Heavy Escort Carrier is Eng heavy, the MVAE is Sci heavy and of course we have the Defiant that is the Tac heavy, this is not counting other ships like the Steamrunner with its dual Lt Eng stations.
The reason escorts can be everything ships is because they nerfed Science to the point you really dont have that much use of it, the only thing you really need is HE and if you can spare, ES with GW being the only high level science ability worth having.
Engineering is about in the same same situation, there are a lot of good low level abilities you can load but really lacking on high level ones, also since the most "offensive" abilities are AB, DEM and EWP its not really much, of those only the TRIBBLE can be taken and how many consoles with farts they made so far? KDF have one that became cross with Fed so everyone can have a TRIBBLE without flying a Assault Cruiser refit or being a Kling.
Sure NI helps but when what it helps is a cruiser broadsiding as Sci ships simply lack ANYTHING to make up for the beams only (Vesta excluded) and are 3/3 anyway and both pretty much have to fight the fastest and more maneuverable ships in the game.
I am not saying a Tank should kill a DPS but in STO its very clear the DPS can kill the tank and the debuffer, there is no real counter to the Tac and due to all the healing that been thrown we have a situation were its harder and harder to offset the healing output, now DHCs can still do it but beams? No and that is the problem.
In another MMO this would be like the axe being the only weapon capable of doing damage ... swords and daggers cannot do DPS to offset the innate healing so what happens? Everyone that cannot use axes complains about because they made useless.
The HEC is a Hybrid. The MVAM is a Hybrid. They are not pure escorts but a meshing of the characterstics of more than one ship much like the Breen Escort Cruiser hybrid and other such hybrid builds.
It's right there in the interview. In the end, it's a business. Doesn't matter if you grew up watching TOS, saw all the TOS movies, continued watching TNG, saw all the TNG movies, watched VOY, watched ENT... it's not what sells. DS9 sells.
People have spoken with their wallets. It's a business. The game is going to reflect that.
In another MMO this would be like the axe being the only weapon capable of doing damage ... swords and daggers cannot do DPS to offset the innate healing so what happens? Everyone that cannot use axes complains about because they made useless.
And with this, you have a point.
But what's needed for PvP is a Mortal Strike type ability, not throwing out team or PvE balance for PvP.
Heck, just make beams in particular cause a healing debuff on targets.
Maybe beam and turret overload attacks that debuff healing.
And overall, I think ships need more difference between hull types and hull levels and less healing in PvE.
And Geko TALKED ABOUT THIS in the interview.
He also discussed the idea of letting sci ships get a second deflector slot and adding an armor gear type which cruisers get substantially more of, as the balance for DHCs.
If two friends want to slug it out for fun, what they're doing is agreeing to do something FOR FUN. I can install STO on some of the new higher end tablets but that doesn't make it supported.
I'm arguing that the best way to balance is to look at an aggregate of who wins 5v5 matches with non-direct combat objectives thrown in like Capture the Flag.
I'm not aware of any MMO that WANTS 1v1 balance or, necessarily, fighting balance. And you can have factors that are important to overall balance, like survivability, healing support, coordination, and AoE damage.
Say you've got two ships. One of them only does 50% the single target damage of the other ship but can hit 20 targets instead of 2. Who's imbalanced there?
Dueling is not what MMOs are going to balance PvP around. Dueling is dumb fun.
Matches in teams and the combinational power of teams is what PvP will be based around.
5 escorts with no healing abilities may beat 5 cruisers if they split up and 1v1 it but I doubt that will happen EVER if the cruisers heal and coordinate.
Allow me to lay your doubts to rest: It happens all the time. 5 DP-Escorts can out-damage any amount of healing. The BEST way to balance this game is to look at 1-on-1, balance that, and see how it works. Because, in the end, most times in PvE OR PvP, unless it's a Fleet event, you're going to end up dueling something/someone, be it a Cube or a Defiant.
Also, if a PvP system exists in ANY MMO, there's a way to 1v1 that the devs allow. You're saying that game devs hate 1-on-1 PvP, and that's completely and totally false. The basic form of PvP is 1 player versus 1 player. That's how it began, and that's how it always will be.
The question I was asked was basically "my beams are not as good as cannons, can you make them better".
My feeling is that beams are fine. They are WAD and don't need to be made better. The outlier are the cannons, and, in a perfect world (see what I did there), I would bring cannon power drain in line with beams instead of making beams more powerful. The analogy I was suggesting is that if everything good, and one thing is OP, its healthier for the game to bring the OP item down in line with all the other items instead of raising all items to the level of the one OP item.
My comment was suggesting the question should evaluate what the real problem is.
I meant no subtext to suggest if enough players complained, there would be justification to nerf cannons.
Again, we have no plans to nerf cannons in any way. I cant make it any more clear than that.
One option I'm not sure if anyone has considered is redoing the way ships layouts are setup. Just an example not having it a front and rear. Something more of an overlay of a ship for example if you were looking at a Negh'var in places where you would normally see cannons is where you would be able to put them but you'd not be limited to just that but something to give it more of a feel when designing a ship and stick the little boxes where you want the weapons on the overlay. In short it kind of would be the same thing we have now but it would put more emphasis on the design itself along with what was talked about in your interview putting those together to bridge the beam and cannons where they both have their strong points still but not having one type vastly superior to the other.
As far as that Negh'Var you were talking about I am hoping its some combination of the Regent and Endgame model
several replies later; SOmone comments some vapor speak about Dual Heavy Cannon's and
apparently either did not actually listen to the interview or only heard what he/she wanted to.. but more likely repeated garbage that others have spewed.
Another poster corrects the misinformation... *sigh* yet other continue to post same garbage that shows they did not listen to the interview.
FELLOW PLAYERS. If your going to comment on the podcast UGC #102 interview of Mister Al "Captain Geko" Rivera, could you at least go listen to the interview? I know its long, but really, go listen to it first. THEN share your thoughts..
If for no other reason those that did listen to the interview can tell right away that YOU didn't (which ever you, you is..really, the ones that did listen in this thread stand out)
AL said a lot of things during the interview, most was heavily caveated conjecture.
What was gone into in detail was how the studio team goes about doing things.
A great deal was mentioned of why certain "things" simply don't get done.
No direct exaples were provided.. none, zero, did NOT point at any specific THING.
What he did mention with a slight drop into programmer tech geek speak, was givin his druthers when it comes to changing statistic and effects on weapons and stystems he would prefer to weaken SLIGHTY a sytem then make it more powerfull. He said he would prefer this to prevent "Stat" creep, which is the tendency to make numbers larger, and larger.... and larger. And also tends strongly to eventually get totally out of hand and make a real mess of things.
Speaking of beam boats:
Of course the real solution to beam boats sucking away the power is to build them properly with the right consoles and the right character build on the player character captaining them... *sigh* call me foolish if you wish, but if someones going to go Min/Max
I would think that they should at least go about it in a rational way.
I thought it was a great interview. Gave us all a lot of good information without telling us anything about whats going to actually be happening on the 20th, and come May.
Yes if you were paying attention, he niether confirmed, or disallowed any of the current rumors. He did give some info on possible upcoming ships including some he would like to see, and he did share some artwork on what could be an escort, cruiser, or science ships..
(I liked the render with that wedge hull and the..ohh.. call it a Targa Top roll bar *grin*)
He did state for the record that the 3 ship packs have been the best sellers, overall (that is a caveat..ie: not all of them) and that he'd like to see more of them done.
SO go listen to the interview.. 4 hours and a lot of interesting information, even if its not about the latest greatest whats going to happen.
It's right there in the interview. In the end, it's a business. Doesn't matter if you grew up watching TOS, saw all the TOS movies, continued watching TNG, saw all the TNG movies, watched VOY, watched ENT... it's not what sells. DS9 sells.
People have spoken with their wallets. It's a business. The game is going to reflect that.
seems to me that if they made cruisers less fail, they would have be able to sell as many of them as they do escorts. they suck, their weapons don't do anything, what their good at is unneeded, escorts can tank better with speed, theres really nothing good about them in pve, and they are just slow moveing targets in pvp.
seems like a concept that needs some work, seems like there is opportunity to make more money if they do.
he had mentioned the regent didn't sell well, well in knew it wouldn't, being an RA level ship didnt help. something that can only use beam arrays cant make that great of use of that many tac stations, and cant make something like a quantum torp, regardless of its arc, hit hull. it didn't outdo the excelsior, the 3rd ENS eng is actually more useful, and the excelsior turns better. a kdf cruiser with the regent station setup, and typical ~9-11 turn would be godly though.
if gecko would stop selling ships that suck in pvp, and made ship tailored to be useful there, things would likely sell better. just another example of if the top brace know how to pvp, they would know what the players might want, it would not be a shot in the dark at all, and they might have the slightest idea of the current state of balance.
Oh look, a dev saying no to balance - bookmarking this one.
Geko, no offense, but saying no to a cannon nerf IS saying no to balance. I should NOT be capable of a three-second Cube kill. Tac Escorts with full alpha strikes do more damage than fourteen elite-difficulty NPC Battleships (My tank can survive the final fight of Battleship Royal Rumble on Elite, but can't stand against a Defiant-R alpha strike? LOLNO).
Geko does have a valid point on the beam/cannon issue. If he were to buff beams to compete with cannons, he is essentially expanding power creep. How many complaints would come out if cruisers could dish out escort level damage while maintaining their current level of tanking? The problem isn't even dual heavy cannons, it's cannon rapid fire II and III while using 4x Dual Heavy Cannons and 3x Turrets. The sheer amount of firepower when paired with Attack Pattern Alpha and 5 Tactical Consoles makes for a massive 8 second damage spike. There is no power drain penalty for running a pure Dual Heavy cannon build. When it comes to balancing Tactical/Science/Engineering, the base captain abilities are very balanced. Bridge officers are another story, but that's not the purpose of this thread. And even then, there are only six underpowered boff abilities (2 eng and 4 sci).
Commenting on the main topic of this thread (not directly addressed to the person in the quote above), I have to say that I really do like the Cryptic Dev team. I had some doubts about there they were taking the game right before Season Seven's release, but those doubts proved to be unfounded. In my opinion they try very hard to keep in touch with the community and they do make honest attempts to listen to our feedback. From Brandon running community shuttle events, Borticus responding to PvP concerns in the PvP forums, to Al Rivera and the other devs regularly participating in the seven? eight? different private game podcasts.
I recently listened to Al Rivera's interview with Podcast UGC. Tell me, how many game developers do you know spend four hours (ok, three hours and fifty three minutes) of their off the clock time talking about the the game they spend all day working on? Four hours! That is no small chunk of time. That shows genuine dedication to us as a player base and to the game as a whole. This podcast covered a lot about Cryptic's inner working surrounding the game. It also covered where Cryptic has made mistakes and where they are trying to improve. At least for me, that earned Al a great deal of respect. Nobody forced him to attend a four hour interview, talk about past mistakes, or answer questions about every aspect of the game and development. Yet that is precisely what he did.
Playing the game and experiencing beams is completely another experience than just have a feeling that beams are fine. Real experience is usually different than Excel spreadsheet.
Oh and btw, hello from one of the 14years old pvpers...you know, these pesky customers that actually spend money in this game :rolleyes:
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
seems to me that if they made cruisers less fail, they would have be able to sell as many of them as they do escorts. they suck, their weapons don't do anything, what their good at is unneeded, escorts can tank better with speed, theres really nothing good about them in pve, and they are just slow moveing targets in pvp.
seems like a concept that needs some work, seems like there is opportunity to make more money if they do.
he had mentioned the regent didn't sell well, well in knew it wouldn't, being an RA level ship didnt help. something that can only use beam arrays cant make that great of use of that many tac stations, and cant make something like a quantum torp, regardless of its arc, hit hull. it didn't outdo the excelsior, the 3rd ENS eng is actually more useful, and the excelsior turns better. a kdf cruiser with the regent station setup, and typical ~9-11 turn would be godly though.
if gecko would stop selling ships that suck in pvp, and made ship tailored to be useful there, things would likely sell better. just another example of if the top brace know how to pvp, they would know what the players might want, it would not be a shot in the dark at all, and they might have the slightest idea of the current state of balance.
It would be one of those things where they would have to test the waters - and - it's probably why they're looking at doing the Assault Negh'Var.
Still though, as you've said in your other post - and - what many have seen - so much of the game has changed to reflect that Escorts Online thing. Most things added to the game have a greater benefit for Escorts than other ships. They can't undo what they've done.
It's like even with the Andy, Geko wished it had been more Glass to go with that Cannon...but they can't change that. That's kind of where things have gone with the game. There would be so much they'd have to change...and...that's not going to happen.
Even if they were to do a "better" Cruiser (outside of a Battle Cruiser) - we wouldn't be looking at anything that would benefit as much from everything in the game as the Escorts do. This is a case of asking for a nerf to Escorts, rather a case of asking that they stop being buffed at every turn, eh? But again, they've started down that path - Escorts make them money - how can they make more money - better Escorts, more changes that benefit Escorts, etc, etc, etc.
But yeah, it's like you said. I mean, consider how poorly KDF ships sell. Maybe that's because of the population, eh? Maybe there's a reason for that population being what it is? Etc, etc, etc, etc... so instead of trying to do anything about possibly increasing that population and thus having more folks that could make the purchase so the ships sell better...so there are more ships, so the population might grow again, and more ships... yeah, no - it's going to be a case of chasing the money where it already is. It's not very enterprising - it's trying to milk the cow until it's dead.
I'm not trying to defend them in the least, just saying that it's pretty easy to see why certain things are the way they are and why they're likely to continue that way until the game dies.
Yeah, it's not defending them in the least.
In a sense, I look at it this way in regard to the interviews.
w/Dan - I know I'll be disappointed down the road when it doesn't happen.
w/Al - I don't have to wait to be disappointed...
Different folks want different things... it's easy for me to see where the OP and others would be absolutely delirious with the things Al talks about. I can see that. I can even see where it's working for the game, even if as more time goes along - it works less for me. I'm not a MMO whale nor a blogger with groupies... I know where I fit in as far as things go. As long as I find a reason to log into the game, I'll keep doing that - as long as I keep doing that, I'll keep voicing my opinion on the forums...
We had the Odyssey/Bortas pack last year, it was followed by the Atrox, the Heavy Escort Carrier, the Assault Cruiser Refit, the Vesta pack and finally by the Andorian Escort pack
Sure there is the Steamrunner but thats Steam.
So we had 2 cruisers (1 being a pack), 2 Sci ships (1 being a pack and I am putting the Atrox here despite it can easy qualify as a cruiser) and then 2 Escorts (1 being a pack), 3 if you want to count the Steamrunner.
I read a lot of things about the Assault Cruiser Refit but I think it sold better that some expected, we see a lot of ships on release and yes, I see Andorian Escorts but I think the Andorian Escort pack was a bust because the ships come out with a console set that was not worth the cost and even after the buffs I dont really see much point in the console set, also people that at release looked at them and decided to just buy one are not going to rush and spend 5000 Zen on top of the 2500 Zen, the only people that might buy the pack at this point are fence sitters and in my case I really dont see the point of the console set.
It was from the interview... they also do pretty well with the 3packs, so he said we're likely to see more of them. Not every ship will be, but they do well with them.
In looking at the ships, you also have to consider not only the C-Store ships, but also the Lobi and Fleet ships. All of them involve a potential financial gain for Cryptic - even if the person themselves bought the item with EC or ground Dil to convert to Zen...somebody spent really money for that Zen in the first place.
Can only go off of their numbers, and they've seen better returns on Escorts than other ships...
Heck, think about what they did with the 275 Zen DOFF Lockbox and the chance to get a Bug, eh?
Sometimes I wonder if people even play the same game as I do.
With Season 7 we got *a lot* of innate heals with the STF and Rommy reputations, this is the groundwork for any future reputation abilities since ... well, what they CAN do besides binary power boosters abilities choices?
Then we have the expanding DOFFs that also created problems, the fact is we already HAVE power creep since F2P that been headed into HEALING, not damage so we are in a situation were everyone can heal more BUT still deals the same damage or less due to nerfs.
Well, that's part of it. Yes, there has been that increase in survivability, but there has also been an increase in damage. That increase though - combination of passives, gear, DOFFs, etc, etc, etc... favors DHCs over other weapons.
It's kind of funny, because in the whole DHC vs. Beams debate - folks are so focused on nerf DHC or buff Beams. When in all honesty, if they were to stop buffing DHCs at every turn...then Beams may have been viewed in a better light. It's all the little pieces that add up.
Grab some Rom Tac BOFFs, grab Marion, take the passives, etc, etc, etc - S6/S7 and what's to come... it's continuing to buff DHCs at a much different rate than buffing other weapons. They already had the lead...everything keeps increasing that gap.
Much likes there's diminishing returns on defensive aspects in the game, perhaps there needs to be diminishing returns on offensive aspects, eh? And guess what, it wouldn't even need to be a nerf... they could just say, going forward - and tada!
Otherwise, that gap is just going to keep growing and growing... outside of some twisted things that folks will run with other weapons - the norm is going to continue to be what it is...a growing gap.
I hope that Al continues to monitor this thread - frankly its the first posting I have seen from him is a Long time.
There are lots of great feed back from some long time serious players in this thread so far. I know Al will do his thing and if there is any comments he wants to make about players comments I encourage him to do so.
Al - I know you don't want to get into a forum debate with players, but I think your appearence in this thread has had a positive effect - letting many people know that while you may not do exactly what they want you are paying attention. That's gone a long way in just a few short hours.
Geko does have a valid point on the beam/cannon issue. If he were to buff beams to compete with cannons, he is essentially expanding power creep. How many complaints would come out if cruisers could dish out escort level damage while maintaining their current level of tanking? The problem isn't even dual heavy cannons, it's cannon rapid fire II and III while using 4x Dual Heavy Cannons and 3x Turrets. The sheer amount of firepower when paired with Attack Pattern Alpha and 5 Tactical Consoles makes for a massive 8 second damage spike. There is no power drain penalty for running a pure Dual Heavy cannon build. When it comes to balancing Tactical/Science/Engineering, the base captain abilities are very balanced. Bridge officers are another story, but that's not the purpose of this thread. And even then, there are only six underpowered boff abilities (2 eng and 4 sci).
You preach to the choir, friend. I made a post recently (many called it a generic "nerf escorts" thread, but they failed to read most of it). Exactly what you said was a big talking point; I hadto explain it to a half dozen different people. So, I say nerf DHCs first.
In terms of damage, he said what he WOULD do is SLIGHTLY increase cannon weapon power drain but probably won't.
In terms of what he's looking more definitely at, he talked about giving cruisers dramatically more hull and science ships a second deflector slot. (Which is insanely gimmicky when you consider the potential for sci-ships mixing 2 2-piece set bonuses.)
I believe he alluded to a need for more content that calls for more than just dealing damage.
He also talked about slowing down PvP to lessen the impact of burst. (And I imagine that would have to come with higher emphasis on durability and less heal effectiveness. He did talk about various ways of raising durability.)
And somehow the community walks away with, "Don't nerf my damage output!" and "Why can't I do as much damage as an escort?"
The developers are not the ones pushing "Escorts Online" here. He suggested a lot of meaningful counters to that and is getting bombarded with, "I don't want durability! I want damage!" with a side of "I don't want to manage my resources, I want damage!"
If this game is escorts online, it's because of threads like this. He talked at length about counters to that by focusing on non-damage boosts and the need for things other than damage to be important.
It's by and large players pushing for damage centric design that makes escorts king.
Why no threads about cruisers getting super-armor equipment and science ships getting a second deflector? Why is it that damage balance gets all the press? And for that matter, if that's what it takes to penetrate healing, why are people calling for damage to get buffed to DHC level rather than for healing to get nerfed and/or countered in PvP?
In terms of damage, he said what he WOULD do is SLIGHTLY increase cannon weapon power drain but probably won't.
In terms of what he's looking more definitely at, he talked about giving cruisers dramatically more hull and science ships a second deflector slot. (Which is insanely gimmicky when you consider the potential for sci-ships mixing 2 2-piece set bonuses.)
I believe he alluded to a need for more content that calls for more than just dealing damage.
He also talked about slowing down PvP to lessen the impact of burst. (And I imagine that would have to come with higher emphasis on durability and less heal effectiveness. He did talk about various ways of raising durability.)
And somehow the community walks away with, "Don't nerf my damage output!" and "Why can't I do as much damage as an escort?"
The developers are not the ones pushing "Escorts Online" here. He suggested a lot of meaningful counters to that and is getting bombarded with, "I don't want durability! I want damage!" with a side of "I don't want to manage my resources, I want damage!"
If this game is escorts online, it's because of threads like this. He talked at length about counters to that by focusing on non-damage boosts and the need for things other than damage to be important.
It's by and large players pushing for damage centric design that makes escorts king.
Why no threads about cruisers getting super-armor equipment and science ships getting a second deflector? Why is it that damage balance gets all the press? And for that matter, if that's what it takes to penetrate healing, why are people calling for damage to get buffed to DHC level rather than for healing to get nerfed and/or countered in PvP?
That's not true. The game pushes players to DPS, because it IS a DPS fest. It's not he players, it's the game. It basically makes you feel underpowered and slow if you are lacking dps.
Rewards in fleet actions based on dps = check
Higher dps means faster pve missions and dailies done quicker = check
STFs are much easier with 5x tac/escort = check
There is no need for heal/tank in STF = check
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
In terms of damage, he said what he WOULD do is SLIGHTLY increase cannon weapon power drain but probably won't.
In terms of what he's looking more definitely at, he talked about giving cruisers dramatically more hull and science ships a second deflector slot. (Which is insanely gimmicky when you consider the potential for sci-ships mixing 2 2-piece set bonuses.)
I believe he alluded to a need for more content that calls for more than just dealing damage.
He also talked about slowing down PvP to lessen the impact of burst. (And I imagine that would have to come with higher emphasis on durability and less heal effectiveness. He did talk about various ways of raising durability.)
And somehow the community walks away with, "Don't nerf my damage output!" and "Why can't I do as much damage as an escort?"
The developers are not the ones pushing "Escorts Online" here. He suggested a lot of meaningful counters to that and is getting bombarded with, "I don't want durability! I want damage!" with a side of "I don't want to manage my resources, I want damage!"
If this game is escorts online, it's because of threads like this. He talked at length about counters to that by focusing on non-damage boosts and the need for things other than damage to be important.
It's by and large players pushing for damage centric design that makes escorts king.
Why no threads about cruisers getting super-armor equipment and science ships getting a second deflector? Why is it that damage balance gets all the press? And for that matter, if that's what it takes to penetrate healing, why are people calling for damage to get buffed to DHC level rather than for healing to get nerfed and/or countered in PvP?
Before you condemn this thread and its brethren and overall the players themselves, remember your own words:
"I believe he alluded to a need for more content that calls for more than just dealing damage."
Currently the game dos not have that kind of content outside of the exploration/diplomacy/doff system. Until Aid the Planet missions start rewarding neural processors or omega marks, until radiation scanning starts rewarding fleet marks, people are going to focus on DPS. This has been a problem with this game since the beginning. Heck, Fleet Actions still only reward damage output. Remember when trophies first arrived? It was a pain in the butt to get a trophy for an FA in a cruiser. And a huge annoyance to get one in a science ship. But pretty smooth sailing for an escort.
This isn't Geko's fault. But it is a system wide problem for Cryptic and crops up in all of its games.
Heck, the DOFF system, which debuted as one of the largest non-combat initiatives this game has tried, is turned right back into DPS and passive skills with the active DOFFs people use (that particular one that works on energy drain with Beam Overload, or even just the torpedo dooders directly impact DPS, while the tact team reduction ones and the Emergency Power reduction ones directly impact survivability to sustain DPS).
Just you know, keep in mind that damage is a central focus of the players because of how the game has evolved.
If scanning columns in the B'Tran were the pinnacle of achievement, or solving Defera puzzles were the pinnacle of gameplay, then the focus wouldn't be so heavily on "I want to do more damage with my cruiser!"
Just you know, keep in mind that damage is a central focus of the players because of how the game has evolved.
If scanning columns in the B'Tran were the pinnacle of achievement, or solving Defera puzzles were the pinnacle of gameplay, then the focus wouldn't be so heavily on "I want to do more damage with my cruiser!"
All of this is fair.
But, frankly, I feel like the devs would like to evolve it in other directions but get hit with, "That makes me feel slow/weak."
I really do wish I worked on this game because I have thoughts on why that is. But a lot of it boils down to: "Damage is visual and kinesthetic."
And what I'd consider the central challenge of this game (and what I said all through DOff system development) is, "How does a content or systems designer make non-combat visual and kinesthetic without asking for substantially more from the game's artists?"
I have thoughts on this. But I think this is probably one of the most important questions Cryptic can ask. I think this should basically be one person's whole job now that we have over 40 people on the team.
My feeling is that beams are fine. They are WAD and don't need to be made better. The outlier are the cannons, and, in a perfect world (see what I did there), I would bring cannon power drain in line with beams instead of making beams more powerful. The analogy I was suggesting is that if everything good, and one thing is OP, its healthier for the game to bring the OP item down in line with all the other items instead of raising all items to the level of the one OP item.
So... basically an almost stupidly inefficient weapon is WAD? Seriously? I mean, no offense Mr. Rivera, but when was the last time you actually used a beamboat? The insane levels of power drain alone make beam-cruisers almost pointless. The point of a beam array is a wide arc medium damage pressure weapon right? How can we apply pressure damage to a target that immediately regenerates all the damage we deal and then some? And how can we apply any damage if our weapons are reduced to less than 50% damage after the first two shots?
Beam Array drain is just ridiculous considering how much damage you lose as a result of that drain, especially since their base damage is already incredibly low. You are draining 10 power per beam, which translates to roughly a 10% reduction in damage PER BEAM. So you are punishing the user with each additional beam to a ridiculous amount. I don't mean to come across as a nerd-rage poster, but this is just stupid.
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.
So... basically an almost stupidly inefficient weapon is WAD? Seriously? I mean, no offense Mr. Rivera, but when was the last time you actually used a beamboat? The insane levels of power drain alone make beam-cruisers almost pointless. The point of a beam array is a wide arc medium damage pressure weapon right? How can we apply pressure damage to a target that immediately regenerates all the damage we deal and then some? And how can we apply any damage if our weapons are reduced to less than 50% damage after the first two shots?
Beam Array drain is just ridiculous considering how much damage you lose as a result of that drain, especially since their base damage is already incredibly low. You are draining 10 power per beam, which translates to roughly a 10% reduction in damage PER BEAM. So you are punishing the user with each additional beam to a ridiculous amount. I don't mean to come across as a nerd-rage poster, but this is just stupid.
Again, I think what you're hitting on is not the beam's failure but that healing is a broken mechanic in PvP and that too much of survivability is concentrated on healing and not enough is concentrated on hull resist, probably coupled with the point that hull differeces between escorts/cruisers are not pronounced enough (which Geko seems to think, given he seemed to think cruisers need more hull) or hull resist needs to follow more of an exponential curve.
he's the only one there that tries his hardest not to dance around tough issues and smack down players hard.
He's not the 7of9 poster owning vegan badass you're looking for .
The main point was that I like a dev who is not afraid to step into the frying pan.
If your idea of the 'frying pan' is two fawning self obsessed interviewers (and one over the top PC Klingon) , then you and I have different ideas about what the 'frying pan' actually means .
The question I was asked was basically "my beams are not as good as cannons, can you make them better".
My feeling is that beams are fine. They are WAD and don't need to be made better. The outlier are the cannons, and, in a perfect world (see what I did there), I would bring cannon power drain in line with beams instead of making beams more powerful. The analogy I was suggesting is that if everything good, and one thing is OP, its healthier for the game to bring the OP item down in line with all the other items instead of raising all items to the level of the one OP item.
My comment was suggesting the question should evaluate what the real problem is.
I meant no subtext to suggest if enough players complained, there would be justification to nerf cannons.
Again, we have no plans to nerf cannons in any way. I cant make it any more clear than that.
PLease show me your Beamboat that fights those peksy 14year olds and then tell me how it is WAD.
Don't forget to spec into Power insulators,.... which don't impact weapons energy drain, maybe time to do some homework.
That's not true. The game pushes players to DPS, because it IS a DPS fest. It's not he players, it's the game. It basically makes you feel underpowered and slow if you are lacking dps.
Rewards in fleet actions based on dps = check
Higher dps means faster pve missions and dailies done quicker = check
STFs are much easier with 5x tac/escort = check
There is no need for heal/tank in STF = check
So here is the thing, i wonder why escorts are best sellers?
Yeah, you might want to edit your post and delete the personal attacks if you want your opinion to continue to be heard in the future.
Aside from that, I really would like to know how much Al Rivera cares about the desires of the playerbase, compared to his own desires for the game. Dan even once said in a Q&A that he would run some ship complaints by Rivera - as if there was no oversight making sure Rivera was towing any line but his own.
I'd like to find out if he really is working in the best interests of the customer base. Because everything I've seen him say so far, points to him doing his job to appease himself and nobody else.
Comments
The HEC is a Hybrid. The MVAM is a Hybrid. They are not pure escorts but a meshing of the characterstics of more than one ship much like the Breen Escort Cruiser hybrid and other such hybrid builds.
R.I.P
It's right there in the interview. In the end, it's a business. Doesn't matter if you grew up watching TOS, saw all the TOS movies, continued watching TNG, saw all the TNG movies, watched VOY, watched ENT... it's not what sells. DS9 sells.
People have spoken with their wallets. It's a business. The game is going to reflect that.
And with this, you have a point.
But what's needed for PvP is a Mortal Strike type ability, not throwing out team or PvE balance for PvP.
Heck, just make beams in particular cause a healing debuff on targets.
Maybe beam and turret overload attacks that debuff healing.
And Geko TALKED ABOUT THIS in the interview.
He also discussed the idea of letting sci ships get a second deflector slot and adding an armor gear type which cruisers get substantially more of, as the balance for DHCs.
Allow me to lay your doubts to rest: It happens all the time. 5 DP-Escorts can out-damage any amount of healing. The BEST way to balance this game is to look at 1-on-1, balance that, and see how it works. Because, in the end, most times in PvE OR PvP, unless it's a Fleet event, you're going to end up dueling something/someone, be it a Cube or a Defiant.
Also, if a PvP system exists in ANY MMO, there's a way to 1v1 that the devs allow. You're saying that game devs hate 1-on-1 PvP, and that's completely and totally false. The basic form of PvP is 1 player versus 1 player. That's how it began, and that's how it always will be.
That happened in the series all the time! Defiant Vs. Lakota anyone?
One option I'm not sure if anyone has considered is redoing the way ships layouts are setup. Just an example not having it a front and rear. Something more of an overlay of a ship for example if you were looking at a Negh'var in places where you would normally see cannons is where you would be able to put them but you'd not be limited to just that but something to give it more of a feel when designing a ship and stick the little boxes where you want the weapons on the overlay. In short it kind of would be the same thing we have now but it would put more emphasis on the design itself along with what was talked about in your interview putting those together to bridge the beam and cannons where they both have their strong points still but not having one type vastly superior to the other.
As far as that Negh'Var you were talking about I am hoping its some combination of the Regent and Endgame model
OP. listens to interview, comments.
several replies later; SOmone comments some vapor speak about Dual Heavy Cannon's and
apparently either did not actually listen to the interview or only heard what he/she wanted to.. but more likely repeated garbage that others have spewed.
Another poster corrects the misinformation... *sigh* yet other continue to post same garbage that shows they did not listen to the interview.
FELLOW PLAYERS. If your going to comment on the podcast UGC #102 interview of Mister Al "Captain Geko" Rivera, could you at least go listen to the interview? I know its long, but really, go listen to it first. THEN share your thoughts..
If for no other reason those that did listen to the interview can tell right away that YOU didn't (which ever you, you is..really, the ones that did listen in this thread stand out)
AL said a lot of things during the interview, most was heavily caveated conjecture.
What was gone into in detail was how the studio team goes about doing things.
A great deal was mentioned of why certain "things" simply don't get done.
No direct exaples were provided.. none, zero, did NOT point at any specific THING.
What he did mention with a slight drop into programmer tech geek speak, was givin his druthers when it comes to changing statistic and effects on weapons and stystems he would prefer to weaken SLIGHTY a sytem then make it more powerfull. He said he would prefer this to prevent "Stat" creep, which is the tendency to make numbers larger, and larger.... and larger. And also tends strongly to eventually get totally out of hand and make a real mess of things.
Speaking of beam boats:
Of course the real solution to beam boats sucking away the power is to build them properly with the right consoles and the right character build on the player character captaining them... *sigh* call me foolish if you wish, but if someones going to go Min/Max
I would think that they should at least go about it in a rational way.
I thought it was a great interview. Gave us all a lot of good information without telling us anything about whats going to actually be happening on the 20th, and come May.
Yes if you were paying attention, he niether confirmed, or disallowed any of the current rumors. He did give some info on possible upcoming ships including some he would like to see, and he did share some artwork on what could be an escort, cruiser, or science ships..
(I liked the render with that wedge hull and the..ohh.. call it a Targa Top roll bar *grin*)
He did state for the record that the 3 ship packs have been the best sellers, overall (that is a caveat..ie: not all of them) and that he'd like to see more of them done.
SO go listen to the interview.. 4 hours and a lot of interesting information, even if its not about the latest greatest whats going to happen.
Khemaraa sends
seems to me that if they made cruisers less fail, they would have be able to sell as many of them as they do escorts. they suck, their weapons don't do anything, what their good at is unneeded, escorts can tank better with speed, theres really nothing good about them in pve, and they are just slow moveing targets in pvp.
seems like a concept that needs some work, seems like there is opportunity to make more money if they do.
he had mentioned the regent didn't sell well, well in knew it wouldn't, being an RA level ship didnt help. something that can only use beam arrays cant make that great of use of that many tac stations, and cant make something like a quantum torp, regardless of its arc, hit hull. it didn't outdo the excelsior, the 3rd ENS eng is actually more useful, and the excelsior turns better. a kdf cruiser with the regent station setup, and typical ~9-11 turn would be godly though.
if gecko would stop selling ships that suck in pvp, and made ship tailored to be useful there, things would likely sell better. just another example of if the top brace know how to pvp, they would know what the players might want, it would not be a shot in the dark at all, and they might have the slightest idea of the current state of balance.
Geko does have a valid point on the beam/cannon issue. If he were to buff beams to compete with cannons, he is essentially expanding power creep. How many complaints would come out if cruisers could dish out escort level damage while maintaining their current level of tanking? The problem isn't even dual heavy cannons, it's cannon rapid fire II and III while using 4x Dual Heavy Cannons and 3x Turrets. The sheer amount of firepower when paired with Attack Pattern Alpha and 5 Tactical Consoles makes for a massive 8 second damage spike. There is no power drain penalty for running a pure Dual Heavy cannon build. When it comes to balancing Tactical/Science/Engineering, the base captain abilities are very balanced. Bridge officers are another story, but that's not the purpose of this thread. And even then, there are only six underpowered boff abilities (2 eng and 4 sci).
Commenting on the main topic of this thread (not directly addressed to the person in the quote above), I have to say that I really do like the Cryptic Dev team. I had some doubts about there they were taking the game right before Season Seven's release, but those doubts proved to be unfounded. In my opinion they try very hard to keep in touch with the community and they do make honest attempts to listen to our feedback. From Brandon running community shuttle events, Borticus responding to PvP concerns in the PvP forums, to Al Rivera and the other devs regularly participating in the seven? eight? different private game podcasts.
I recently listened to Al Rivera's interview with Podcast UGC. Tell me, how many game developers do you know spend four hours (ok, three hours and fifty three minutes) of their off the clock time talking about the the game they spend all day working on? Four hours! That is no small chunk of time. That shows genuine dedication to us as a player base and to the game as a whole. This podcast covered a lot about Cryptic's inner working surrounding the game. It also covered where Cryptic has made mistakes and where they are trying to improve. At least for me, that earned Al a great deal of respect. Nobody forced him to attend a four hour interview, talk about past mistakes, or answer questions about every aspect of the game and development. Yet that is precisely what he did.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Playing the game and experiencing beams is completely another experience than just have a feeling that beams are fine. Real experience is usually different than Excel spreadsheet.
Oh and btw, hello from one of the 14years old pvpers...you know, these pesky customers that actually spend money in this game :rolleyes:
It would be one of those things where they would have to test the waters - and - it's probably why they're looking at doing the Assault Negh'Var.
Still though, as you've said in your other post - and - what many have seen - so much of the game has changed to reflect that Escorts Online thing. Most things added to the game have a greater benefit for Escorts than other ships. They can't undo what they've done.
It's like even with the Andy, Geko wished it had been more Glass to go with that Cannon...but they can't change that. That's kind of where things have gone with the game. There would be so much they'd have to change...and...that's not going to happen.
Even if they were to do a "better" Cruiser (outside of a Battle Cruiser) - we wouldn't be looking at anything that would benefit as much from everything in the game as the Escorts do. This is a case of asking for a nerf to Escorts, rather a case of asking that they stop being buffed at every turn, eh? But again, they've started down that path - Escorts make them money - how can they make more money - better Escorts, more changes that benefit Escorts, etc, etc, etc.
But yeah, it's like you said. I mean, consider how poorly KDF ships sell. Maybe that's because of the population, eh? Maybe there's a reason for that population being what it is? Etc, etc, etc, etc... so instead of trying to do anything about possibly increasing that population and thus having more folks that could make the purchase so the ships sell better...so there are more ships, so the population might grow again, and more ships... yeah, no - it's going to be a case of chasing the money where it already is. It's not very enterprising - it's trying to milk the cow until it's dead.
I'm not trying to defend them in the least, just saying that it's pretty easy to see why certain things are the way they are and why they're likely to continue that way until the game dies.
Yeah, it's not defending them in the least.
In a sense, I look at it this way in regard to the interviews.
w/Dan - I know I'll be disappointed down the road when it doesn't happen.
w/Al - I don't have to wait to be disappointed...
Different folks want different things... it's easy for me to see where the OP and others would be absolutely delirious with the things Al talks about. I can see that. I can even see where it's working for the game, even if as more time goes along - it works less for me. I'm not a MMO whale nor a blogger with groupies... I know where I fit in as far as things go. As long as I find a reason to log into the game, I'll keep doing that - as long as I keep doing that, I'll keep voicing my opinion on the forums...
It was from the interview... they also do pretty well with the 3packs, so he said we're likely to see more of them. Not every ship will be, but they do well with them.
In looking at the ships, you also have to consider not only the C-Store ships, but also the Lobi and Fleet ships. All of them involve a potential financial gain for Cryptic - even if the person themselves bought the item with EC or ground Dil to convert to Zen...somebody spent really money for that Zen in the first place.
Can only go off of their numbers, and they've seen better returns on Escorts than other ships...
Heck, think about what they did with the 275 Zen DOFF Lockbox and the chance to get a Bug, eh?
Well, that's part of it. Yes, there has been that increase in survivability, but there has also been an increase in damage. That increase though - combination of passives, gear, DOFFs, etc, etc, etc... favors DHCs over other weapons.
It's kind of funny, because in the whole DHC vs. Beams debate - folks are so focused on nerf DHC or buff Beams. When in all honesty, if they were to stop buffing DHCs at every turn...then Beams may have been viewed in a better light. It's all the little pieces that add up.
Grab some Rom Tac BOFFs, grab Marion, take the passives, etc, etc, etc - S6/S7 and what's to come... it's continuing to buff DHCs at a much different rate than buffing other weapons. They already had the lead...everything keeps increasing that gap.
Much likes there's diminishing returns on defensive aspects in the game, perhaps there needs to be diminishing returns on offensive aspects, eh? And guess what, it wouldn't even need to be a nerf... they could just say, going forward - and tada!
Otherwise, that gap is just going to keep growing and growing... outside of some twisted things that folks will run with other weapons - the norm is going to continue to be what it is...a growing gap.
There are lots of great feed back from some long time serious players in this thread so far. I know Al will do his thing and if there is any comments he wants to make about players comments I encourage him to do so.
Al - I know you don't want to get into a forum debate with players, but I think your appearence in this thread has had a positive effect - letting many people know that while you may not do exactly what they want you are paying attention. That's gone a long way in just a few short hours.
Again thanks for stopping by.
You preach to the choir, friend. I made a post recently (many called it a generic "nerf escorts" thread, but they failed to read most of it). Exactly what you said was a big talking point; I hadto explain it to a half dozen different people. So, I say nerf DHCs first.
In terms of damage, he said what he WOULD do is SLIGHTLY increase cannon weapon power drain but probably won't.
In terms of what he's looking more definitely at, he talked about giving cruisers dramatically more hull and science ships a second deflector slot. (Which is insanely gimmicky when you consider the potential for sci-ships mixing 2 2-piece set bonuses.)
I believe he alluded to a need for more content that calls for more than just dealing damage.
He also talked about slowing down PvP to lessen the impact of burst. (And I imagine that would have to come with higher emphasis on durability and less heal effectiveness. He did talk about various ways of raising durability.)
And somehow the community walks away with, "Don't nerf my damage output!" and "Why can't I do as much damage as an escort?"
The developers are not the ones pushing "Escorts Online" here. He suggested a lot of meaningful counters to that and is getting bombarded with, "I don't want durability! I want damage!" with a side of "I don't want to manage my resources, I want damage!"
If this game is escorts online, it's because of threads like this. He talked at length about counters to that by focusing on non-damage boosts and the need for things other than damage to be important.
It's by and large players pushing for damage centric design that makes escorts king.
Why no threads about cruisers getting super-armor equipment and science ships getting a second deflector? Why is it that damage balance gets all the press? And for that matter, if that's what it takes to penetrate healing, why are people calling for damage to get buffed to DHC level rather than for healing to get nerfed and/or countered in PvP?
Target has X health. To get target to 0 health, one must damage it.
Though, admittedly - I run a ship named Attrition...and sometimes my target just logs out to take a nap.
Course, that really comes down to my ability to withstand damage. So it's still damage centric.
Kind of what it is...regardless of how you look at it.
Beefier hulls? Just means more damage has to be done. Stuff that does more damage will be better off - stuff that does less damage will be worse off.
Sci better able to create gaps? Stuff that does more damage will still take better advantage of that than stuff that does less damage.
It is what it is...
That's not true. The game pushes players to DPS, because it IS a DPS fest. It's not he players, it's the game. It basically makes you feel underpowered and slow if you are lacking dps.
Rewards in fleet actions based on dps = check
Higher dps means faster pve missions and dailies done quicker = check
STFs are much easier with 5x tac/escort = check
There is no need for heal/tank in STF = check
Before you condemn this thread and its brethren and overall the players themselves, remember your own words:
"I believe he alluded to a need for more content that calls for more than just dealing damage."
Currently the game dos not have that kind of content outside of the exploration/diplomacy/doff system. Until Aid the Planet missions start rewarding neural processors or omega marks, until radiation scanning starts rewarding fleet marks, people are going to focus on DPS. This has been a problem with this game since the beginning. Heck, Fleet Actions still only reward damage output. Remember when trophies first arrived? It was a pain in the butt to get a trophy for an FA in a cruiser. And a huge annoyance to get one in a science ship. But pretty smooth sailing for an escort.
This isn't Geko's fault. But it is a system wide problem for Cryptic and crops up in all of its games.
Heck, the DOFF system, which debuted as one of the largest non-combat initiatives this game has tried, is turned right back into DPS and passive skills with the active DOFFs people use (that particular one that works on energy drain with Beam Overload, or even just the torpedo dooders directly impact DPS, while the tact team reduction ones and the Emergency Power reduction ones directly impact survivability to sustain DPS).
Just you know, keep in mind that damage is a central focus of the players because of how the game has evolved.
If scanning columns in the B'Tran were the pinnacle of achievement, or solving Defera puzzles were the pinnacle of gameplay, then the focus wouldn't be so heavily on "I want to do more damage with my cruiser!"
All of this is fair.
But, frankly, I feel like the devs would like to evolve it in other directions but get hit with, "That makes me feel slow/weak."
I really do wish I worked on this game because I have thoughts on why that is. But a lot of it boils down to: "Damage is visual and kinesthetic."
And what I'd consider the central challenge of this game (and what I said all through DOff system development) is, "How does a content or systems designer make non-combat visual and kinesthetic without asking for substantially more from the game's artists?"
I have thoughts on this. But I think this is probably one of the most important questions Cryptic can ask. I think this should basically be one person's whole job now that we have over 40 people on the team.
So... basically an almost stupidly inefficient weapon is WAD? Seriously? I mean, no offense Mr. Rivera, but when was the last time you actually used a beamboat? The insane levels of power drain alone make beam-cruisers almost pointless. The point of a beam array is a wide arc medium damage pressure weapon right? How can we apply pressure damage to a target that immediately regenerates all the damage we deal and then some? And how can we apply any damage if our weapons are reduced to less than 50% damage after the first two shots?
Beam Array drain is just ridiculous considering how much damage you lose as a result of that drain, especially since their base damage is already incredibly low. You are draining 10 power per beam, which translates to roughly a 10% reduction in damage PER BEAM. So you are punishing the user with each additional beam to a ridiculous amount. I don't mean to come across as a nerd-rage poster, but this is just stupid.
Again, I think what you're hitting on is not the beam's failure but that healing is a broken mechanic in PvP and that too much of survivability is concentrated on healing and not enough is concentrated on hull resist, probably coupled with the point that hull differeces between escorts/cruisers are not pronounced enough (which Geko seems to think, given he seemed to think cruisers need more hull) or hull resist needs to follow more of an exponential curve.
No , I really don't have to .
He's not the 7of9 poster owning vegan badass you're looking for .
If your idea of the 'frying pan' is two fawning self obsessed interviewers (and one over the top PC Klingon) , then you and I have different ideas about what the 'frying pan' actually means .
PLease show me your Beamboat that fights those peksy 14year olds and then tell me how it is WAD.
Don't forget to spec into Power insulators,.... which don't impact weapons energy drain, maybe time to do some homework.
So here is the thing, i wonder why escorts are best sellers?
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
love that part, thx for stating
Yeah, you might want to edit your post and delete the personal attacks if you want your opinion to continue to be heard in the future.
Aside from that, I really would like to know how much Al Rivera cares about the desires of the playerbase, compared to his own desires for the game. Dan even once said in a Q&A that he would run some ship complaints by Rivera - as if there was no oversight making sure Rivera was towing any line but his own.
I'd like to find out if he really is working in the best interests of the customer base. Because everything I've seen him say so far, points to him doing his job to appease himself and nobody else.