You all want a class that can tank and deal great damage
Looked at an escort recently?
Dual EPtS, any ship can have
Dual Tac teams (Super-fast shield distribution) all escorts and only a few ships of other classes can do (without hindering performance)
Agility (read dodge) well, thats escort only
Highest damage weapons, escort only (aside from a select few other ships)
Attack an escort with a beamboat cruiser/sci ship and you get laughed at. Attack a beamboat cruiser/sci ship with an escort and unless you draw, you win, oh look... "a class that can tank and deal great damage"
It is not at all unrealistic - you have no idea what the relative power/mass ratios are of those ships, nor do you know that 'size' and 'mass' are the same thing. Hell, in an world that has 'inertial dampers', it's even easier to hand-wave those issues away. My point remains - this 'size' issue is purely aesthetics, and that is entirely subjective.
As for the tactical benefits of maneuver - yes, agility is good, because it makes you more able to deliver whatever you are supposed to deliver - damage, heals, CC, etc. My point is that being 'fast' is not a role in and of itself, and you and others keep acting like it is.
...
DPS classes are almost always 'faster' because they need to get in to deliver damage. They also need to have SOME tanking ability. This is what escorts do. Escorts are NOT super tanks, and no matter how many times you say it on the internet, it won't make it true. Cruisers can VASTLY out-tank an escorts, it's simply that few choose to do so, either because they don't enjoy that role, or because they would rather build a generalist ship that allows them to play solo, instead of a team-focused support ship.
Thats the very point of it, in Star Trek there are no classes like in STO, there are no dedicated "healer" ships or Damage Dealers, surely some are more focussed on one task but basicly they are all cruisers in some way. They are all able to take care of themselves without having to rely on other ship to do the damage/healing whatever.
In my opinion, much of the 'STO should be this instead' is the product of lazy minds who are unable to conceive of the fact that saying 'there is a better way of perfect balance that pleases everyone' is far, far easier than actually doing it, nor can they understand that things that appeal to them personally may not appeal to the mass market that games need to survive.
Or, put another way: Yes, Cryptic designed an MMO so that it would appeal to fans of that genre. Sorry you're not one of them.
STO is first and foremost a Star Trek game, people get appealed to it because of the name "Star Trek".
What they find when playing it is just the same old MMO trinity 1000 other MMOs also use, wouldn't say anything about it but it doesn't fit to Star Trek ships at all. Other games like Bridge Commander, Legacy or the Starfleet Command series had Multiplayer modes too, whitout having to rely on that lazy and completely improper MMO trinity.
Cryptic on the other just put Star Trek ship into that system, no matter if those "roles" fit to that ships or not. What i am criticising is the lack of "truth" to how Trek ships are supposed to work.
Basicly alll endgame ships should be equal strong in offensive and defensive but every ships should have it's own way to archieve that.
Too complicated?
For example: A Defiant Calss ship gets its Offensive mainly through its forward facing cannons, its defensivce though its armoe and fast movement.
A Ambassador Class Crusier should be able to do just the same amount of damage and be able just as good by healing and providing itself with resisatnce buffs.
The point is NOT to give an Ambassador or all ships the firepower of a Defiant, but to decrease the defiants firepower to a more moderate amount. While at the same
time increasing its defensive.
A team of game developers who wants to seriously archieve a real "balance" while making a Star Trek game that actually works like one, can easily archive it, if they want to.
What bothers ME the most is people who are so wrapped up in their own preferences that they label every minor issue they have as 'the most important'. But that's nit-picking. My next pet-peeve is people who talk about making ships 'true' to what we see on screen, since that's basically impossible. The capabilities of the ships on the screen were dictated not by any consistent rules, they were dictated by the needs of the plot. Thus some days a Galaxy class was a super-ship that could save the Federation single-handed, while on others it was a ridiculous underdog versus the 'enemy of the week'.
Again, saying 'there should be ways to make them do the same amount of damage, just differently' is far, far easier than actually coming up with such a system.
Besides, even if you did, there would still end up being one 'method' of damage dealing that was 'better' than the others, and you'd have the same problem all over again.
Finally, right now, all ship classes can contribute effectively to endgame content. If you can't make your cruiser perform a role in an STF, that is on you, full stop. If you are complaining that you want to be able to do more damage so that you can finish STFs even faster than you already are, well, then use the damage dealing ship type. If you are annoyed because escorts can avoid being killed while doing more damage than you, maybe you should look at what cruisers can do, and see how to use that as a strength. If you can't find some sort of joy in being a team tank/heal supporter, then you are in the wrong ship.
My only goal here is to have STO a bit more like Star Trek.
Of course there have to be differences wihthin the ships in ST, that's not the question. But there is absolutely no reason to make one class of ships dominating all others, even if these where cruisers.
Contrary to some people here and Cryptics devs i don't want to have my favourite ships dominate all others, i just want them to be treated fair.
Oh, I didn't realize that the real Starfleet ships that really exist in the real world had really really stats that are really different than this game. How dare devs use the wrong kind of make-believe to build their game! Oh... wait.
Also, Starfleet ships are ABSOLUTELY specialists = Defiant, Prometheus, Olympic, Oberth, Nova, etc. All of those ships had specific roles to fill, and were designed specifically to perform them. I think what you meant to say was 'Some Starfleet ships, particularly cruisers like the Galaxy, were designed as generalists so that they could do any job with some faculty, but none of them perfectly'. Huh, sounds a lot like the build we already saw in this thread, but that's probably a crazy co-incidence.
Not true.
Even the defiant was able to Tank and to do damage in the shows. But in your beloved trinity this shouldn't be possible, since it is supposed to be a glass cannon (which it surely isn't in STO, lol).
The Prometheus was outfittet with phaser arrays and not cannons and even when fighting it wasn't even nerarly as agile as a defiant, maybe in seperated mode but still it didn't use cannon weapons. It was clearly something like a (light) tactical crusier, a platform to test new technologies. Similar to the Vesta, just tactical focussed instead of science.
That's exactly what i was talking about earlier, giving ships some special ability, but to make them basicly equal too.
The Prometheus is a good example for that. A cruiser like ship, able to survive on its own but with a special ability that no other ship has. A good game design team could implement such a feature into a "balanced" sytem without having to rely on the MMO trinity.
Since most ships in starfleet (not STO) are crusiers, so most starfleet ships are generalists, i didn'tknow this could cause any confusion. Sorry.[/QUOTE]
I do too, so you could go be disappointed with them instead of constantly posting here.
The best thing about a game like that would be that MMO fanboys (including some fo Cryptics devs) wouldn't try to make a Star Trek game into a generic little MMO like every other 10000 Online MMOs out there.
I like your postings too.
I wouldn't constantly complain about this game if Cryptics developers would at least try to show a little care for Star Trek, instead of just making stuff they find "cool". I think to demand a bit more care and commmon sense is not too much IMO.
I'm sorry i would love to continue right now but i'm in a hurry. Sor sorry for any spelling errors, i hope you understand what i want to say anyway.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
burst damage is on or off
what they have is focussed damage that starts higher than any other class and can be boosted higher again.
Ofcourse it higher, that's the ideal weapon for ships that have that kind of turn rate and speed.
It's called "tactical advantage".
Without any abilites cannons dont do anymore damage than beam weapons do, because of cooldowns.
Using RF and SV is like using BO.
how lucky. means i get a ship thats actually a cruiser with all the benefits of the wad exploits
Actually, no, unless you have the same boff slottings as a cruiser does in your escort, or is it the escorts you've met and lost against?
right, and the firing arc is part of that balance that is broken by escort turnrate
No, it is not broken.
A ship with a lesser turnrate would not be able to use the weapons as they are intended to be used.
They would not be able to keep smaller ships in their firing arcs long enough to do any good damage.
There of, there are few cruisers (fed) that can equip cannons, and those that can are better off using beam weapons, because of their lower turnrate.
And that is why beam weapons have a wide firing arc, so they do not need to worry that they have to have their nose pointing at the target all the time.
And that is why beam weapons also drain more power from the weapon battery for sustainability over distance when smaller ships are escaping them.
if they are the same size, and have the same grade propulsion i guarentee you one ownt be twice as agile as the other.
Heard of impulse modifier?
That means that the impulse engines output is modified to fit to the ship in question.
A cruiser get lower speed from their modifier.
as it would still be without the game breaking agility of escorts.
Ok...
The game is broken, dont play it :-D
No seriously.
This is how the escorts work in this game.
The are fast, they are loaded with heavy weapons that do heavy damage up close.
Getting close is a kind of brave thing to do, considering you can get trapped in a tractor beam, power siphon, a great deal of many things that can take down a escort in the game.
Escorts do not have big crews either, so when crew dies off, repairs is really slow.
Using abilites only helps some, but when that ability has stopped working and your crew is dead and you are still getting shot at and your shields fail, the escort dies.
that is called ''no you''.
since for you to push the point you are making you must be wilfully ignorant of agilities role in combat game.
So, you have any other star trek mmo combat game to compare to?
Or is there are standard set for star trek mmos saying what agilities must be?
If so, please show us that...
Or is this only what you think is wrong?
the boff and console slotting is irrelivent to the agility exploit escrots have.
on an even agility footing they would remain specialised
and no, my ship does not need to turn faster that a ship the same size, because that is a cheat.
admittedly, one i use because i dont see why i should make life harder for myself.
It's not irrelevant, it's all connected together in the game mechanics, and how the game works.
And... Size do not matter.
The escorts engine output is modified with an impulse modifier.
yup, and its so broken its not funny
How is it broken?
Have you been looking into the game code and seen it for yourself?
Please explain how it is broken, and just not saying "the escorts agility is game breaking"
yep.
my dps easily out deose a cruiser, and my turn rate makes it stupid since instead of having to take runs with spike damage, i can just sit there and chew through them.
and if im not winning hard enough, i can just leave because im faster & twice as agile.
because guess what.
my escort had the dps
my escort has the hull
and
my escort has enough healing that i outlive cruisers thanks to my agility letting me get out of the firing line without having to think about it.
Oh i've beaten many cruisers too!
But...
I've also been beaten a number of times by cruisers.
IF the captain knows how to setup his ship, an escort is no problem, should be no problem.
i dont have to choose.
i just take an escort, since its easy mode.
my dps offsets healing abilities from 80 to 90% of cruisers and i have more hull than sci ships.
sci ships having hed their powers nerfed so hard they arent even discussed as contenders
I agree totally with you on the nerfed sci ships, but my guess is that they did that because monetary reason only.
Since most sci abilites is skilled on the captain and boffs there ain't much to sell...
you mean being punch bags because people want to keep forcing a BROKEN example of the mmorpg model? that the ships dont fit to begin with?
Still, do you have any other mmo star trek game that follows your intended thinking here, so we do have some proof of somethig being broken?
They are punching bags, the cruisers.
They are there to take a beating, to keep aggro away from escorts.
An escort has to face the enemy to deal damage. The thing about dual or dual heavy cannons is...they don't do damage if you are flying at full speed.
Every time you are not facing the enemy, you are doing less damage then any Science or Cruiser ship.
Sure it can run away, but then it is not doing damage is it?
Also, you can use two Emergency power to shields... but that is only good with a torpedo escort, for a full cannon-turret one has to sacrifices the emergency power to weapons for it.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
Also, you can use two Emergency power to shields... but that is only good with a torpedo escort, for a full cannon-turret one has to sacrifices the emergency power to weapons for it.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL *Takes deep breath*
Excuse me while I laugh at you some more... lolololol
And you call ME a noob? lol
I can run 4 DHCs and 3 turrets on my tac/scort with dual EPtS and not suffer noticeably from the extra 12 power drain. In fact I run EPtS1 and EPtA1 with 3 Damage control doffs do I can have 99% uptime on both, it happens I rarely die...
afaik there is a trick to hit the gate that lets you get ot in your shooting range while out of its targeting range.
basically you fly up level to the top of the gatethen go off to the side.
at a range where your targetting says you are at 8.5 to 9 km, the gates targeting says you are at +10km thus if you dont have eggro already, it likely just wont target you.
Actually if you sit 4k underneath it, since the gate's weapons are at it's top and the gate itself is something like 7 or 8k tall, it can't hit you.
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 fly both cruisers and escorts, both types are good if you know how to use them.
Lets go for a historical companion, Escorts are like the old WW2 PT boats, light,fast and well armed, the escorts in STO are light, fast and well armed. it's not a case of that they are OP, it is more potently armed but it has sacrificed protection, it's speed is it's defense.
The cruisers are best compared to WW2 battleships, tough it's designed for long fights and heavily armed but it's slow. The cruisers in STO are like those battleships, they can take a massive beating and still duke it out, it can fight for longer whereas an escort must get out of dodge as fast as possible. The cruiser is designed for 2 tasks in mind, one is to support and the other as a broadside attacker, the ship's performance depends on the player's skill and build skill. I'm a tac captain by the way.
And for science being under powered, I take down warbirds for fun on my science alt in an Intrepid 1 on 1 for fun.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I fly both cruisers and escorts, both types are good if you know how to use them.
Lets go for a historical companion, Escorts are like the old WW2 PT boats, light,fast and well armed, the escorts in STO are light, fast and well armed. it's not a case of that they are OP, it is more potently armed but it has sacrificed protection, it's speed is it's defense.
The cruisers are best compared to WW2 battleships, tough it's designed for long fights and heavily armed but it's slow. The cruisers in STO are like those battleships, they can take a massive beating and still duke it out, it can fight for longer whereas an escort must get out of dodge as fast as possible. The cruiser is designed for 2 tasks in mind, one is to support and the other as a broadside attacker, the ship's performance depends on the player's skill and build skill. I'm a tac captain by the way.
And for science being under powered, I take down warbirds for fun on my science alt in an Intrepid 1 on 1 for fun.
In theory, this is sound and how it should be. However, the problem with this is that cruisers CAN'T duke it out like old battleships could and escorts DON'T sacrifice protection, since they can tank almost just as well, while still being leaps and bounds ahead in raw damage output.
there is no way 5 engineers would even get through without the optional.
stfs are timed, 5 eng have such pathetic dmg output they wouldnt make the time cut lol
Yes and no. MOST pug engis can't build their ships for beans, so their damage output is maybe 2.5k dps at most.
BUT take 5 Engi FACRs that are specced exclusively for damage and built properly, and make sure the pilots know how to use them, and you will complete it with all optionals. It will take almost the entire timer, but you will get them.
Or you can cheat and take 5 engis in Tor'kahts and laugh as you burn the Borg away into nothing.
But in the end, you NEED to spec your cruiser exclusively for damage in order to do this. And in doing so, you will sacrifice utility and survivability. Granted the Eng captain abilities help buffer this slightly, but still, it's not going to be easy.
The problem here is that building a cruiser that can do lots of damage takes time, resources, and extensive experience. Whereas building a tanky escort takes a little time, not a ton of resources, and just general game knowledge.
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'm not going to try to go point by point anymore, I'll just lay out my positions as clearly as I can:
For the "size v agility" discussion, there are two things to understand. First is that despite all the assumptions certain people wish to make, we don't in fact, know anything about the building materials or the size of the engines on different ships. The itemization in this game is highly abstract - are you seriously going to argue that because you can take an engine off a cruiser and put it on a shuttle, that engine is literally the same piece of equipment? Of course not. More to the point, because ships are not real, you can't KNOW anything about them, you can only assume things, based on your own inclinations. That, coupled with the fact that in the real world, vehicles of the same size DON'T have the same characteristics (say, battleships versus carriers in WWII), means this is something that is always going to be an 'opinion', not a fact.
Second thing to get here is that it fundamentally doesn't even matter for ship balance what the ship looks like. You could replace my Advanced Escort ship model with a Giraffe, and it wouldn't change the power balance in the game one bit. Sure, it would probably look stupid, but looking stupid isn't a balance issue, it's an aesthetic one. I don't understand why this is so hard to accept, but there it is.
Now, as far as agility as a balance issue is concerned, the point I have been making is that while speed matters, it is not one of the primary ways to balance a ship, because it only ever acts as a sort of 'multiplier' to a ship's other capabilities. Certainly being more maneuverable is an advantage if ships have the same capabilities otherwise, but being fast alone is NOT a role a ship can perform, nor is being fast alone a way to help effect the outcome of a mission. That is not true of things like firepower, tanking, and crowd control. Those are the 'roles' to balance around. Speed is only ever a secondary concern to those issues.
Consider how many ships can function perfectly well without CC. Similarly, it's easy to imagine a ship with no weapons that none-the-less helps a team win by debuffing enemies to the aid in their destruction, etc. Sure, that hypothetical ship would be terrible for solo play, but it could potentially be great in a team setting. Now consider a ship that is three times as maneuverable as anything in the game, but that has no guns. That ship is terrible for both solo and team play. Thus, agility is not a primary factor.
Finally, I want to point out that the thought experiment shows something powerful about the nature of balance. Clearly the hypothetical CC boat above would be terrible for a solo player. In a team, though, for someone who doesn't really care about being the damage dealer, it might be a great fit. This is a great demonstration of how ships that some players insist are 'under-powered' can actually be very well balanced in a team setting.
For the rest of the discussion (things like 'ship classes aren't trek' etc), those are again primarily issues of opinion - get two trek fans in a room, and you'll probably get at least three opinions about what is 'really' trek. Some people may say the Defiant was a multi-role ship, because it could tank, deal damage and get in and out of combat areas easily. I say that those are all pretty useful in a ship designed for combat:).
you have no point to go point by point with.
you seem under the impression that 2 combat vessels built be the same civilisation with the same level of scientific advancment are going to be fundamentally different on a technological level.
and to counter my argument about two ships the same size being resonably comparable you respond with a red herring about aircraft carriers and go on to talk about changing the model for a giraffe. pure hyperbole if ever i have seen it. topped off with strawmanning my point about tech level with physical size of the engine in question.
that is three different admissions of defeat
and by the way, in this game there is no reason a CC ship couldnt do pve content as well as a heal ship or dps ship.
simply that they would accomplish the same ends be different means.
but as it is, that is imposable since the heal ship cant dps enough to offset damage and a CC ship has had all its powers nerfed to the point that the only powers it has that are still up to the task of effective CC, are TB and TBR, both of which escorts can use.
unless you are talking about an escort cannon boat set up with c:sv then CC builds dont matter, and drain builds are also going to be gone thanks to poorly implemented syphon drones and PvP minmaxers not specing power insulators and then complaining about getting bled dry by a tactic they left themselves open too.
Dude. Seriously? I don't get why you are so hostile, especially since you are so manifestly wrong that the only way you could be more wrong would be if you were to change your name to "Wrongy Mcwrongerson".
Tech level - okay. Let's look at the real world for a second. Right now the US navy has ships built with technology levels from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and so on. All of these ships have different levels of technology, so, yeah, I do think a civilization will use ships with different tech levels. Because, you know, that's one of them fact things that sometimes crops up.
In game, we have ships from over 100 year of history, so that seems like an even bigger gap, but I guess that's just me having no point and being ignorant.
As for the strawman/red herring, you are the one who said that we know ships have the same engines because they use the same gear. At least, that is how I interpreted your comment about all ships using mark XII equipment. My point was that a MK XII Engine can be moved from a cruiser to a shuttle, but that doesn't mean it's literally the same engine, because that would be dumb.
Beyond that, there is the issue of ship configuration. A heavy cruiser has 500 crew. An advanced escort has 150. Where does the space saved by having 350 less crew go? Isn't it at least POSSIBLE that the space goes to improved engines?
And last, my example with the giraffe was to point out that this whole discussion is crazy because what a ship looks like doesn't have a single thing to do with how the ship operates, and thus is not related to balance, no matter how much it annoys you.
Now for balance.
Go back and re-read my example again. My hypothetical CC ship had no weapons. None. Zero. Less that 1 by at least 1. How does that ship finish a mission solo? Oh, it doesn't. Even if it has infinite CC power and infinite maneuver, it still fails at the 'defeat the patrols' stage of the first mission it comes across. Yet, that ship could to well in a team setting, demonstrating yet again that team balance and solo balance aren't the same.
And gosh, I didn't realize that you couldn't complete missions with science ships and cruisers. I guess I should apologize to all those missions I finished in those ships, I must've cheated.
Wait, actually it sounds like you're talking about PVP here, actually, when you talk about not being able to out dps the escort's heals. That's odd, since I thought we already established that this was about pve balance, not pvp. If you want to talk about PVP balance, I suggest you go talk to the people who PVP a bunch. Ask them if cruisers are unable to tank escort damage. In fact, ask them if the problem is that escorts do too much damage. That will be fun for you, I bet.
As for STFs, I keep seeing things like "Cruisers can't complete the missions" and "Cruisers can't get optionals", but seeing as how I've done all of them except Hive Onslaught with a full cruiser team, I think these are maybe problems that exist only in the hermetically sealed world of internet outrage, but not in the actual game. Even if STFs are FASTER with an all escort team, does that really matter? Is playing the game so painful for you that spending 12 minutes doing a mission instead of 9 represents a vast imbalance that can't possibly be lived with?
I eagerly await your well reasoned and thoughtful response. Since, you know, it would be a first.
Wait, actually it sounds like you're talking about PVP here, actually, when you talk about not being able to out dps the escort's heals. That's odd, since I thought we already established that this was about pve balance, not pvp. If you want to talk about PVP balance, I suggest you go talk to the people who PVP a bunch. Ask them if cruisers are unable to tank escort damage. In fact, ask them if the problem is that escorts do too much damage. That will be fun for you, I bet.
To be fair the general consensus among the PvP community is that beams are ineffectual and need a boost and Geko is an idiot (Yes, I will be blunt on the matter) for not seeing this, I tend to agree, between basic resistance and heals beam arrays cannot destroy a PvP ship, my Tac/scort can tank 3 cruisers without breaking a sweat and destroy them one or two at a time as it's alpha strike is refreshed and that is without any borg insta-heal proc or Rep heal passives...
And as for "cruisers are unable to tank escort damage" That is only half the battle, one can damage sponge all day but damage sponging doesn't kill anything
Right, but that's my point. The issue is NOT that escorts do too much damage/are OP, its that heals are too strong. You want to buff beam damage, I'll get behind that all day, as long as the result is not to make cruisers the primary DPS class. Hell, remember, I run a beam-scort fail-build, so, yeah, yay beams, go to town.
I'm just saying, in terms of PVE content, cruisers can (and do) beat all the content in the game. Doing the content 'faster' is to me not a sign of a fundamental and game breaking imbalance. If anything, it shows that escorts MIGHT be slightly more optimal for that content, but that slight advantage gets magnified in the echo chamber that is certain posters' minds until it becomes 'Cruisers can't finish STFs', and then gets vomited out on the interwebs as gospel.
In PVP, a cruiser can be nigh invulnerable (Tick fans, that's for you), while escorts can and do pop under focused fire. Team based PVP balance is always going to be odd, because, a cruiser that can make itself nearly immune to damage, and can help another ship do the same, is certainly a great addition to team, even if it doesn't bring much damage to the table. If it DOES bring damage to the table, then you start moving back to all cruisers all the time, etc.
I'm just saying, in terms of PVE content, cruisers can (and do) beat all the content in the game. Doing the content 'faster' is to me not a sign of a fundamental and game breaking imbalance.
So can shuttles. Complete all the PvE content that is, including all ESTFs other than hive cause they banned shuttles from STFs pre hive launch.
In PVP, a cruiser can be nigh invulnerable (Tick fans, that's for you), while escorts can and do pop under focused fire.
Actually an escort pops under immobilizing CC. Otherwise it shouldn't have died unless the pilot is dumb enough to stay in the front arc of several other escorts focus firing upon it.
Strangely cruisers tend to go boom almost as easily when you have a good CCer with you.
How's about we give cruisers +10 to all power levels instead of +5 and give them built in emergency power to X as built in powers like subsystem targeting on a science ship?
Right, but that's my point. The issue is NOT that escorts do too much damage/are OP, its that heals are too strong. You want to buff beam damage, I'll get behind that all day, as long as the result is not to make cruisers the primary DPS class. Hell, remember, I run a beam-scort fail-build, so, yeah, yay beams, go to town.
Personally I think that heals should be percentage based see here for details and a bigger difference between escort and cruiser base hulls, having the glass cannon not glass cannony I think we can both agree is not very fair, I don't say the escorts should be at BoP levels of survivability, they should have more than that but remembering they are "weapons on a warp-core" they are quite expendable and should reflect that to a degree.
Once that is in place then a beam buff should be implemented, no more than 13% damage boost as anything more than that with a modification to how beams drain to drain per shot rather than per cycle would be too powerful but 10% with the drain mod and percentage based heals would be about right I think.
How's about we give cruisers +10 to all power levels instead of +5 and give them built in emergency power to X as built in powers like subsystem targeting on a science ship?
+10 power to all systems would be... a lot. They already get more power overall than any other ship type, plus they have more ability to slot power increasing consoles (terrible though those are now). Also, they can already run more Emergency power to X abilities already, which gives them an effective power bonus there as well. Still, I guess? Whatever, most of the time my Eng/Cruiser feels like it is straight capped or nearly so, so I guess being 'more' capped isn't really an issue.
As for inherent emergency power abilities, that seems like it would be less helpful than you think, since they would either be on an unimproved base cooldown, so they would mess up your cycles with your slotted Epower abilities, or the would be on min cooldowns that interfered again with the slotted Epower abilities that you have in your Ensign slots.
Of course, you could put Engineering team in the ensign slots instead, but then you run into cool-down problems with tac team...
So can shuttles. Complete all the PvE content that is, including all ESTFs other than hive cause they banned shuttles from STFs pre hive launch.
Just sayin.
Yes. Which is why claims like 'Cruisers are too under-powered to complete PVE content' are laughable. I think you are agreeing with me here, but I'm not sure that's your intent.
Actually an escort pops under immobilizing CC. Otherwise it shouldn't have died unless the pilot is dumb enough to stay in the front arc of several other escorts focus firing upon it.
Strangely cruisers tend to go boom almost as easily when you have a good CCer with you.
Subnuke + Stun + burst = cruiser go boom
Again, I'm honestly not sure what you mean by this - to me this is proving my point - CC (which many people say has been nerfed to uselessness), is actually quite good in PVP with a team backing it up. I guess to me that just shows that teamwork wins? Sci provides the CC stun, Escort provides the burst, target explodes, unless Eng cruiser does his job with extends and Aux to SIF. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?
Absent the CC scenario, does the cruiser still die? Probably not, at least not before the escort does under the same level of concentrated fire.
Yes. Which is why claims like 'Cruisers are too under-powered to complete PVE content' are laughable. I think you are agreeing with me here, but I'm not sure that's your intent.
And yet taking a shuttle into a STF is considered trolling so extreme the developer no longer allows it to happen.
Bottom Line
Do DHCs outperform beams by a vast degree?
Are escorts tanky enough to survive the vast majority of PvE content without support?
Is strong Sci really helpful compared to a dabble(Grav Well 1 vs 3) in PvE content?
Anyone who does not answer yes to the above needs to L2P simply put.
But the entire debate here comes down to how everyone looks at the game. I play mmos because for some strange reason I enjoy grind/farm/progression gaming and am honest enough to admit it. And really if you don't find a new genre honestly. But I am also an optimizer and part of the enjoyment of the grind is finding fun effective ways to do it. If it is not effective, its not fun, and its junk. To others the progression aspect does not need optimizing they just like it to exist in the back round.
Obviously they and I will not see eye to eye on what should be adjusted within the game. If you like to stop and smell the roses you really don't care how fast the shoes on your feet let you run. I want to get to the finish so to me it does matter.
Comments
Looked at an escort recently?
Dual EPtS, any ship can have
Dual Tac teams (Super-fast shield distribution) all escorts and only a few ships of other classes can do (without hindering performance)
Agility (read dodge) well, thats escort only
Highest damage weapons, escort only (aside from a select few other ships)
Attack an escort with a beamboat cruiser/sci ship and you get laughed at. Attack a beamboat cruiser/sci ship with an escort and unless you draw, you win, oh look... "a class that can tank and deal great damage"
Thats the very point of it, in Star Trek there are no classes like in STO, there are no dedicated "healer" ships or Damage Dealers, surely some are more focussed on one task but basicly they are all cruisers in some way. They are all able to take care of themselves without having to rely on other ship to do the damage/healing whatever.
STO is first and foremost a Star Trek game, people get appealed to it because of the name "Star Trek".
What they find when playing it is just the same old MMO trinity 1000 other MMOs also use, wouldn't say anything about it but it doesn't fit to Star Trek ships at all. Other games like Bridge Commander, Legacy or the Starfleet Command series had Multiplayer modes too, whitout having to rely on that lazy and completely improper MMO trinity.
Cryptic on the other just put Star Trek ship into that system, no matter if those "roles" fit to that ships or not. What i am criticising is the lack of "truth" to how Trek ships are supposed to work.
Basicly alll endgame ships should be equal strong in offensive and defensive but every ships should have it's own way to archieve that.
Too complicated?
For example: A Defiant Calss ship gets its Offensive mainly through its forward facing cannons, its defensivce though its armoe and fast movement.
A Ambassador Class Crusier should be able to do just the same amount of damage and be able just as good by healing and providing itself with resisatnce buffs.
The point is NOT to give an Ambassador or all ships the firepower of a Defiant, but to decrease the defiants firepower to a more moderate amount. While at the same
time increasing its defensive.
A team of game developers who wants to seriously archieve a real "balance" while making a Star Trek game that actually works like one, can easily archive it, if they want to.
My only goal here is to have STO a bit more like Star Trek.
Of course there have to be differences wihthin the ships in ST, that's not the question. But there is absolutely no reason to make one class of ships dominating all others, even if these where cruisers.
Contrary to some people here and Cryptics devs i don't want to have my favourite ships dominate all others, i just want them to be treated fair.
Not true.
Even the defiant was able to Tank and to do damage in the shows. But in your beloved trinity this shouldn't be possible, since it is supposed to be a glass cannon (which it surely isn't in STO, lol).
The Prometheus was outfittet with phaser arrays and not cannons and even when fighting it wasn't even nerarly as agile as a defiant, maybe in seperated mode but still it didn't use cannon weapons. It was clearly something like a (light) tactical crusier, a platform to test new technologies. Similar to the Vesta, just tactical focussed instead of science.
That's exactly what i was talking about earlier, giving ships some special ability, but to make them basicly equal too.
The Prometheus is a good example for that. A cruiser like ship, able to survive on its own but with a special ability that no other ship has. A good game design team could implement such a feature into a "balanced" sytem without having to rely on the MMO trinity.
Since most ships in starfleet (not STO) are crusiers, so most starfleet ships are generalists, i didn'tknow this could cause any confusion. Sorry.[/QUOTE]
The best thing about a game like that would be that MMO fanboys (including some fo Cryptics devs) wouldn't try to make a Star Trek game into a generic little MMO like every other 10000 Online MMOs out there.
I like your postings too.
I wouldn't constantly complain about this game if Cryptics developers would at least try to show a little care for Star Trek, instead of just making stuff they find "cool". I think to demand a bit more care and commmon sense is not too much IMO.
I'm sorry i would love to continue right now but i'm in a hurry. Sor sorry for any spelling errors, i hope you understand what i want to say anyway.
It's called "tactical advantage".
Without any abilites cannons dont do anymore damage than beam weapons do, because of cooldowns.
Using RF and SV is like using BO.
Actually, no, unless you have the same boff slottings as a cruiser does in your escort, or is it the escorts you've met and lost against?
No, it is not broken.
A ship with a lesser turnrate would not be able to use the weapons as they are intended to be used.
They would not be able to keep smaller ships in their firing arcs long enough to do any good damage.
There of, there are few cruisers (fed) that can equip cannons, and those that can are better off using beam weapons, because of their lower turnrate.
And that is why beam weapons have a wide firing arc, so they do not need to worry that they have to have their nose pointing at the target all the time.
And that is why beam weapons also drain more power from the weapon battery for sustainability over distance when smaller ships are escaping them.
Heard of impulse modifier?
That means that the impulse engines output is modified to fit to the ship in question.
A cruiser get lower speed from their modifier.
Ok...
The game is broken, dont play it :-D
No seriously.
This is how the escorts work in this game.
The are fast, they are loaded with heavy weapons that do heavy damage up close.
Getting close is a kind of brave thing to do, considering you can get trapped in a tractor beam, power siphon, a great deal of many things that can take down a escort in the game.
Escorts do not have big crews either, so when crew dies off, repairs is really slow.
Using abilites only helps some, but when that ability has stopped working and your crew is dead and you are still getting shot at and your shields fail, the escort dies.
So, you have any other star trek mmo combat game to compare to?
Or is there are standard set for star trek mmos saying what agilities must be?
If so, please show us that...
Or is this only what you think is wrong?
It's not irrelevant, it's all connected together in the game mechanics, and how the game works.
And... Size do not matter.
The escorts engine output is modified with an impulse modifier.
How is it broken?
Have you been looking into the game code and seen it for yourself?
Please explain how it is broken, and just not saying "the escorts agility is game breaking"
Oh i've beaten many cruisers too!
But...
I've also been beaten a number of times by cruisers.
IF the captain knows how to setup his ship, an escort is no problem, should be no problem.
I agree totally with you on the nerfed sci ships, but my guess is that they did that because monetary reason only.
Since most sci abilites is skilled on the captain and boffs there ain't much to sell...
Still, do you have any other mmo star trek game that follows your intended thinking here, so we do have some proof of somethig being broken?
They are punching bags, the cruisers.
They are there to take a beating, to keep aggro away from escorts.
Every time you are not facing the enemy, you are doing less damage then any Science or Cruiser ship.
Sure it can run away, but then it is not doing damage is it?
Also, you can use two Emergency power to shields... but that is only good with a torpedo escort, for a full cannon-turret one has to sacrifices the emergency power to weapons for it.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL *Takes deep breath*
Excuse me while I laugh at you some more... lolololol
And you call ME a noob? lol
I can run 4 DHCs and 3 turrets on my tac/scort with dual EPtS and not suffer noticeably from the extra 12 power drain. In fact I run EPtS1 and EPtA1 with 3 Damage control doffs do I can have 99% uptime on both, it happens I rarely die...
Especially since you already said you do not know that STF gates cant hit you 8kms afar.
That is as noob as you can get. Your love of capslock also proves that. Cruise control for cool, indeed.
Are you using a rainbow build ?
How lovely for you
Well considering how I use the 3km blind-spot beneath them I wouldn't know or care about 8km
I would hardly consider laughing at you with excessive volume nooby
lol, I used to back before I learned to play
Actually if you sit 4k underneath it, since the gate's weapons are at it's top and the gate itself is something like 7 or 8k tall, it can't hit you.
Lets go for a historical companion, Escorts are like the old WW2 PT boats, light,fast and well armed, the escorts in STO are light, fast and well armed. it's not a case of that they are OP, it is more potently armed but it has sacrificed protection, it's speed is it's defense.
The cruisers are best compared to WW2 battleships, tough it's designed for long fights and heavily armed but it's slow. The cruisers in STO are like those battleships, they can take a massive beating and still duke it out, it can fight for longer whereas an escort must get out of dodge as fast as possible. The cruiser is designed for 2 tasks in mind, one is to support and the other as a broadside attacker, the ship's performance depends on the player's skill and build skill. I'm a tac captain by the way.
And for science being under powered, I take down warbirds for fun on my science alt in an Intrepid 1 on 1 for fun.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
You 1 v 1 Romulan Warbirds? How? The Countdown is still what, 5 days away?
In theory, this is sound and how it should be. However, the problem with this is that cruisers CAN'T duke it out like old battleships could and escorts DON'T sacrifice protection, since they can tank almost just as well, while still being leaps and bounds ahead in raw damage output.
there is no way 5 engineers would even get through without the optional.
stfs are timed, 5 eng have such pathetic dmg output they wouldnt make the time cut lol
Yes and no. MOST pug engis can't build their ships for beans, so their damage output is maybe 2.5k dps at most.
BUT take 5 Engi FACRs that are specced exclusively for damage and built properly, and make sure the pilots know how to use them, and you will complete it with all optionals. It will take almost the entire timer, but you will get them.
Or you can cheat and take 5 engis in Tor'kahts and laugh as you burn the Borg away into nothing.
But in the end, you NEED to spec your cruiser exclusively for damage in order to do this. And in doing so, you will sacrifice utility and survivability. Granted the Eng captain abilities help buffer this slightly, but still, it's not going to be easy.
The problem here is that building a cruiser that can do lots of damage takes time, resources, and extensive experience. Whereas building a tanky escort takes a little time, not a ton of resources, and just general game knowledge.
For the "size v agility" discussion, there are two things to understand. First is that despite all the assumptions certain people wish to make, we don't in fact, know anything about the building materials or the size of the engines on different ships. The itemization in this game is highly abstract - are you seriously going to argue that because you can take an engine off a cruiser and put it on a shuttle, that engine is literally the same piece of equipment? Of course not. More to the point, because ships are not real, you can't KNOW anything about them, you can only assume things, based on your own inclinations. That, coupled with the fact that in the real world, vehicles of the same size DON'T have the same characteristics (say, battleships versus carriers in WWII), means this is something that is always going to be an 'opinion', not a fact.
Second thing to get here is that it fundamentally doesn't even matter for ship balance what the ship looks like. You could replace my Advanced Escort ship model with a Giraffe, and it wouldn't change the power balance in the game one bit. Sure, it would probably look stupid, but looking stupid isn't a balance issue, it's an aesthetic one. I don't understand why this is so hard to accept, but there it is.
Now, as far as agility as a balance issue is concerned, the point I have been making is that while speed matters, it is not one of the primary ways to balance a ship, because it only ever acts as a sort of 'multiplier' to a ship's other capabilities. Certainly being more maneuverable is an advantage if ships have the same capabilities otherwise, but being fast alone is NOT a role a ship can perform, nor is being fast alone a way to help effect the outcome of a mission. That is not true of things like firepower, tanking, and crowd control. Those are the 'roles' to balance around. Speed is only ever a secondary concern to those issues.
Consider how many ships can function perfectly well without CC. Similarly, it's easy to imagine a ship with no weapons that none-the-less helps a team win by debuffing enemies to the aid in their destruction, etc. Sure, that hypothetical ship would be terrible for solo play, but it could potentially be great in a team setting. Now consider a ship that is three times as maneuverable as anything in the game, but that has no guns. That ship is terrible for both solo and team play. Thus, agility is not a primary factor.
Finally, I want to point out that the thought experiment shows something powerful about the nature of balance. Clearly the hypothetical CC boat above would be terrible for a solo player. In a team, though, for someone who doesn't really care about being the damage dealer, it might be a great fit. This is a great demonstration of how ships that some players insist are 'under-powered' can actually be very well balanced in a team setting.
For the rest of the discussion (things like 'ship classes aren't trek' etc), those are again primarily issues of opinion - get two trek fans in a room, and you'll probably get at least three opinions about what is 'really' trek. Some people may say the Defiant was a multi-role ship, because it could tank, deal damage and get in and out of combat areas easily. I say that those are all pretty useful in a ship designed for combat:).
Dude. Seriously? I don't get why you are so hostile, especially since you are so manifestly wrong that the only way you could be more wrong would be if you were to change your name to "Wrongy Mcwrongerson".
Tech level - okay. Let's look at the real world for a second. Right now the US navy has ships built with technology levels from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and so on. All of these ships have different levels of technology, so, yeah, I do think a civilization will use ships with different tech levels. Because, you know, that's one of them fact things that sometimes crops up.
In game, we have ships from over 100 year of history, so that seems like an even bigger gap, but I guess that's just me having no point and being ignorant.
As for the strawman/red herring, you are the one who said that we know ships have the same engines because they use the same gear. At least, that is how I interpreted your comment about all ships using mark XII equipment. My point was that a MK XII Engine can be moved from a cruiser to a shuttle, but that doesn't mean it's literally the same engine, because that would be dumb.
Beyond that, there is the issue of ship configuration. A heavy cruiser has 500 crew. An advanced escort has 150. Where does the space saved by having 350 less crew go? Isn't it at least POSSIBLE that the space goes to improved engines?
And last, my example with the giraffe was to point out that this whole discussion is crazy because what a ship looks like doesn't have a single thing to do with how the ship operates, and thus is not related to balance, no matter how much it annoys you.
Now for balance.
Go back and re-read my example again. My hypothetical CC ship had no weapons. None. Zero. Less that 1 by at least 1. How does that ship finish a mission solo? Oh, it doesn't. Even if it has infinite CC power and infinite maneuver, it still fails at the 'defeat the patrols' stage of the first mission it comes across. Yet, that ship could to well in a team setting, demonstrating yet again that team balance and solo balance aren't the same.
And gosh, I didn't realize that you couldn't complete missions with science ships and cruisers. I guess I should apologize to all those missions I finished in those ships, I must've cheated.
Wait, actually it sounds like you're talking about PVP here, actually, when you talk about not being able to out dps the escort's heals. That's odd, since I thought we already established that this was about pve balance, not pvp. If you want to talk about PVP balance, I suggest you go talk to the people who PVP a bunch. Ask them if cruisers are unable to tank escort damage. In fact, ask them if the problem is that escorts do too much damage. That will be fun for you, I bet.
As for STFs, I keep seeing things like "Cruisers can't complete the missions" and "Cruisers can't get optionals", but seeing as how I've done all of them except Hive Onslaught with a full cruiser team, I think these are maybe problems that exist only in the hermetically sealed world of internet outrage, but not in the actual game. Even if STFs are FASTER with an all escort team, does that really matter? Is playing the game so painful for you that spending 12 minutes doing a mission instead of 9 represents a vast imbalance that can't possibly be lived with?
I eagerly await your well reasoned and thoughtful response. Since, you know, it would be a first.
To be fair the general consensus among the PvP community is that beams are ineffectual and need a boost and Geko is an idiot (Yes, I will be blunt on the matter) for not seeing this, I tend to agree, between basic resistance and heals beam arrays cannot destroy a PvP ship, my Tac/scort can tank 3 cruisers without breaking a sweat and destroy them one or two at a time as it's alpha strike is refreshed and that is without any borg insta-heal proc or Rep heal passives...
And as for "cruisers are unable to tank escort damage" That is only half the battle, one can damage sponge all day but damage sponging doesn't kill anything
I'm just saying, in terms of PVE content, cruisers can (and do) beat all the content in the game. Doing the content 'faster' is to me not a sign of a fundamental and game breaking imbalance. If anything, it shows that escorts MIGHT be slightly more optimal for that content, but that slight advantage gets magnified in the echo chamber that is certain posters' minds until it becomes 'Cruisers can't finish STFs', and then gets vomited out on the interwebs as gospel.
In PVP, a cruiser can be nigh invulnerable (Tick fans, that's for you), while escorts can and do pop under focused fire. Team based PVP balance is always going to be odd, because, a cruiser that can make itself nearly immune to damage, and can help another ship do the same, is certainly a great addition to team, even if it doesn't bring much damage to the table. If it DOES bring damage to the table, then you start moving back to all cruisers all the time, etc.
So can shuttles. Complete all the PvE content that is, including all ESTFs other than hive cause they banned shuttles from STFs pre hive launch.
Just sayin.
Actually an escort pops under immobilizing CC. Otherwise it shouldn't have died unless the pilot is dumb enough to stay in the front arc of several other escorts focus firing upon it.
Strangely cruisers tend to go boom almost as easily when you have a good CCer with you.
Subnuke + Stun + burst = cruiser go boom
Personally I think that heals should be percentage based see here for details and a bigger difference between escort and cruiser base hulls, having the glass cannon not glass cannony I think we can both agree is not very fair, I don't say the escorts should be at BoP levels of survivability, they should have more than that but remembering they are "weapons on a warp-core" they are quite expendable and should reflect that to a degree.
Once that is in place then a beam buff should be implemented, no more than 13% damage boost as anything more than that with a modification to how beams drain to drain per shot rather than per cycle would be too powerful but 10% with the drain mod and percentage based heals would be about right I think.
+10 power to all systems would be... a lot. They already get more power overall than any other ship type, plus they have more ability to slot power increasing consoles (terrible though those are now). Also, they can already run more Emergency power to X abilities already, which gives them an effective power bonus there as well. Still, I guess? Whatever, most of the time my Eng/Cruiser feels like it is straight capped or nearly so, so I guess being 'more' capped isn't really an issue.
As for inherent emergency power abilities, that seems like it would be less helpful than you think, since they would either be on an unimproved base cooldown, so they would mess up your cycles with your slotted Epower abilities, or the would be on min cooldowns that interfered again with the slotted Epower abilities that you have in your Ensign slots.
Of course, you could put Engineering team in the ensign slots instead, but then you run into cool-down problems with tac team...
Yes. Which is why claims like 'Cruisers are too under-powered to complete PVE content' are laughable. I think you are agreeing with me here, but I'm not sure that's your intent.
Again, I'm honestly not sure what you mean by this - to me this is proving my point - CC (which many people say has been nerfed to uselessness), is actually quite good in PVP with a team backing it up. I guess to me that just shows that teamwork wins? Sci provides the CC stun, Escort provides the burst, target explodes, unless Eng cruiser does his job with extends and Aux to SIF. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?
Absent the CC scenario, does the cruiser still die? Probably not, at least not before the escort does under the same level of concentrated fire.
And yet taking a shuttle into a STF is considered trolling so extreme the developer no longer allows it to happen.
Bottom Line
Do DHCs outperform beams by a vast degree?
Are escorts tanky enough to survive the vast majority of PvE content without support?
Is strong Sci really helpful compared to a dabble(Grav Well 1 vs 3) in PvE content?
Anyone who does not answer yes to the above needs to L2P simply put.
But the entire debate here comes down to how everyone looks at the game. I play mmos because for some strange reason I enjoy grind/farm/progression gaming and am honest enough to admit it. And really if you don't find a new genre honestly. But I am also an optimizer and part of the enjoyment of the grind is finding fun effective ways to do it. If it is not effective, its not fun, and its junk. To others the progression aspect does not need optimizing they just like it to exist in the back round.
Obviously they and I will not see eye to eye on what should be adjusted within the game. If you like to stop and smell the roses you really don't care how fast the shoes on your feet let you run. I want to get to the finish so to me it does matter.