape one tractor beam, maybe 2, but with everyone an their mother having shuttles with tractors, where are you going to go? how about elite scorpion fighters? or the elite hanger pets many people will be getting? all the spam from those high yield plasma torpedos will do no one good.
3. from a non pvp or technical standpoint: youre taking one class of ship and completely throwing it under the bus, just so you can make your preferred class of ship fun to use. if you want hanger pets, fly a carrier. it's as simple as that. the changes you recommend make carriers nearly obsolete. who cares if you can only support 1 wing at a time per hanger? theyre pretty much disposable anyway. you just keep summoning. spam spam spam. what the hell is the point of that?
and just in case you forgot: the link to your original post on the idea. i know you have a hard on for escort pilots and their melty ways, but increasing the damage potential of all will just result in them making pve enemies with more shield and hp. it's still a vicious cycle leading to no where.
That's why I halved the number of wings per hanger. Even IF it made it worse, it wouldn't be much more. And it WOULD help. And notice, in BOTH incarnations, Escorts don't get any fighters. Escorts are KINDA fun, but I don't, by ANY means, have a "hard on" for them. Hence why this post focused SLIGHTLY on bringing their power level below 9000. Thanks for the link, though. I'd lost it.
This would be fun, but I don't know if they have the tech to implement this. It'd make PvE a bit harder, but you would never be able to make a definite PvE build. Plus, if it's just RANDOM BOff powers, some PvE ships would have NO power (inevitably, they'd have Photonic Officer, and Emergency Power to Aux, or some other useless power), and some would be INSANELY OP. In the end, it MIGHT do more harm than good. Great idea,but it'd have to be heavily worked on before implementation.
they do have the tech for it. it's not from all the powers. it's from a specific subset that they create. look at the queen. she has ams, sub nuke beams, fire at will, torp spread, a photonic shockwave like skill, tactical team, shield and hull regen and those are the ones i can name off the top of my head. oh and feedback pulse. the unimatrix ships use multiple skills as well. so yes, they do have the tech to implement this. yes, it should make pve harder, but through this way, you can bring pve and pvp more in line with each other so any changes you make in the long run will not drastically affect the game play of the other.
in regards to the random skills, i mean additional skills on top of standard skills such as tactical team, bfaw for cruisers and sci ships/crf and csv for escorts. give enemies a good amount of skills to play with. maybe 1 additional attack pattern skill, be it beta, delta or omega being the random ones. for engineering, have them equipped with one epts/w skill and have x # of skills based on captain level. for science skills, have one healing and one offensive skill and two randoms.
that's what i meant. sorry for the confusion. they still pack a punch, but now they have other toys to play with.
they do have the tech for it. it's not from all the powers. it's from a specific subset that they create. look at the queen. she has ams, sub nuke beams, fire at will, torp spread, a photonic shockwave like skill, tactical team, shield and hull regen and those are the ones i can name off the top of my head. oh and feedback pulse. the unimatrix ships use multiple skills as well. so yes, they do have the tech to implement this. yes, it should make pve harder, but through this way, you can bring pve and pvp more in line with each other so any changes you make in the long run will not drastically affect the game play of the other.
in regards to the random skills, i mean additional skills on top of standard skills such as tactical team, bfaw for cruisers and sci ships/crf and csv for escorts. give enemies a good amount of skills to play with. maybe 1 additional attack pattern skill, be it beta, delta or omega being the random ones. for engineering, have them equipped with one epts/w skill and have x # of skills based on captain level. for science skills, have one healing and one offensive skill and two randoms.
that's what i meant. sorry for the confusion. they still pack a punch, but now they have other toys to play with.
I was acutually considering putting something like THIS in the OP, as part of a scrapped third Section. THIS is a good idea, at least. Make it seem like you're facing something the same level as you. It might even make players look at PvP more. THIS is a good idea, at least.
That's why I halved the number of wings per hanger. Even IF it made it worse, it wouldn't be much more. And it WOULD help. And notice, in BOTH incarnations, Escorts don't get any fighters. Escorts are KINDA fun, but I don't, by ANY means, have a "hard on" for them. Hence why this post focused SLIGHTLY on bringing their power level below 9000. Thanks for the link, though. I'd lost it.
Subsection 5: General Ship Improvements
Finally is a component that I've thrown around before: Shuttlebays. Basically, this is a hangar rework. This idea is evolved from last I put it on the forums. Now, all hangar pets can only support one wing per hangar (as opposed to two now). Current Cruisers would then get two more Hangar slots (Heavy Escort Carriers up to 3, Carriers to 4), then adding 2 for the Cruisers and 1 for the Science Vessels, allowing them to use their shuttlebays for support. As each hangar can now only use 1 wing, Carriers lose nothing, but Cruisers/Science Vessels get a bit more ability (considering they're big enough to have a full shuttelbay or two), and HECs get a small buff. This allows the non-Escorts, which would already be buffed a little, to be on-par with Escorts, albeit with a different set-up, while reducing the increase in "pet spam."
Point 1: by halving the wings per hanger, you are essentially negating a safety countermeasure that cryptic has placed on carriers to prevent abuse. by circumventing the 2 wings per hanger, carriers can now summon all 4 wings at once and can replace them with little to no cooldown, thus ensuring 100% uptime and fresh waves whenever the cooldown is up. all you have to do is keep spamming for more reinforcements. you could in turn summon 4 waves of elite scorpion fighters (12 in total) have most of them fire off their high yield torpedos and then resummon all 12 again to do the same. it would be an endless chain.
plus, you give science vessels and carriers 1 and 2 hangers respectively, thus ensuring they have 3 and 6 fighters available at all times too, to which they can spam for 100% uptime.
now going back to my original post, let me ask you how do you think cryptic's servers and their respective network will be able to handle all that additional data, when they're barely handling it now? double if not triple the amount of server not responding and disconnects. you increase the amount of spam that players have and i will guarantee you will crash the servers. go into a 20 man space mission now and see how pleasurable it is. now imagine all the cruisers and science vessels having all that extra spam.
what do you do to counteract the additional damage? do you leave the enemies as they are now? what about future enemies and content? how do we address the issues of balance then?
what would be the point of flying a vo'quv? or a caitain carrier? what differentiates them from all the carrier wannabe cruisers? theyre stuck with less weapons and a crappier turn rate, and for what? how do you address these issues for balance?
so please, the next response you give offer a counterpoint or something that would facilitate dialogue. my first post, you didnt even read fully or you would've seen that i did give an example of how we have the tech already. it would facilitate the lack of a need for dps boosting measures like the ones youre suggesting, which frankly would throw the game's balance further out of whack.
Point 1: by halving the wings per hanger, you are essentially negating a safety countermeasure that cryptic has placed on carriers to prevent abuse. by circumventing the 2 wings per hanger, carriers can now summon all 4 wings at once and can replace them with little to no cooldown, thus ensuring 100% uptime and fresh waves whenever the cooldown is up. all you have to do is keep spamming for more reinforcements. you could in turn summon 4 waves of elite scorpion fighters (12 in total) have most of them fire off their high yield torpedos and then resummon all 12 again to do the same. it would be an endless chain.
plus, you give science vessels and carriers 1 and 2 hangers respectively, thus ensuring they have 3 and 6 fighters available at all times too, to which they can spam for 100% uptime.
now going back to my original post, let me ask you how do you think cryptic's servers and their respective network will be able to handle all that additional data, when they're barely handling it now? double if not triple the amount of server not responding and disconnects. you increase the amount of spam that players have and i will guarantee you will crash the servers. go into a 20 man space mission now and see how pleasurable it is. now imagine all the cruisers and science vessels having all that extra spam.
what do you do to counteract the additional damage? do you leave the enemies as they are now? what about future enemies and content? how do we address the issues of balance then?
what would be the point of flying a vo'quv? or a caitain carrier? what differentiates them from all the carrier wannabe cruisers? theyre stuck with less weapons and a crappier turn rate, and for what? how do you address these issues for balance?
so please, the next response you give offer a counterpoint or something that would facilitate dialogue. my first post, you didnt even read fully or you would've seen that i did give an example of how we have the tech already. it would facilitate the lack of a need for dps boosting measures like the ones youre suggesting, which frankly would throw the game's balance further out of whack.
The carriers' lack of weapons is why they still have all the total wings. However, negating that spam is easy (and, for me, would be more beneficial): The skill doesn't become available again until all of its fighters are dead (it stays grayed out until then). This also tells you how many fighters you have left. But, if we're buffing Cruisers (see subsection two), we could pass those to the carriers. Improve their turn rates, give them better weapons, etc. The extra damage is WHY the Cruisers/Sci Ships get them, but I suppose they could get -20% damage for not being from a carrier.
As for the server, the game handles it decently enough now, it wouldn't hurt as much. If it IS a problem, that's incentive for them to improve the engine's capability to handle such. Win/Win.
overall, you really need to bring the pve experience more in line with the pvp experience, where you have targets that are moving faster than a crawl and have skills that they use against you. add in the variety of randomized additional skills and you create a random experience that caters to all crowds. for normal difficulty have a set # of skills, with the majority of them being ensign and lt skills. for advanced, bump up the # of skills and have lt. cmdr skills. for elite, give them the same amount of skills that we, as individual captains have. this way, you can truly tailor the experience for all. you can make rerunning the same content fun and different each and every time. you can justify giving higher quality loot items based on this, rather than how it is now. you give niche builds a chance to survive. a tactical captain with snb is now not useless in pve. cruisers will be needed to take the punishment and deal out heals all the while providing supplemental damage. science ships will be needed for crowd control and debuff abilities.
true teamwork will be needed. crosshealing and roles will need to be fulfilled. if you really, really want balance. this is how it starts.
but really, this is only the beginning. you still need to know your role.
albeit a bit vague,
1. escorts should always be dealing damage. tac-escorts = most damage, needs most help surviving. engi-escorts = a good amount of damage and survivability. sci-scorts = good amount of damage and should focus on debuffs and stuff.
2. cruisers are meant to take damage and to heal. tac-cruisers = more supplemental damage with excellent survivability. engi-cruisers = best survivability, should focus on healing and providing support while dealing moderate damage. sci-cruisers = best support class with debuffs while providing okay damage.
3. science ships are meant for crowd control and debuffs. tac-sci = higher damage offensive science skills. engi-sci = jack of all trades. very versitile in both debuffs, healing and support. sci-sci = complete shut down artist.
either way, roles are meant to be played. i'm not telling you this is how it's supposed to be and these are your only options, but this is the balance as it stands today. because of the structure of how the game is set up today, many of these niche categories are already obsolete. science skills lack the punch they once had. engineering and support roles are not needed because of the lack of constant pressure dps. the spike damage model currently employed renders these engi and support positions obsolete, for the most part. a ship can easily lose 40-60% of its hull from a torpedo spread or a beam overload (the latter of which i believe accounts for the invi-oneshot from the tactical cube). by bringing pve more in line with pvp, the devs won't have to use additional damage modifiers to supplement pve enemies. it makes the fight a bit fairer, while still maintaining, if not increasing the overall difficulty.
overall, you really need to bring the pve experience more in line with the pvp experience, where you have targets that are moving faster than a crawl and have skills that they use against you. add in the variety of randomized additional skills and you create a random experience that caters to all crowds. for normal difficulty have a set # of skills, with the majority of them being ensign and lt skills. for advanced, bump up the # of skills and have lt. cmdr skills. for elite, give them the same amount of skills that we, as individual captains have. this way, you can truly tailor the experience for all. you can make rerunning the same content fun and different each and every time. you can justify giving higher quality loot items based on this, rather than how it is now. you give niche builds a chance to survive. a tactical captain with snb is now not useless in pve. cruisers will be needed to take the punishment and deal out heals all the while providing supplemental damage. science ships will be needed for crowd control and debuff abilities.
true teamwork will be needed. crosshealing and roles will need to be fulfilled. if you really, really want balance. this is how it starts.
but really, this is only the beginning. you still need to know your role.
albeit a bit vague,
1. escorts should always be dealing damage. tac-escorts = most damage, needs most help surviving. engi-escorts = a good amount of damage and survivability. sci-scorts = good amount of damage and should focus on debuffs and stuff.
2. cruisers are meant to take damage and to heal. tac-cruisers = more supplemental damage with excellent survivability. engi-cruisers = best survivability, should focus on healing and providing support while dealing moderate damage. sci-cruisers = best support class with debuffs while providing okay damage.
3. science ships are meant for crowd control and debuffs. tac-sci = higher damage offensive science skills. engi-sci = jack of all trades. very versitile in both debuffs, healing and support. sci-sci = complete shut down artist.
either way, roles are meant to be played. i'm not telling you this is how it's supposed to be and these are your only options, but this is the balance as it stands today. because of the structure of how the game is set up today, many of these niche categories are already obsolete. science skills lack the punch they once had. engineering and support roles are not needed because of the lack of constant pressure dps. the spike damage model currently employed renders these engi and support positions obsolete, for the most part. a ship can easily lose 40-60% of its hull from a torpedo spread or a beam overload (the latter of which i believe accounts for the invi-oneshot from the tactical cube). by bringing pve more in line with pvp, the devs won't have to use additional damage modifiers to supplement pve enemies. it makes the fight a bit fairer, while still maintaining, if not increasing the overall difficulty.
This is the design intention, yes. But those Eng and Sci Cruisers/Science Vessels can do next to NOTHING next to Tacs. There's NO damage from Eng/Scis. They STILL need some buff. With NO buffs, as a Tac Escort, I can do 4k DPS. NO buffs. Fully buffed, my Eng Cruiser can MAYBE reach that. Full buffed, my Tac Escort shoots over 30k DPS. This is a MAJOR gap that NEEDS to be narrowed. Yes, the roles NEED to be played. But Cruisers and Sci Vessels are almost TOTALLY irrelevant. Sure, they can survive, or try to lock down enemies. But by the time the Scis lock them down, the Tacs would have killed them and all their friends. The Engineers can't tank if the Tacs have already cleared the MAP. THAT is the balance currently. THAT needs to be fixed.
The carriers' lack of weapons is why they still have all the total wings. However, negating that spam is easy (and, for me, would be more beneficial): The skill doesn't become available again until all of its fighters are dead (it stays grayed out until then). This also tells you how many fighters you have left. But, if we're buffing Cruisers (see subsection two), we could pass those to the carriers. Improve their turn rates, give them better weapons, etc. The extra damage is WHY the Cruisers/Sci Ships get them, but I suppose they could get -20% damage for not being from a carrier.
As for the server, the game handles it decently enough now, it wouldn't hurt as much. If it IS a problem, that's incentive for them to improve the engine's capability to handle such. Win/Win.
your suggestion would totally kill the one thing that makes carriers unique. people fly carriers because of the pets and the versatility that they bring to one's build. it would be comparable to taking the extra shield modifier and sensor analysis from science ships and the extra hull hp and weapon and device slots from the cruiser. it would totally kill what makes each of these ship classes unique.
secondly, your fix for pet spam presents many issues within itself. first, pet ai is not the sharpest tool in the shed. your pets will wander and do their own things at times. should you be locked out from calling in reinforcements because one fighter or frigate got lost and is on the other side of the map? that would essentially gimp the carrier. there are already many issues with how the pet ai works. this added burden will likely increase problems if implemented.
thirdly, it still says nothing about the disparity your damage increase suggestion would create. sure, cruisers and science ships will do some more damage, but then what? what about the next wave of enemies the devs create? or about the content they'll release? the damage potential creep that this will cause will result in them creating content with hp that will fit. future enemies will get harder and harder, while older content will stay the same. you will steamroll the easy, older content and have to deal with the harder content. and it will get harder and harder, and you will ask for more and more. it's really a vicious cycle that solves nothing, except shift the balance of power from one class to another, all the while making it difficult for new players or players with brand new alts to keep up.
case in point: the reputation system and the passives they offer. with the increase in reputation trays and the subsequent passives that they will offer, brand new players and alts will always be playing catch up with legacy players. pvp will always be a joke, as these new players will continue to be steamrolled due to them not having the same level of passives and/or equipment, consoles and weapons. this is further detrimental to the current state of affairs for new and returning players alike. with the damage creep you're recommending, they will always be playing catch up as content will get harder and harder because we as players are getting stronger and stronger. pve content will reflect this and thus will discourage any new or non legacy player from venturing into this "end game" scenerio.
lastly, to your last statement, "As for the server, the game handles it decently enough now, it wouldn't hurt as much. If it IS a problem, that's incentive for them to improve the engine's capability to handle such. Win/Win." it is almost as insulting as half the trash cryptic spews to us. there are countless of documented cases and reports about lag, disconnects and overall server issues around these forums. for you to say that just burns my britches as to how out of touch you are with the current state of affairs in our little world. i can point you to multiple threads, but i would like to get to sleep sometime today.
please, go back and re-read my posts in their entirety. i give you the respect to address the issues as they appear in the quotes given. moar power is not the answer. i give you countless reasons and rationals about why an increase in cruiser and science ship damage potential will not solve anything. it will lead to a more vicious cycle than what we're already stuck in and this is merely the one part that i intended to address tonight. as for the rest, they will have to wait for another time.
your suggestion would totally kill the one thing that makes carriers unique. people fly carriers because of the pets and the versatility that they bring to one's build. it would be comparable to taking the extra shield modifier and sensor analysis from science ships and the extra hull hp and weapon and device slots from the cruiser. it would totally kill what makes each of these ship classes unique.
secondly, your fix for pet spam presents many issues within itself. first, pet ai is not the sharpest tool in the shed. your pets will wander and do their own things at times. should you be locked out from calling in reinforcements because one fighter or frigate got lost and is on the other side of the map? that would essentially gimp the carrier. there are already many issues with how the pet ai works. this added burden will likely increase problems if implemented.
thirdly, it still says nothing about the disparity your damage increase suggestion would create. sure, cruisers and science ships will do some more damage, but then what? what about the next wave of enemies the devs create? or about the content they'll release? the damage potential creep that this will cause will result in them creating content with hp that will fit. future enemies will get harder and harder, while older content will stay the same. you will steamroll the easy, older content and have to deal with the harder content. and it will get harder and harder, and you will ask for more and more. it's really a vicious cycle that solves nothing, except shift the balance of power from one class to another, all the while making it difficult for new players or players with brand new alts to keep up.
case in point: the reputation system and the passives they offer. with the increase in reputation trays and the subsequent passives that they will offer, brand new players and alts will always be playing catch up with legacy players. pvp will always be a joke, as these new players will continue to be steamrolled due to them not having the same level of passives and/or equipment, consoles and weapons. this is further detrimental to the current state of affairs for new and returning players alike. with the damage creep you're recommending, they will always be playing catch up as content will get harder and harder because we as players are getting stronger and stronger. pve content will reflect this and thus will discourage any new or non legacy player from venturing into this "end game" scenerio.
lastly, to your last statement, "As for the server, the game handles it decently enough now, it wouldn't hurt as much. If it IS a problem, that's incentive for them to improve the engine's capability to handle such. Win/Win." it is almost as insulting as half the trash cryptic spews to us. there are countless of documented cases and reports about lag, disconnects and overall server issues around these forums. for you to say that just burns my britches as to how out of touch you are with the current state of affairs in our little world. i can point you to multiple threads, but i would like to get to sleep sometime today.
please, go back and re-read my posts in their entirety. i give you the respect to address the issues as they appear in the quotes given. moar power is not the answer. i give you countless reasons and rationals about why an increase in cruiser and science ship damage potential will not solve anything. it will lead to a more vicious cycle than what we're already stuck in and this is merely the one part that i intended to address tonight. as for the rest, they will have to wait for another time.
Your point about carriers and powerups is well-taken. I'll concede that. But, I know FIRST-HAND how bad the servers are. I couldn't play SECOND WAVE without getting DC'ed a dozen times. It needs, NEEDS to be helped, fixed. DESPERATELY. Hell, I think it warrants a second Live server at this point. More pets or no, the servers NEED the fix.
Beam Arrays: They do need to do more damage. They're basically the weapon you choose when you can't use any other weapon. It's a coin toss with a full turret build. While a direct buff would be nice, I don't think doing that too heavily is the way to go.
First, as already said, it just pushes the arms race. Second, if they're for non-escorts it should not be a DPS thing. It should be a utility thing. Greater firing arcs, shield penetration, something special about how it fires, or just lesser power drain.
Hangers: Don't start handing out hangers like candy. Someone suggested giving my Atrox more hangers once upon a time. Even without the AI issues? Don't do it. Mercy! Do not do it! Having 36-60 fighters flying around, each spamming five or six abilities (some of them AoEs) will do very unkind things to server stability. If you think this is a keen idea, you've never been in a full carrier team.
12 Advanced stalkers spamming antiproton sweep is already a hairball in the drain with the Dominion Lockbox update making it super shiny.
They need to be handled in wings instead of separate objects or replaced with frigates if you want to start handing out hangers like candy. As for the AI? It's a attention sink, but if you know it's flaws it's not too horrific to handle. Definitely needs help though, or at least something in return of having to go the extra mile to make them work.
Edit: I have joked once I want to see a full Atrox team, but I have a fear the server really would implode if 60 Advanced stalkers tried to use anti-proton sweep on three or four targets at once.
Edit: I have joked once I want to see a full Atrox team, but I have a fear the server really would implode if 60 Advanced stalkers tried to use anti-proton sweep on three or four targets at once.
A few KDF buddies and I formed a full carrier team a while back for Mirror Incursion. I think between two Kar'fi's, a Vo'Quv and a couple of Orion ship we had six or seven different carrier pet types. The effect on the mirror ships was truly horrifying; the effect on the server, more so. But the server survived, which is more than can be said for ISS Stadi.
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I have six toons, only one of them is a Tac and I never use it because it's just so boring. I really enjoy playing with the sci powers (Grav Well, TBR, various shieldstrip, etc).
But they only feel useful when a couple of DPS machines aren't in the instance with me, and the group actually DOES want to hold the wave of borg away, or push them away from an area, or lacks the power to get through a shield quickly, so on.
It's no fun when some escort or (given the prevalence of lockbox ships) escort-like just shoots everything before anything I can do is useful. As a result, I often play non-Elite STF's, just because that's where the DPS machines don't hang out!
.... And it's really wierd that you can pretty effectively chain Tac and most Eng powers and not most of the Sci ones. Really, to buff Sci's, you don't need to change their powers or give them more damage or anything - just reduce the shared CD's and let them chain their stuff more effectively.
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You say this, and I know you truly believe it. Its why I say you have no clue of what you are talking about.
Unncessary DPS-hate aside, I think this is a good idea provided some of the consoles would be rebalanced first.
Hm, there's a good idea. Someone said "Diminishing Console Returns," but this is better.
This isn't "DPS-hate," and it most CERTAINLY is not unnecessary. You're clearly someone that loves DPS and doesn't want the status quo changed, even though the status quo is AWFUL. As I said in my replies, I FLY DPS ships. I LIKE DPS ships. I've SEEN what they can do, but it's not fair. It's TOTALLY unbalanced. It NEEDS to change.
I had a nice build on my wells for my sci captain using tric mines which allowed it to function nicely but not overpowered in elite STF. It could do a nice amount of damage to things and take out a cube in KASE (took quite a bit longer than tacticals and escorts though) and with forward planning you could kill multiple weak/medium enemies with gravity well, CPB and sensor scan. The tactical captains that could get 290-500k crits due to captain abilities caused tric mines to be nerfed into not being useful anymore. Now I must find a new source of high damage for my lt.comm tactical station.
Also to be fair that cruiser that out DPS'd the escorts, the escorts were most likely exceedingly bad. I have done it myself with an engineer in an ody, it's not to say I DPS like a king it's just those others that were THAT bad.
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Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
I prefer to support other ideas that I agree with towards making beams better, adding more BOff options, bolstering Cruisers and Science ships instead of the ideas found in this thread.
Oh, the game has never been balanced. It has merely had faults, bugs, tactics and power design changes that have favored one class over the others at different times through STOs history. First Science vessels then Cruisers and now Escorts until the next sudden changes tilt the favor toward the next class of vessels or toon.
Such is why I feel the OPs and some of the following ideas do nothing but continue the "tilting of favor" without fixing any issues
R.I.P
Except that we've done that. Section One, Subsections Two, Four and Five. Included is a HUGE beam buff, a proposal to rework Science abilities, and a buff TO all non-Escorts.
No, you merely tilt the favor around again. Nothing seems to me to be solved or balanced.
R.I.P
There you go again, you just keep proving your relative point of comparison is all wrong. Whatever damage you think you've seen an escort spit back out I've seen cruisers soak up 3 or 4 times as much, continously. I get that you're talking based on what you know, and what you've seen. I'm telling you this, your body of knowledge and experience is lacking. I also understand that the worst thing to tell someone that feels wronged is to wait up and invest time and effort into learning but that's what I think you need to do.
Its not necessarily your fault, the game does a terrible job of educating players.. I would say it actively teaches the wrong way to play!
Beams get buffed, Cruisers are worth something, and Escorts don't rule the roost but are still relevant. What would YOU do, if that isn't balance?
Okay... so you are LEGITIMATELY trying to tell me that, after MAXING half a dozen characters and playing this game for TWO YEARS... that my body of knowledge is "lacking?" It's not LACKING when I've seen my point proven SO THOROUGHLY that it disproves yours. I've got a tank build that can, and HAS, taken on EVERY NPC battleship IN THIS GAME at the same time, on ELITE no less, and not only WON, but survived the entire engagement.
That same build can't last two minutes in PvE. So, you are trying to tell me that builds that have more power than fourteen Elite Battleships can be countered by anything, when I know for a FACT you are wrong?
Stop insulting my intelligence.
It's acc/def/crit.
Anyways cheers!
Okay, so to hell with making Cruisers and Science vessels being relevant EVER, we should all just fly Escorts.
No. If you didn't see the point of the OP, it's understandable that you wouldn't think of it as "smart." The point is to make Cruisers and Science Ships relevant. The peoblem in this game has nothing to do with "acc/def/crit," it's a simple matter of Tactical Officers in Escorts being GROSSLY more powerful than everything else by the fact that 4 DHCs, 3 turrets and a few buffs can destroy everything in the game through sheer damage output. The why is simple: Tactical buffs, whether from BOffs or Captains, are far more effective than anything else. It's INCREDIBLY one-sided. So, you try to make that side weaker and strengthen the other two.
The "Escort" is not the end all be all like you suggest. Yes they are great but being a tac escort, I am just as comparable to the next skilled player in any other ship/class.
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I DO know how to fly each of the ships. I HAVE done so, MANY MANY times. Hell, at one time, I had a Sci IN a Sci ship, an Engineer in a Cruiser, and a Tac in an Escort. Each character was in the ship designed to fit their class. The Tac's overall effectiveness (in both damage and survivability) beat each of the others, with the SOLE exception of my TANK's survivability, and my Sci had a GOOD BUILD for a Sci ship. I've DONE it. I KNOW how these ships work. I have SEEN how big the imbalance is, and I decree that it is wrong.
But if we're going to touch on the subject of weapon hardpoints and arcs, where exactly are your beam arrays mounted? Are they all mounted along the very edge of the ship? Are some dorsal and some ventral? Either way the ventral mounts could not fire at a dorsal target neither could the port arrays hit a target inside a certain range of starboard. Just sayin'.
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allow me to elaborate. the disparity among hull hp and shield hp between the two classes is too great at the moment to allow for proper balancing of one class without negative effects on the other class. meaning, any changes made to pve will greatly affect the experience of pvp players and vice versa.
proposal:
pve enemy hull and shield hitpoints are brought more in line with player ships and such. however, pve enemies use a lot more skills designated for their class (tac, engi, sci) represented by the ship they are flying. pve enemy skills should be divided among healing skills, damage skills and other such skills, similar in comparison to the captains fighting them. this will allow for an overall re-balancing of weapons damage and the skills that affect it, if need be.
this will necessitate the need for other ships and classes such as engineers and science captains as well as their respective ships. this will allow for a greater variety of cross captain and ship combinations, without the need for sheer dps.
these changes alone opens up opportunity for the devs to focus on strategy versus sheer quantity of enemies. granted, racking up 5m in damage is fun, but it's not challenging at all. especially when targets aren't really firing back at you and are just sitting there.
in pvp, these squishy ships that we fly can take quite a beating and can give them in return. each ship type and captain class can perform admirably when the team works together. tacs in science vessels can unleash stronger than usual science abilities to crush the opponents. engineers in escorts don't have to rely on others for heals and buffs as much and can stay in the game longer. science in cruisers... they can debuff and heal and deal moderate damage. it allows for more diversity because we're not locked into a mission that's a race against an imaginary clock. dps does not have to reign supreme if this is the case.
hive onslaught space elite is perhaps the better example of my idea in action. where the queen and to a lesser extent, the unimatrix ships all use a wide variety of skills and debuffs that throws captains off their game. it requires more than just 5 tactical captains in 5 escorts for you to succeed. that's the way true balance should be. granted, with these changes, you won't need 8 tactical cubes and 16 spheres for the first round. give them abilities to heal themselves and offensive abilities other than high yield and fire at will. also, it wouldnt hurt to have many of these skills randomized by instance. so we're not fighting the same battle over and over and over again. it would be a true test of teamwork and skills, versus steamrolling dps and yawn.
tl:dr - bring pve more in line with pvp in terms of hull hit points, shield hit points and skill abilities. let pve enemies use skills in the same range of the captains they are fighting against. randomize said skills for each instance so each fight is different than the last ensuring each instance and the overall experience is not the same.
oh, if you don't want asinine tactical captains in escorts pretending they're superman and flying into each enemy face first... then institute a real death penalty with consequences. it will make squishy pilots think twice about diving head first into a bunch of pve enemies without support. but really, i like the idea i listed above a lot more than this simple cryptic worthy (act first, think later) approach
This would be fun, but I don't know if they have the tech to implement this. It'd make PvE a bit harder, but you would never be able to make a definite PvE build. Plus, if it's just RANDOM BOff powers, some PvE ships would have NO power (inevitably, they'd have Photonic Officer, and Emergency Power to Aux, or some other useless power), and some would be INSANELY OP. In the end, it MIGHT do more harm than good. Great idea,but it'd have to be heavily worked on before implementation.
1. the extra entities flying around from all the cruisers, sci ships, escort carriers and carriers not only creates more on screen lag, but network lag as well. each entity and the weapons they fire and the projectiles they create are all logged, processed and run through the same servers we use. by giving everyone all these extra pets, you create unnecessary waste that further clogs up the servers, resulting in a worse play experience for all.
example 1: ever notice how in a 20 person space fleet mission, everyones computer seems to slow down a bit? increase the amount of plasma weapons, plasma fires and ewp trails and such and fps slows to an absolute crawl? you can have the best possible computer, but if the network connection and servers arent able to process all that is going on, youre going to lag.
2. from a non-technical standpoint: increasing overall damage from pets for pve might result in you getting through the instance a bit quicker and perhaps, dying, a little less, but it severely impacts pvp play. imagine everyone and their mother launching shuttlecrafts with their bothersome tractor beams. no one will be able to move in pvp. you escape one tractor beam, maybe 2, but with everyone an their mother having shuttles with tractors, where are you going to go? how about elite scorpion fighters? or the elite hanger pets many people will be getting? all the spam from those high yield plasma torpedos will do no one good.
3. from a non pvp or technical standpoint: youre taking one class of ship and completely throwing it under the bus, just so you can make your preferred class of ship fun to use. if you want hanger pets, fly a carrier. it's as simple as that. the changes you recommend make carriers nearly obsolete. who cares if you can only support 1 wing at a time per hanger? theyre pretty much disposable anyway. you just keep summoning. spam spam spam. what the hell is the point of that?
and just in case you forgot: the link to your original post on the idea. i know you have a hard on for escort pilots and their melty ways, but increasing the damage potential of all will just result in them making pve enemies with more shield and hp. it's still a vicious cycle leading to no where.
That's why I halved the number of wings per hanger. Even IF it made it worse, it wouldn't be much more. And it WOULD help. And notice, in BOTH incarnations, Escorts don't get any fighters. Escorts are KINDA fun, but I don't, by ANY means, have a "hard on" for them. Hence why this post focused SLIGHTLY on bringing their power level below 9000. Thanks for the link, though. I'd lost it.
they do have the tech for it. it's not from all the powers. it's from a specific subset that they create. look at the queen. she has ams, sub nuke beams, fire at will, torp spread, a photonic shockwave like skill, tactical team, shield and hull regen and those are the ones i can name off the top of my head. oh and feedback pulse. the unimatrix ships use multiple skills as well. so yes, they do have the tech to implement this. yes, it should make pve harder, but through this way, you can bring pve and pvp more in line with each other so any changes you make in the long run will not drastically affect the game play of the other.
in regards to the random skills, i mean additional skills on top of standard skills such as tactical team, bfaw for cruisers and sci ships/crf and csv for escorts. give enemies a good amount of skills to play with. maybe 1 additional attack pattern skill, be it beta, delta or omega being the random ones. for engineering, have them equipped with one epts/w skill and have x # of skills based on captain level. for science skills, have one healing and one offensive skill and two randoms.
that's what i meant. sorry for the confusion. they still pack a punch, but now they have other toys to play with.
I was acutually considering putting something like THIS in the OP, as part of a scrapped third Section. THIS is a good idea, at least. Make it seem like you're facing something the same level as you. It might even make players look at PvP more. THIS is a good idea, at least.
Point 1: by halving the wings per hanger, you are essentially negating a safety countermeasure that cryptic has placed on carriers to prevent abuse. by circumventing the 2 wings per hanger, carriers can now summon all 4 wings at once and can replace them with little to no cooldown, thus ensuring 100% uptime and fresh waves whenever the cooldown is up. all you have to do is keep spamming for more reinforcements. you could in turn summon 4 waves of elite scorpion fighters (12 in total) have most of them fire off their high yield torpedos and then resummon all 12 again to do the same. it would be an endless chain.
plus, you give science vessels and carriers 1 and 2 hangers respectively, thus ensuring they have 3 and 6 fighters available at all times too, to which they can spam for 100% uptime.
now going back to my original post, let me ask you how do you think cryptic's servers and their respective network will be able to handle all that additional data, when they're barely handling it now? double if not triple the amount of server not responding and disconnects. you increase the amount of spam that players have and i will guarantee you will crash the servers. go into a 20 man space mission now and see how pleasurable it is. now imagine all the cruisers and science vessels having all that extra spam.
what do you do to counteract the additional damage? do you leave the enemies as they are now? what about future enemies and content? how do we address the issues of balance then?
what would be the point of flying a vo'quv? or a caitain carrier? what differentiates them from all the carrier wannabe cruisers? theyre stuck with less weapons and a crappier turn rate, and for what? how do you address these issues for balance?
so please, the next response you give offer a counterpoint or something that would facilitate dialogue. my first post, you didnt even read fully or you would've seen that i did give an example of how we have the tech already. it would facilitate the lack of a need for dps boosting measures like the ones youre suggesting, which frankly would throw the game's balance further out of whack.
The carriers' lack of weapons is why they still have all the total wings. However, negating that spam is easy (and, for me, would be more beneficial): The skill doesn't become available again until all of its fighters are dead (it stays grayed out until then). This also tells you how many fighters you have left. But, if we're buffing Cruisers (see subsection two), we could pass those to the carriers. Improve their turn rates, give them better weapons, etc. The extra damage is WHY the Cruisers/Sci Ships get them, but I suppose they could get -20% damage for not being from a carrier.
As for the server, the game handles it decently enough now, it wouldn't hurt as much. If it IS a problem, that's incentive for them to improve the engine's capability to handle such. Win/Win.
true teamwork will be needed. crosshealing and roles will need to be fulfilled. if you really, really want balance. this is how it starts.
but really, this is only the beginning. you still need to know your role.
albeit a bit vague,
1. escorts should always be dealing damage. tac-escorts = most damage, needs most help surviving. engi-escorts = a good amount of damage and survivability. sci-scorts = good amount of damage and should focus on debuffs and stuff.
2. cruisers are meant to take damage and to heal. tac-cruisers = more supplemental damage with excellent survivability. engi-cruisers = best survivability, should focus on healing and providing support while dealing moderate damage. sci-cruisers = best support class with debuffs while providing okay damage.
3. science ships are meant for crowd control and debuffs. tac-sci = higher damage offensive science skills. engi-sci = jack of all trades. very versitile in both debuffs, healing and support. sci-sci = complete shut down artist.
either way, roles are meant to be played. i'm not telling you this is how it's supposed to be and these are your only options, but this is the balance as it stands today. because of the structure of how the game is set up today, many of these niche categories are already obsolete. science skills lack the punch they once had. engineering and support roles are not needed because of the lack of constant pressure dps. the spike damage model currently employed renders these engi and support positions obsolete, for the most part. a ship can easily lose 40-60% of its hull from a torpedo spread or a beam overload (the latter of which i believe accounts for the invi-oneshot from the tactical cube). by bringing pve more in line with pvp, the devs won't have to use additional damage modifiers to supplement pve enemies. it makes the fight a bit fairer, while still maintaining, if not increasing the overall difficulty.
This is the design intention, yes. But those Eng and Sci Cruisers/Science Vessels can do next to NOTHING next to Tacs. There's NO damage from Eng/Scis. They STILL need some buff. With NO buffs, as a Tac Escort, I can do 4k DPS. NO buffs. Fully buffed, my Eng Cruiser can MAYBE reach that. Full buffed, my Tac Escort shoots over 30k DPS. This is a MAJOR gap that NEEDS to be narrowed. Yes, the roles NEED to be played. But Cruisers and Sci Vessels are almost TOTALLY irrelevant. Sure, they can survive, or try to lock down enemies. But by the time the Scis lock them down, the Tacs would have killed them and all their friends. The Engineers can't tank if the Tacs have already cleared the MAP. THAT is the balance currently. THAT needs to be fixed.
your suggestion would totally kill the one thing that makes carriers unique. people fly carriers because of the pets and the versatility that they bring to one's build. it would be comparable to taking the extra shield modifier and sensor analysis from science ships and the extra hull hp and weapon and device slots from the cruiser. it would totally kill what makes each of these ship classes unique.
secondly, your fix for pet spam presents many issues within itself. first, pet ai is not the sharpest tool in the shed. your pets will wander and do their own things at times. should you be locked out from calling in reinforcements because one fighter or frigate got lost and is on the other side of the map? that would essentially gimp the carrier. there are already many issues with how the pet ai works. this added burden will likely increase problems if implemented.
thirdly, it still says nothing about the disparity your damage increase suggestion would create. sure, cruisers and science ships will do some more damage, but then what? what about the next wave of enemies the devs create? or about the content they'll release? the damage potential creep that this will cause will result in them creating content with hp that will fit. future enemies will get harder and harder, while older content will stay the same. you will steamroll the easy, older content and have to deal with the harder content. and it will get harder and harder, and you will ask for more and more. it's really a vicious cycle that solves nothing, except shift the balance of power from one class to another, all the while making it difficult for new players or players with brand new alts to keep up.
case in point: the reputation system and the passives they offer. with the increase in reputation trays and the subsequent passives that they will offer, brand new players and alts will always be playing catch up with legacy players. pvp will always be a joke, as these new players will continue to be steamrolled due to them not having the same level of passives and/or equipment, consoles and weapons. this is further detrimental to the current state of affairs for new and returning players alike. with the damage creep you're recommending, they will always be playing catch up as content will get harder and harder because we as players are getting stronger and stronger. pve content will reflect this and thus will discourage any new or non legacy player from venturing into this "end game" scenerio.
lastly, to your last statement, "As for the server, the game handles it decently enough now, it wouldn't hurt as much. If it IS a problem, that's incentive for them to improve the engine's capability to handle such. Win/Win." it is almost as insulting as half the trash cryptic spews to us. there are countless of documented cases and reports about lag, disconnects and overall server issues around these forums. for you to say that just burns my britches as to how out of touch you are with the current state of affairs in our little world. i can point you to multiple threads, but i would like to get to sleep sometime today.
please, go back and re-read my posts in their entirety. i give you the respect to address the issues as they appear in the quotes given. moar power is not the answer. i give you countless reasons and rationals about why an increase in cruiser and science ship damage potential will not solve anything. it will lead to a more vicious cycle than what we're already stuck in and this is merely the one part that i intended to address tonight. as for the rest, they will have to wait for another time.
Your point about carriers and powerups is well-taken. I'll concede that. But, I know FIRST-HAND how bad the servers are. I couldn't play SECOND WAVE without getting DC'ed a dozen times. It needs, NEEDS to be helped, fixed. DESPERATELY. Hell, I think it warrants a second Live server at this point. More pets or no, the servers NEED the fix.
Beam Arrays: They do need to do more damage. They're basically the weapon you choose when you can't use any other weapon. It's a coin toss with a full turret build. While a direct buff would be nice, I don't think doing that too heavily is the way to go.
First, as already said, it just pushes the arms race. Second, if they're for non-escorts it should not be a DPS thing. It should be a utility thing. Greater firing arcs, shield penetration, something special about how it fires, or just lesser power drain.
Hangers: Don't start handing out hangers like candy. Someone suggested giving my Atrox more hangers once upon a time. Even without the AI issues? Don't do it. Mercy! Do not do it! Having 36-60 fighters flying around, each spamming five or six abilities (some of them AoEs) will do very unkind things to server stability. If you think this is a keen idea, you've never been in a full carrier team.
12 Advanced stalkers spamming antiproton sweep is already a hairball in the drain with the Dominion Lockbox update making it super shiny.
They need to be handled in wings instead of separate objects or replaced with frigates if you want to start handing out hangers like candy. As for the AI? It's a attention sink, but if you know it's flaws it's not too horrific to handle. Definitely needs help though, or at least something in return of having to go the extra mile to make them work.
Edit: I have joked once I want to see a full Atrox team, but I have a fear the server really would implode if 60 Advanced stalkers tried to use anti-proton sweep on three or four targets at once.
A few KDF buddies and I formed a full carrier team a while back for Mirror Incursion. I think between two Kar'fi's, a Vo'Quv and a couple of Orion ship we had six or seven different carrier pet types. The effect on the mirror ships was truly horrifying; the effect on the server, more so. But the server survived, which is more than can be said for ISS Stadi.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
But they only feel useful when a couple of DPS machines aren't in the instance with me, and the group actually DOES want to hold the wave of borg away, or push them away from an area, or lacks the power to get through a shield quickly, so on.
It's no fun when some escort or (given the prevalence of lockbox ships) escort-like just shoots everything before anything I can do is useful. As a result, I often play non-Elite STF's, just because that's where the DPS machines don't hang out!
.... And it's really wierd that you can pretty effectively chain Tac and most Eng powers and not most of the Sci ones. Really, to buff Sci's, you don't need to change their powers or give them more damage or anything - just reduce the shared CD's and let them chain their stuff more effectively.