There is balance, the question is if people wish to see it as balance, or is it that "that ship just does too much damage compared to any other ship! nerf it!"
Escorts do heavy damage, that i think most people know.
Most people who starts to play this game skill for damage.
That works just fine, with escorts.
That is why cruisers seem so weak, there is a captain sitting and steering the ship that mainly skilled for damage.
That is where the problem starts.
That's when people start thinking that the game is unbalanced and that there is too much
firepower given to one type of ship.
And those who know how to skill will use that knowledge to be able to do maximum damage with their escort.
It's fairly easy to skill for an escort.
A bit different when you skill for a cruiser or sci.
The balance factor though... What is it?
Cruisers have a larger crew there of they have a better sustained healing even if they loose crew they still have fairer chance to heal up quicker.
Whereas escorts have a small crew and they can lose that crew rather quickly which in the end stumps the healing of the ship, then you only have your abilites to rely on.
Cruisers are slow, which means they are supposed to stay in a good possition firing with their beams and using any other trick in the book and give support when needed and take the aggro off of escorts.
Escorts are quick and nimble, they are supposed to go in and hit hard, pull back and then do the same thing again.
Boffs is a balance also.
While escorts mainly have tactical boffs, that means that the ship is built to do damage, the other slot(s) are usually low rank eng and sci.
Cruisers have a boff setup focused on eng, that means alot of healing for itself and friendlies.
The other slot(s) are usually low rank tac and sci.
How powerfull different types of ships become depends on how you skill.
You can not use the same skillset for all types of ships.
Well you can but, it wont make the ship powerfull in the role it's supposed to be used for.
Firepower is not the offset here, knowledge is, knowledge about skilling.
And powerfull does not need to be firepower.
stats by size, mass, engine grade & power http://www.phan.org/sto/pics/ShipChart.jpg
fix this, and many imbalances due to stats by fairy magic get normalised.
agility balanced by less health and or dps-dps balenced by less agility and or health-health balanced by less dps and agility
agility by magic breaks this very simple and easy to follow model.
There is no magic involved.
We can take this as an example.
Two cars
Same brand, same engine.
But one of them is faster than the other.
Why?
Modifications.
Same with the impulse modifier.
It is a modification of the engine output.
There is balance, the question is if people wish to see it as balance, or is it that "that ship just does too much damage compared to any other ship! nerf it!"
Escorts do heavy damage, that i think most people know.
Most people who starts to play this game skill for damage.
That works just fine, with escorts.
That is why cruisers seem so weak, there is a captain sitting and steering the ship that mainly skilled for damage.
That is where the problem starts.
That's when people start thinking that the game is unbalanced and that there is too much
firepower given to one type of ship.
And those who know how to skill will use that knowledge to be able to do maximum damage with their escort.
It's fairly easy to skill for an escort.
A bit different when you skill for a cruiser or sci.
The balance factor though... What is it?
Cruisers have a larger crew there of they have a better sustained healing even if they loose crew they still have fairer chance to heal up quicker.
Whereas escorts have a small crew and they can lose that crew rather quickly which in the end stumps the healing of the ship, then you only have your abilites to rely on.
Cruisers are slow, which means they are supposed to stay in a good possition firing with their beams and using any other trick in the book and give support when needed and take the aggro off of escorts.
Escorts are quick and nimble, they are supposed to go in and hit hard, pull back and then do the same thing again.
Boffs is a balance also.
While escorts mainly have tactical boffs, that means that the ship is built to do damage, the other slot(s) are usually low rank eng and sci.
Cruisers have a boff setup focused on eng, that means alot of healing for itself and friendlies.
The other slot(s) are usually low rank tac and sci.
How powerfull different types of ships become depends on how you skill.
You can not use the same skillset for all types of ships.
Well you can but, it wont make the ship powerfull in the role it's supposed to be used for.
Firepower is not the offset here, knowledge is, knowledge about skilling.
And powerfull does not need to be firepower.
Fully agree. If you have a good build, good skill layout, and know your ship. It doesn't matter the if it's escort, Cruiser, or sci. Long ago I did a 2v2 with the head of my KDF fleet. Him in a Galor, me in a Neghvar and I survived longer than he did. And that is because of good build, the right BO skills, and excelent timing to use said skills.
Fully agree. If you have a good build, good skill layout, and know your ship. It doesn't matter the if it's escort, Cruiser, or sci. Long ago I did a 2v2 with the head of my KDF fleet. Him in a Galor, me in a Neghvar and I survived longer than he did. And that is because of good build, the right BO skills, and excelent timing to use said skills.
...
*facepalm
You cannot compare KDF battlecruisers to ANY OTHER SHIPS. Of course you will beat a galor in a Negh'var. If you lost I would be worried.
The issues here aren't KDF battlecruisers. Those ships are fine. They are basically perfect ships. The issue here is what all escort threads turn into: fed cruisers aren't as effective in the current meta as they should be.
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.
...
*facepalm
You cannot compare KDF battlecruisers to ANY OTHER SHIPS. Of course you will beat a galor in a Negh'var. If you lost I would be worried.
The issues here aren't KDF battlecruisers. Those ships are fine. They are basically perfect ships. The issue here is what all escort threads turn into: fed cruisers aren't as effective in the current meta as they should be.
I have been. As i said before and again and again. Build, bo skill, and ship knowledge trumps all.
I have been. As i said before and again and again. Build, bo skill, and ship knowledge trumps all.
Be that as it may, you are now bringing KDF battlecruisers into this discussion. NOBODY HAS AN ISSUE WITH THEM. They are the quintessential perfect ship. They have high damage output, high survivability, and great maneuverability. They can move, they can kill, and they survive everything.
Fed cruisers on the other hand, are not.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
I am confused. Cruisers are great as they are. I have so many ship that I hit the Ship cap (32). I am a tact but my favorite ships to fly are cruisers. The Fleet Heavy Cruiser (Stargazer) is my absolute favorite ship to pilot. I switch to escorts if my fleet is doing a STF run.
Trimen Ranger
Admiral Federation Tactical Corps
>Star Fleet Elite Force< Click if you are ready to boldy go where no one has gone before. Seek not the final frontier if you fear the unknown. -Admiral Trimen Ranger
Balancing is a fine art and it is so easy to fail.
There are multiple problems at hand. And imho have more to do with an imbalance in rewards when it comes to PvE and a survivability/damage imbalance in PvP.
When it comes to endgame content it seems dps is rewarded to a far greater extend than healing or debuffing. I would realy like to see a reward system that counts damage / kills / heals /debuffs / taken aggro / area denial into acount instead of just most damage dealt. But not for the single player but the overall rating of the team - then the rewards should be equal for player in the team with maybe special rewards if the single player exeeded the average in his/her speciality. Also ther should be a minimum involvement barrier - if you dont participate at all your reward should be zero.
I think this would diversify the game to some extend.
When it comes to pvp i think the real issue with escorts is not their damage but their speed defense. I dont suggest taking it away completly but to give science ships and cruisers a power to overcome it at least temporarily. Maybe a Tractor beam inherent to the ships that holds the target for 2 or 3 seconds before it can be countered by bodd abilities. This Tractorbeam should have a long cooldown of about 2 or 3 minutes and a limited range like 4 or 5 kilometers.
Its just an idea.
It would leave escorts unharmed for the most part but if they show to much impunity they suffer.
#another thing , very much unrelated to balance though, wich id like to see is a beam visual for cannons and turrets as an option to choose for every cannon type weapon. If switched on it should use the hardpoints the beams use and would look like shorter beams to distinguish between regular beams and "cannonbeams".
the point of 'modifications' is 'upgrades'.
this is addressed in-game by the mk and rarity levels.
2 ships the same size running mk 12 perple aux spd turn. engines are the more upgraded & modified you can get(bar fleet).
even if one was turn x3 and the other was spd x3, that will not result in one ship having twice the performance of the other. not without magic.
but no. people like to claim that finding and using a mechanic ingame for their own clear advantage is actually their skill, rather than exploiting a loophole
The modifier is not an upgrade, it's modifying the engine output.
Just as you would make an modification to, lets say, engine control box, setting in a trim chip.
You have done nothing to the engine just the part that control what the engine can do.
And that is what the "impulse modifier" does to the engine.
But i guess, cars with a trim chip making them go faster is just pure fairy magic too.
This is mostly about skilling.
I've met cruisers in my escort who have had no problem taking me down.
Me, i didn't bring the cruiser down once.
Think i got shields down once though... :-D
If your rule are correct, it wouldn't matter which cruiser i meet i would win no matter what.
I do mostly, but then you meet that cruiser which has a properly skilled captain, and i dont win.
I've said it before.
I will say it once again.
People who starts playing this game go for damage when they skill.
They put their points to tac, and some eng, and probably nothing to sci abilites.
You think a setup like that works with a cruiser?
That makes the ship doomed, not only in pvp but pve aswell.
I would rather call the cruisers in this game support ships.
All in all, that is their real role.
Escorts are attack ships, they are built for speed and firepower.
Just take a look the the ds9 series, do the dominion attack ships look like they can outmanouver a cruiser?
Where they powerfull enough to rip a cruiser to bits when they ganged up on it?
Was it a strategy that worked?
The Defiant could go toe to toe with about any ship could it not?
If you say yes to all of these 4 above questions....
The modifier is not an upgrade, it's modifying the engine output.
Just as you would make an modification to, lets say, engine control box, setting in a trim chip.
You have done nothing to the engine just the part that control what the engine can do.
And that is what the "impulse modifier" does to the engine.
But i guess, cars with a trim chip making them go faster is just pure fairy magic too.
This is mostly about skilling.
I've met cruisers in my escort who have had no problem taking me down.
Me, i didn't bring the cruiser down once.
Think i got shields down once though... :-D
If your rule are correct, it wouldn't matter which cruiser i meet i would win no matter what.
I do mostly, but then you meet that cruiser which has a properly skilled captain, and i dont win.
I've said it before.
I will say it once again.
People who starts playing this game go for damage when they skill.
They put their points to tac, and some eng, and probably nothing to sci abilites.
You think a setup like that works with a cruiser?
That makes the ship doomed, not only in pvp but pve aswell.
I would rather call the cruisers in this game support ships.
All in all, that is their real role.
Escorts are attack ships, they are built for speed and firepower.
Just take a look the the ds9 series, do the dominion attack ships look like they can outmanouver a cruiser?
Where they powerfull enough to rip a cruiser to bits when they ganged up on it?
Was it a strategy that worked?
The Defiant could go toe to toe with about any ship could it not?
If you say yes to all of these 4 above questions....
Cruisers aren't support ships.
What kind of support are they supposed to put out?
In order to tank properly, a cruiser has to draw threat or otherwise have some way of controlling the field. Right now, cruisers are deficient in both counts. They're good at support, but they are outclassed in that respect by carriers and the better types of science vessels. What are Federation cruisers supposed to be good at then, and if they are for "support", why are there cruisers with Lieutenant commander tactical slots?
That label can be applied to a Star Cruiser or perhaps the Odyssey, but it sure as hell doesn't work on the Assault Cruiser or the Advanced Heavy Cruiser.
They are in this game. STO. Not canon. In canon they are everything AND the kitchen sink. But in this game, they were designed as support tanks. And they do that job wonderfully. However they are unnecessary in light of the fact that escorts can do everything they can, almost as good if not better, while still having insane damage output.
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.
They are in this game. STO. Not canon. In canon they are everything AND the kitchen sink. But in this game, they were designed as support tanks. And they do that job wonderfully. However they are unnecessary in light of the fact that escorts can do everything they can, almost as good if not better, while still having insane damage output.
You'd think that they are in this game, but they aren't. They're outclassed at both support and tanking by carriers.
If the STO made Federation cruisers more like canon, they'd be more like bigger and tougher Birds of Prey with no cloaking. They would be something like a Mario: the average middle-of-the-road vessel that doesn't excel at anything in particular, but does fairly well at anything.
Galaxy-class vessels were actually quite sprightly, even if they were massive vessels. Certainly, they were nowhere near as massive as Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts. However, in STO, Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts actually handle slightly better than a Galaxy-class cruiser, in spite of being close to three times the size and with higher natural durability. They can mount DHCs, and also come with hangar bays and inherent subsystem targeting, while a Galaxy of the same level has... Saucer Separation.
What the hell is a cruiser supposed to do that makes it better than any other vessel can't do better? With my support cruiser, I take pride in my healing abilities and can do it as well (if not better) than a lot of cruisers. I can tank pretty well too, if I'm not being forced to keep fire off of a friendly. Imagine my shock when a Tactical captain shows up in a Caitian and proceeds to outheal me by approximately 200,000 hitpoints.
I think we're going to have to man-up and face the fact that Federation cruisers have fallen far, far behind.
However they are unnecessary in light of the fact that escorts can do everything they can, almost as good if not better, while still having insane damage output.
You'd think that they are in this game, but they aren't. They're outclassed at both support and tanking by carriers.
If the STO made Federation cruisers more like canon, they'd be more like bigger and tougher Birds of Prey with no cloaking. They would be something like a Mario: the average middle-of-the-road vessel that doesn't excel at anything in particular, but does fairly well at anything.
Galaxy-class vessels were actually quite sprightly, even if they were massive vessels. Certainly, they were nowhere near as massive as Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts. However, in STO, Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts actually handle slightly better than a Galaxy-class cruiser, in spite of being close to three times the size and with higher natural durability. They can mount DHCs, and also come with hangar bays and inherent subsystem targeting, while a Galaxy of the same level has... Saucer Separation.
What the hell is a cruiser supposed to do that makes it better than any other vessel can't do better? With my support cruiser, I take pride in my healing abilities and can do it as well (if not better) than a lot of cruisers. I can tank pretty well too, if I'm not being forced to keep fire off of a friendly. Imagine my shock when a Tactical captain shows up in a Caitian and proceeds to outheal me by approximately 200,000 hitpoints.
I think we're going to have to man-up and face the fact that Federation cruisers have fallen far, far behind.
...
Really now.
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.
What kind of support are they supposed to put out?
In order to tank properly, a cruiser has to draw threat or otherwise have some way of controlling the field. Right now, cruisers are deficient in both counts. They're good at support, but they are outclassed in that respect by carriers and the better types of science vessels. What are Federation cruisers supposed to be good at then, and if they are for "support", why are there cruisers with Lieutenant commander tactical slots?
Yes, they should take aggro.
And how do they do that?
By skilling for it with points to the threat control.
Full threat control and there isn't much damage output needed to get the enemys attention.
Skilled right a cruiser have no problem with tanking gates, tac cubes and donatra.
They are also good healers, which is also a good support thing to have.
There are two of those cruisers that i know of.
And on both of those cruisers you loose one Lt.com Enginering, which means that in the end their survivabilty is lesser than a cruiser with Lt.Com eng station.
You gain some and loose some.
1. Tanking for a sustained time.
2. Taking aggro from ships that has lesser tanking skills.
3. Healing friendlys.
4. Sustained weapon output.
That is
4 things that they are good at doing.
Or they are supposed to be good at...
But that is up to the skilling.
As i said a more than once, i don't think the MMO trinity is applicable for Star Trek ships, at least not without making them completely unrecognizable.
In my opinion a Star trek MMO/game shouldn't use the MMO trinity at all, but instead use classical Star Trek Starships (Cruisers) as starting point and make Escorts and science ships as specialists ships with Tactical/Science focus.
Additionally, each ship class should get adequate Console layout and a additionaly universal Lt BOFF slot.
Of course, prerequisite for all this is a certain rebalance of all BOFF Powers to give them a much wider variety of equal strong offensive and defensive capabilities.
All ships should be equal capable to act offensive and defensive, just by other means (tactical/engineering/science BOFF powers)
While Escorts/Cruisers can generate equal offensive powers with their weapons, Science ships use primarily science powers to do damage.
The biggest difference between Escorts and Cruisers should be their focus on different playstyles. Escorts being nimble and fast (action oriented), Crusiers are slower but more sturdy (more strategical gameplay). Each ship type should be able to have enough offensive power to be capable to destroy each of the other one.
So this approach would get away from that lame stone/paper/scissor mechanic but be more focussed on what playstyle a player actually favours. Of course if someone wants to play a flying hospital it's possible, since BOFF powers should cover a much wider array of possible powers. So every ship could be used for a lot of different playstyles. Some a little better some not.
"...'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
As i said a more than once, i don't think the MMO trinity is applicable for Star Trek ships, at least not without making them completely unrecognizable.
In my opinion a Star trek MMO/game shouldn't use the MMO trinity at all, but instead use classical Star Trek Starships (Cruisers) as starting point and make Escorts and science ships as specialists ships with Tactical/Science focus.
Additionally, each ship class should get adequate Console layout and a additionaly universal Lt BOFF slot.
Of course, prerequisite for all this is a certain rebalance of all BOFF Powers to give them a much wider variety of equal strong offensive and defensive capabilities.
All ships should be equal capable to act offensive and defensive, just by other means (tactical/engineering/science BOFF powers)
While Escorts/Cruisers can generate equal offensive powers with their weapons, Science ships use primarily science powers to do damage.
The biggest difference between Escorts and Cruisers should be their focus on different playstyles. Escorts being nimble and fast (action oriented), Crusiers are slower but more sturdy (more strategical gameplay). Each ship type should be able to have enough offensive power to be capable to destroy each of the other one.
So this approach would get away from that lame stone/paper/scissor mechanic but be more focussed on what playstyle a player actually favours. Of course if someone wants to play a flying hospital it's possible, since BOFF powers should cover a much wider array of possible powers. So every ship could be used for a lot of different playstyles. Some a little better some not.
You'd think that they are in this game, but they aren't. They're outclassed at both support and tanking by carriers.
If the STO made Federation cruisers more like canon, they'd be more like bigger and tougher Birds of Prey with no cloaking. They would be something like a Mario: the average middle-of-the-road vessel that doesn't excel at anything in particular, but does fairly well at anything.
Making cruisers like giant slower, tougher, and with more weapons, versions of BoPs is something I've been thinking about lately as well. The big difference from their current implementation would be to have a bunch of Universal Boff stations. How many and what ranks they should be would need to be worked out. Their console layouts and their specific stats would also serve to differentiate them.
That way they could still be the general purpose ship that they were portrayed as in the shows.
Unfortunately, I don't think that would sell better than the current cruiser implementation. Carriers and escorts are just more interesting to fly and Sci vessels offer a totally unique experience. So what would general purpose ships do in terms of players wanting them? Just how many die hard crusier fans could they hope to sell these general purpose ships to?
the impulse modifier as it is now, is a tool used to give escorts an advantage for no reason other than to give escorts an advantage. though not as bad as the stupid base turn stats.
It's a tactical advantage.
It was a tactical advantage when the Federation had to stand up to the Dominion when they encountered their variant of an escort, the Jem'Hadar Attack ship.
The Federation lost countless cruisers against these ships.
The Defiant is built on the same principle, fast, mavoureable and hard hitting.
Just look at the show DS9 you'll see how quick that ship is and then come and tell me that the escorts are using fairy magic.
an advantage players have noticed to the point it has made escorts sell better to the point that the people at criptic have admitted such, and are releasing product based on that advantage, exacerbating it in an unchecked positive loop, that is gradually railroading their decisions more and more.
Ofcourse people get the escort, when most people skill for damage and nothing but damage, that is about the only thing that will work for them.
if my rule was correct, the only thing that would matter would be the skills used and player ability, not the odd cruiser that can work, what happens in this game is that you have to completly minmax a cruiser to tank damage, with no way of matching dps, and if you try, most often you just gut the cruiser anyway.
"If your rule" was correct there would be no bigger difference between different ship types.
They all would be as slow, they all would do more or less the same damage.
The "odd" cruiser that can work is about skilling, it's the "odd" type because people skill for damage, not ship type.
and no, i wont look at ds9, because the defiant in that show had plot armor due to being the hero ship. same as voyager, a single cube wipes out most of starfleet, but voyager flys in and the borg seem to die from sheer fright.
i suggest you go spent some time on tvtropes.
No i wont do that since you did not want to answer a few simple questions about escorts from the actual show from where the ships are taken from....
but gg dictating predefined roles from an obsolete game balance mechanic that at best is totally and completely broken when applied to this game due to the 'dps' class having the same health as the 'tank' class even before you get the the stupidly implemented impulse modifier
Excuse me?
I'm voicing my opinion on this.
Health does not mean survivability.
That is why ships have different crew sizes.
I do not think a impulse modifier is any more weird than a trim chip for a car, something that tells the engine to do something different, go faster.
You however want to remove stats from ships that makes them different from other ships.
You want to do the exact same they did to the science ship to the escort.
Of course, prerequisite for all this is a certain rebalance of all BOFF Powers to give them a much wider variety of equal strong offensive and defensive capabilities.
...
Science Skills should cover some weapons modifications too. As i said BOFF powers should be reworked to provide a much wieder arrray of offensive and defensive powers.
As i see things, Tactical, Engineering and Science should be just different trainings for Officers, but not seperate ship functions. For example Directed Energy modulation is a weapons modification, and should be a tactical power, if BOFF powers where intended to reflect the actual ships systems.
But they aren't, they are just abilities your BOFFs have.
So i could imagine much more BOFF powers being added, to give each branch a much more offensive/defensive balanced selection of powers.
"...'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
Comments
Really?
Our is this just a out of context post?
There is balance, the question is if people wish to see it as balance, or is it that "that ship just does too much damage compared to any other ship! nerf it!"
Escorts do heavy damage, that i think most people know.
Most people who starts to play this game skill for damage.
That works just fine, with escorts.
That is why cruisers seem so weak, there is a captain sitting and steering the ship that mainly skilled for damage.
That is where the problem starts.
That's when people start thinking that the game is unbalanced and that there is too much
firepower given to one type of ship.
And those who know how to skill will use that knowledge to be able to do maximum damage with their escort.
It's fairly easy to skill for an escort.
A bit different when you skill for a cruiser or sci.
The balance factor though... What is it?
Cruisers have a larger crew there of they have a better sustained healing even if they loose crew they still have fairer chance to heal up quicker.
Whereas escorts have a small crew and they can lose that crew rather quickly which in the end stumps the healing of the ship, then you only have your abilites to rely on.
Cruisers are slow, which means they are supposed to stay in a good possition firing with their beams and using any other trick in the book and give support when needed and take the aggro off of escorts.
Escorts are quick and nimble, they are supposed to go in and hit hard, pull back and then do the same thing again.
Boffs is a balance also.
While escorts mainly have tactical boffs, that means that the ship is built to do damage, the other slot(s) are usually low rank eng and sci.
Cruisers have a boff setup focused on eng, that means alot of healing for itself and friendlies.
The other slot(s) are usually low rank tac and sci.
How powerfull different types of ships become depends on how you skill.
You can not use the same skillset for all types of ships.
Well you can but, it wont make the ship powerfull in the role it's supposed to be used for.
Firepower is not the offset here, knowledge is, knowledge about skilling.
And powerfull does not need to be firepower.
There is no magic involved.
We can take this as an example.
Two cars
Same brand, same engine.
But one of them is faster than the other.
Why?
Modifications.
Same with the impulse modifier.
It is a modification of the engine output.
Fully agree. If you have a good build, good skill layout, and know your ship. It doesn't matter the if it's escort, Cruiser, or sci. Long ago I did a 2v2 with the head of my KDF fleet. Him in a Galor, me in a Neghvar and I survived longer than he did. And that is because of good build, the right BO skills, and excelent timing to use said skills.
...
*facepalm
You cannot compare KDF battlecruisers to ANY OTHER SHIPS. Of course you will beat a galor in a Negh'var. If you lost I would be worried.
The issues here aren't KDF battlecruisers. Those ships are fine. They are basically perfect ships. The issue here is what all escort threads turn into: fed cruisers aren't as effective in the current meta as they should be.
I have been. As i said before and again and again. Build, bo skill, and ship knowledge trumps all.
Be that as it may, you are now bringing KDF battlecruisers into this discussion. NOBODY HAS AN ISSUE WITH THEM. They are the quintessential perfect ship. They have high damage output, high survivability, and great maneuverability. They can move, they can kill, and they survive everything.
Fed cruisers on the other hand, are not.
My favorite ships are;
1. Fleet Heavy Cruiser Retrofit
2. Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit
3. Fleet Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit
4. Fleet Reconnaissance Science Ship
5. Jhem Hadar Dreadnought Carrier
6. Fleet Patrol Escort
7. Odessey Tactical Cruiser
8. Andoiran Kumari Escort
Admiral Federation Tactical Corps
>Star Fleet Elite Force< Click if you are ready to boldy go where no one has gone before.
Seek not the final frontier if you fear the unknown. -Admiral Trimen Ranger
There are multiple problems at hand. And imho have more to do with an imbalance in rewards when it comes to PvE and a survivability/damage imbalance in PvP.
When it comes to endgame content it seems dps is rewarded to a far greater extend than healing or debuffing. I would realy like to see a reward system that counts damage / kills / heals /debuffs / taken aggro / area denial into acount instead of just most damage dealt. But not for the single player but the overall rating of the team - then the rewards should be equal for player in the team with maybe special rewards if the single player exeeded the average in his/her speciality. Also ther should be a minimum involvement barrier - if you dont participate at all your reward should be zero.
I think this would diversify the game to some extend.
When it comes to pvp i think the real issue with escorts is not their damage but their speed defense. I dont suggest taking it away completly but to give science ships and cruisers a power to overcome it at least temporarily. Maybe a Tractor beam inherent to the ships that holds the target for 2 or 3 seconds before it can be countered by bodd abilities. This Tractorbeam should have a long cooldown of about 2 or 3 minutes and a limited range like 4 or 5 kilometers.
Its just an idea.
It would leave escorts unharmed for the most part but if they show to much impunity they suffer.
#another thing , very much unrelated to balance though, wich id like to see is a beam visual for cannons and turrets as an option to choose for every cannon type weapon. If switched on it should use the hardpoints the beams use and would look like shorter beams to distinguish between regular beams and "cannonbeams".
The modifier is not an upgrade, it's modifying the engine output.
Just as you would make an modification to, lets say, engine control box, setting in a trim chip.
You have done nothing to the engine just the part that control what the engine can do.
And that is what the "impulse modifier" does to the engine.
But i guess, cars with a trim chip making them go faster is just pure fairy magic too.
This is mostly about skilling.
I've met cruisers in my escort who have had no problem taking me down.
Me, i didn't bring the cruiser down once.
Think i got shields down once though... :-D
If your rule are correct, it wouldn't matter which cruiser i meet i would win no matter what.
I do mostly, but then you meet that cruiser which has a properly skilled captain, and i dont win.
I've said it before.
I will say it once again.
People who starts playing this game go for damage when they skill.
They put their points to tac, and some eng, and probably nothing to sci abilites.
You think a setup like that works with a cruiser?
That makes the ship doomed, not only in pvp but pve aswell.
I would rather call the cruisers in this game support ships.
All in all, that is their real role.
Escorts are attack ships, they are built for speed and firepower.
Just take a look the the ds9 series, do the dominion attack ships look like they can outmanouver a cruiser?
Where they powerfull enough to rip a cruiser to bits when they ganged up on it?
Was it a strategy that worked?
The Defiant could go toe to toe with about any ship could it not?
If you say yes to all of these 4 above questions....
Cruisers aren't support ships.
What kind of support are they supposed to put out?
In order to tank properly, a cruiser has to draw threat or otherwise have some way of controlling the field. Right now, cruisers are deficient in both counts. They're good at support, but they are outclassed in that respect by carriers and the better types of science vessels. What are Federation cruisers supposed to be good at then, and if they are for "support", why are there cruisers with Lieutenant commander tactical slots?
Technically they are support tanks.
They aren't that, either.
That label can be applied to a Star Cruiser or perhaps the Odyssey, but it sure as hell doesn't work on the Assault Cruiser or the Advanced Heavy Cruiser.
They are in this game. STO. Not canon. In canon they are everything AND the kitchen sink. But in this game, they were designed as support tanks. And they do that job wonderfully. However they are unnecessary in light of the fact that escorts can do everything they can, almost as good if not better, while still having insane damage output.
You'd think that they are in this game, but they aren't. They're outclassed at both support and tanking by carriers.
If the STO made Federation cruisers more like canon, they'd be more like bigger and tougher Birds of Prey with no cloaking. They would be something like a Mario: the average middle-of-the-road vessel that doesn't excel at anything in particular, but does fairly well at anything.
Galaxy-class vessels were actually quite sprightly, even if they were massive vessels. Certainly, they were nowhere near as massive as Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts. However, in STO, Jem'Hadar Dreadnoughts actually handle slightly better than a Galaxy-class cruiser, in spite of being close to three times the size and with higher natural durability. They can mount DHCs, and also come with hangar bays and inherent subsystem targeting, while a Galaxy of the same level has... Saucer Separation.
What the hell is a cruiser supposed to do that makes it better than any other vessel can't do better? With my support cruiser, I take pride in my healing abilities and can do it as well (if not better) than a lot of cruisers. I can tank pretty well too, if I'm not being forced to keep fire off of a friendly. Imagine my shock when a Tactical captain shows up in a Caitian and proceeds to outheal me by approximately 200,000 hitpoints.
I think we're going to have to man-up and face the fact that Federation cruisers have fallen far, far behind.
...
Really now.
Yes, they should take aggro.
And how do they do that?
By skilling for it with points to the threat control.
Full threat control and there isn't much damage output needed to get the enemys attention.
Skilled right a cruiser have no problem with tanking gates, tac cubes and donatra.
They are also good healers, which is also a good support thing to have.
There are two of those cruisers that i know of.
And on both of those cruisers you loose one Lt.com Enginering, which means that in the end their survivabilty is lesser than a cruiser with Lt.Com eng station.
You gain some and loose some.
1. Tanking for a sustained time.
2. Taking aggro from ships that has lesser tanking skills.
3. Healing friendlys.
4. Sustained weapon output.
That is
4 things that they are good at doing.
Or they are supposed to be good at...
But that is up to the skilling.
In my opinion a Star trek MMO/game shouldn't use the MMO trinity at all, but instead use classical Star Trek Starships (Cruisers) as starting point and make Escorts and science ships as specialists ships with Tactical/Science focus.
I would balance a Star Trek MMO like this:
CRUISERS:
Boff Slots:
Tactical 5/10
Engineering 5/10
Science 5/10
Hull 10/10
Maneuverability 5/10
ESCORTS:
Boff Slots:
Tactical 10/10
Engineering 5/10
Science 0/10
Hull 5/10
Maneuverability 10/10
SCIENCE:
Boff Slots:
Tactical 0/10
Engineering 5/10
Science 10/10
Hull 7/10
Maneuverability 8/10
Additionally, each ship class should get adequate Console layout and a additionaly universal Lt BOFF slot.
Of course, prerequisite for all this is a certain rebalance of all BOFF Powers to give them a much wider variety of equal strong offensive and defensive capabilities.
All ships should be equal capable to act offensive and defensive, just by other means (tactical/engineering/science BOFF powers)
While Escorts/Cruisers can generate equal offensive powers with their weapons, Science ships use primarily science powers to do damage.
The biggest difference between Escorts and Cruisers should be their focus on different playstyles. Escorts being nimble and fast (action oriented), Crusiers are slower but more sturdy (more strategical gameplay). Each ship type should be able to have enough offensive power to be capable to destroy each of the other one.
So this approach would get away from that lame stone/paper/scissor mechanic but be more focussed on what playstyle a player actually favours. Of course if someone wants to play a flying hospital it's possible, since BOFF powers should cover a much wider array of possible powers. So every ship could be used for a lot of different playstyles. Some a little better some not.
DIsagree with science, you need 1 tac slot.
Making cruisers like giant slower, tougher, and with more weapons, versions of BoPs is something I've been thinking about lately as well. The big difference from their current implementation would be to have a bunch of Universal Boff stations. How many and what ranks they should be would need to be worked out. Their console layouts and their specific stats would also serve to differentiate them.
That way they could still be the general purpose ship that they were portrayed as in the shows.
Unfortunately, I don't think that would sell better than the current cruiser implementation. Carriers and escorts are just more interesting to fly and Sci vessels offer a totally unique experience. So what would general purpose ships do in terms of players wanting them? Just how many die hard crusier fans could they hope to sell these general purpose ships to?
It was a tactical advantage when the Federation had to stand up to the Dominion when they encountered their variant of an escort, the Jem'Hadar Attack ship.
The Federation lost countless cruisers against these ships.
The Defiant is built on the same principle, fast, mavoureable and hard hitting.
Just look at the show DS9 you'll see how quick that ship is and then come and tell me that the escorts are using fairy magic.
Ofcourse people get the escort, when most people skill for damage and nothing but damage, that is about the only thing that will work for them.
"If your rule" was correct there would be no bigger difference between different ship types.
They all would be as slow, they all would do more or less the same damage.
The "odd" cruiser that can work is about skilling, it's the "odd" type because people skill for damage, not ship type.
No i wont do that since you did not want to answer a few simple questions about escorts from the actual show from where the ships are taken from....
Excuse me?
I'm voicing my opinion on this.
Health does not mean survivability.
That is why ships have different crew sizes.
I do not think a impulse modifier is any more weird than a trim chip for a car, something that tells the engine to do something different, go faster.
You however want to remove stats from ships that makes them different from other ships.
You want to do the exact same they did to the science ship to the escort.
If you think that is 'OK' then just continue...
Science Skills should cover some weapons modifications too. As i said BOFF powers should be reworked to provide a much wieder arrray of offensive and defensive powers.
As i see things, Tactical, Engineering and Science should be just different trainings for Officers, but not seperate ship functions. For example Directed Energy modulation is a weapons modification, and should be a tactical power, if BOFF powers where intended to reflect the actual ships systems.
But they aren't, they are just abilities your BOFFs have.
So i could imagine much more BOFF powers being added, to give each branch a much more offensive/defensive balanced selection of powers.