The main problem is that a lot of people should learn to play their classes and ships properly, instead of blaming people who play well.
The main problem is people who don't admit that there is a problem, and who make unsubstantiated claims about how to play other classes and ships "properly". As for "people who play well", are you referring to those TacEscorts who are able to simply throttle down to zero on someone's facing, and hammer away at them because their weapons are too weak to even breach their shields? If you do not fly Federation cruisers as a matter of course, then you have no right to disparagingly talk about how people should play.
Anyone who claims that there are no problems at all with the current game dynamic is full of ****.
Um, ok, firstly, no; if escorts get any less durable than they already are then how the hell is anyone supposed to do the campaign? I run with a patrol escort, VA with a rare covariant cap2 shield and 2 neutronium alloy and I still have trouble with some of the npc ships, especially since I'm usually solo and not in a fleet.
Secondly, steadfastly NO; if tacs get any weaker on ground then they're going to be one-shotted by pretty much everything, I can't tell you how many hypos and what not I go through in ground combat and I STILL have to get rezz at least once on pretty much every map, given that I know how to spec and equip my team to be effective and I fight cautiously, that shouldn't happen nearly so often - nerfing their durability any more than they have already would just ruin them.
Thirdly, finally, WHAT?!?: Now look, I can see why tacs should be nerfed in pvp, that's fair but I, personally, get tired of the constant ******** and moaning from people with a pvp/fleet action mentality (I don't see any other reason that you'd be complaining so if you're not in that group, just take this as disjointed ranting), there is more to the game than pvp/fleet action.
Having said all of that, nerfing the high level npc ships for solo players, now THAT, that I can understand.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I'm not THAT difficult to please, I just have a very low tolerance threshold for stupid BS! - George Carlin.
Um, ok, firstly, no; if escorts get any less durable than they already are then how the hell is anyone supposed to do the campaign? I run with a patrol escort, VA with a rare covariant cap2 shield and 2 neutronium alloy and I still have trouble with some of the npc ships, especially since I'm usually solo and not in a fleet.
Secondly, steadfastly NO; if tacs get any weaker on ground then they're going to be one-shotted by pretty much everything, I can't tell you how many hypos and what not I go through in ground combat and I STILL have to get rezz at least once on pretty much every map, given that I know how to spec and equip my team to be effective and I fight cautiously, that shouldn't happen nearly so often - nerfing their durability any more than they have already would just ruin them.
Thirdly, finally, WHAT?!?: Now look, I can see why tacs should be nerfed in pvp, that's fair but I, personally, get tired of the constant ******** and moaning from people with a pvp/fleet action mentality (I don't see any other reason that you'd be complaining so if you're not in that group, just take this as disjointed ranting), there is more to the game than pvp/fleet action.
Having said all of that, nerfing the high level npc ships for solo players, now THAT, that I can understand.
Tell us your load-out and I will tell you what the hell you are doing wrong.
Um, ok, firstly, no; if escorts get any less durable than they already are then how the hell is anyone supposed to do the campaign? I run with a patrol escort, VA with a rare covariant cap2 shield and 2 neutronium alloy and I still have trouble with some of the npc ships, especially since I'm usually solo and not in a fleet.
Secondly, steadfastly NO; if tacs get any weaker on ground then they're going to be one-shotted by pretty much everything, I can't tell you how many hypos and what not I go through in ground combat and I STILL have to get rezz at least once on pretty much every map, given that I know how to spec and equip my team to be effective and I fight cautiously, that shouldn't happen nearly so often - nerfing their durability any more than they have already would just ruin them.
Thirdly, finally, WHAT?!?: Now look, I can see why tacs should be nerfed in pvp, that's fair but I, personally, get tired of the constant ******** and moaning from people with a pvp/fleet action mentality (I don't see any other reason that you'd be complaining so if you're not in that group, just take this as disjointed ranting), there is more to the game than pvp/fleet action.
Having said all of that, nerfing the high level npc ships for solo players, now THAT, that I can understand.
Agreed. I also have a fine Fleet Excelsior who can tank any tactical cube or Donatra scimitar that happens to cross its way. Oooh..and deal medium damage.
I alone in my ship let 4 pugs survive instead of gettine one shotted. I let them fight and deal some damage myself, and I'm awesome to do that.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
1 nerf I can think of is to make Attack Pattern Alpha share a cooldown with other Attack Patterns. Makes no sense to be able to run 2 Attack Patterns at same time.
Um, ok, firstly, no; if escorts get any less durable than they already are then how the hell is anyone supposed to do the campaign? I run with a patrol escort, VA with a rare covariant cap2 shield and 2 neutronium alloy and I still have trouble with some of the npc ships, especially since I'm usually solo and not in a fleet.
Maybe it's just me, but I like trouble. Yeah, I had a hard time soloing plenty of parts in the campaign as a tac/escort, but I like a challenge, and the only thing I was never able to find a good way around in the single-player content was the giant furball of doom at the end of Boldly They Rode. (oh, um... spoi-lers....) Some things took me longer to figure out than others, but I found that what I needed to do was play to my ship's strengths.
What was essential (for me, at least) when dealing with the nastier enemies in the solo PvE content was to out-maneuver them, engage in multiple hit-and-run attacks, darting out of range entirely when I had lost the tactical upper-hand, and pinning the more front-loaded enemies in place whenever possible. I have very fond memories of when my Heavy Escort and I would "joust" with D'deridexes in order to exploit their turn-rate, weapons positioning, and firing behaviors.
Secondly, steadfastly NO; if tacs get any weaker on ground then they're going to be one-shotted by pretty much everything, . . .
I don't think I've seen anyone talk about nerfing tacs on the ground. Closest I've seen is someone saying that tacs suck at ground combat, and them rocking at space combat is their compensation for it.
No, tac officers do not need ground debuffs, and I will back you up on that if anyone suggests otherwise. (Frankly between my Fed tac and my KDF sci-- it's the science officer who rocks at ground combat. I don't think any other class can solo Manus on elite difficulty!)
Thirdly, finally, WHAT?!?: Now look, I can see why tacs should be nerfed in pvp, that's fair but I, personally, get tired of the constant ******** and moaning from people with a pvp/fleet action mentality (I don't see any other reason that you'd be complaining so if you're not in that group, just take this as disjointed ranting), there is more to the game than pvp/fleet action.
Having said all of that, nerfing the high level npc ships for solo players, now THAT, that I can understand.
Do STFs count in the fleet action territory? Because that's where I am. I like cooperative play, but I suck too bad for PvP. :P
However, when the best STF party consists of 5 tac/escorts (followed closely by 4 tac/escorts and either 1 tac/cruiser or 1 sci/escort), you've got a problem. Any job that anyone needs to do in an STF, an escort can do it best.
Also I would be pretty sad if high-level NPC ships in solo play were debuffed. I may be weird in wanting a challenge and feeling like I might lose, but even the supposed-to-be-difficult encounters in the Foundry and the single-player daily missions... I can handle easier than I'd prefer. It doesn't even qualifies as a boast to say that my escort has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to rip apart a Keldon-class battleship on advanced difficulty in 45 seconds or less. Frankly, the fact that it often took me more than 30 seconds says that I fail at escort. :P
True success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
-- Winston Churchill
i don't mind a shared cool down on my capitans skills as long as its the same for science/engineers capitans skills as well
Their is no abilities that Engineers and Science have that would make logical sense to have a shared cooldown like Attack Pattern Alpha has with other Attack Patterns. In addition Tactical powers are just so dam good compared to others. This oh no don't touch my thing unless you touch theirs in same negative way is what causes problems for the game. The current state of the game with balance is horrid. Tactical Officers are just so dam good either nerf them in some way or boost all the others.
Their is no abilities that Engineers and Science have that would make logical sense to have a shared cooldown like Attack Pattern Alpha has with other Attack Patterns. In addition Tactical powers are just so dam good compared to others. This oh no don't touch my thing unless you touch theirs in same negative way is what causes problems for the game. The current state of the game with balance is horrid. Tactical Officers are just so dam good either nerf them in some way or boost all the others.
Exactly, not only should the share a cooldown but they have needed to split the attack and evasive maneuver patterns for a very long time now so that tacticals no longer have an iWin button to use every match. Sorry but that's just not canon we've seen it in the shows over and over. Even the show "Message in a Bottle" Attack Pattern Alpha at no time provided a defense so why should attack pattern Omega or any of the other abilities provide a defense against anything. That's like saying that Directed Energy Modulation and Energy Siphon should also provide a defense buff at the same time as being an attack.
Oh and I agree, our cooldowns are just fine on both science and engineer him saying that we need to address engineer and science abilities is a complete straw man argument because they are already too weak to be a problem, which is the whole point of these posts to let the devs know that changes are needed big time.
It came up in the Geko 4 hour interview - it has come up in the thread. There is an issue catering to the lowest denominator and the results of what happens for anything that is not there. It makes mediocrity superb and superb is off the charts.
lol you make me laugh, every captain has captain skills and if you want to start setting special rules just for tac toons then your barking up the wrong tree and it WILL NEVER EVER HAPPEN
Judging by your fervour I'd recommend you keep the number of a counselor handy in case they do change it up. Sounds like you might have trouble dealing with things and may hurt yourself.
It came up in the Geko 4 hour interview - it has come up in the thread. There is an issue catering to the lowest denominator and the results of what happens for anything that is not there. It makes mediocrity superb and superb is off the charts.
It's a vicious cycle. The more you make escorts better, the more people will fly them, the more people will buy them, the less people will fly other ships. For Cryptic to not see this is ludicrous. Time to hire a new business manager!!
I've got 2 tac captains...one Fed one KDF. They're just not balanced. The damage they do is fine IF they had lower defense. They should be glass cannons and they're not.
As a Tactical Captain myself, I have noticed the enormous power I have over other Captain's of different classes. Coupled with obviously over-powered vessels such as the JHAS or Fleet Defiant and it becomes a deadly "synergy" of its own.
So lets stop this talk about "re-balancing Engineering and Science" which quite frankly, we all know that Cryptic are just not able to do. They've had 3 years to balance the classes and have failed and proved they are not interested in that.
The most simple solution is to nerf the damage that Tactical Captain's are capable of. Stop Attack Pattern Alpha from interacting with Science Abilities by locking it to "WEAPON DAMAGE ONLY" and nerfing it to 25%. Also Go Down Fighting should also be "WEAPON DAMAGE ONLY" and nerf the durability of Escorts by 15% across to board to become the Glass Cannons that we all know that they should be.
These topics about changing skills etc are really not needed because it just brings us away from the main issues. Tactical has been too powerful for too long and are Cryptic's favorites because they do not know how to do other abilities without making damage ridiculous.
Or maybe its just that science and eng captains are doing something wrong. I have a very strong fleet defiant but from time to time, i face science and/or eng captains with a ship that is able to withstand everything i throw at them. As a tac captain, you do not have much options how to build your ship. You can do much more things wrong as a science or eng captain. Thats the fact. Stop writing posts like this.. doesnt make any sense.
It's a vicious cycle. The more you make escorts better, the more people will fly them, the more people will buy them, the less people will fly other ships. For Cryptic to not see this is ludicrous. Time to hire a new business manager!!
Not quite what I was saying. By developing things for the most casual players, making things as easy as possible, boosting everything based on them...when you scale things for not so casual players - you get a lot of what we see in the game.
There are folks that still think that Escorts are too squishy and need to do more damage.
That's the lowest denominator.
Cryptic will continue to boost ships for them.
So when somebody that's not in that particular group, doesn't have that line of thought, well - they tend to be off the charts with what they can do with their Escorts.
lol you make me laugh, every captain has captain skills and if you want to start setting special rules just for tac toons then your barking up the wrong tree and it WILL NEVER EVER HAPPEN
So my logical conclusion of either nerfing Tacitcal Officers in some way OR boosting all the others in some way make you laugh OK your a biased immature person who don't care about the game balance because anyone who does would have to admit that things are not fine as is and that Tactical officers need a nerf OR others need a boost.
I have officers on both the Federation side and Klingon side with at least 1 character from each career path for those factions and plan on doing the same when Romulans come out. I want them to all be balanced because a better balanced game is a healthier game and a healthier game lasts longer because it is more fun for all and people who have more fun spend more and play more. Unlike you I care about the state of the game and am not biased toward any career path.
I have officers on both the Federation side and Klingon side with at least 1 character from each career path for those factions and plan on doing the same when Romulans come out. I want them to all be balanced because a better balanced game is a healthier game and a healthier game lasts longer because it is more fun for all and people who have more fun spend more and play more. Unlike you I care about the state of the game and am not biased toward any career path.
As a Tactical Captain myself, I have noticed the enormous power I have over other Captain's of different classes. Coupled with obviously over-powered vessels such as the JHAS or Fleet Defiant and it becomes a deadly "synergy" of its own.
So lets stop this talk about "re-balancing Engineering and Science" which quite frankly, we all know that Cryptic are just not able to do. They've had 3 years to balance the classes and have failed and proved they are not interested in that.
The most simple solution is to nerf the damage that Tactical Captain's are capable of. Stop Attack Pattern Alpha from interacting with Science Abilities by locking it to "WEAPON DAMAGE ONLY" and nerfing it to 25%. Also Go Down Fighting should also be "WEAPON DAMAGE ONLY" and nerf the durability of Escorts by 15% across to board to become the Glass Cannons that we all know that they should be.
These topics about changing skills etc are really not needed because it just brings us away from the main issues. Tactical has been too powerful for too long and are Cryptic's favorites because they do not know how to do other abilities without making damage ridiculous.
So take the one Captain in STO whose capabilities, whose Captain powers, aren't particularly over or under performing and nerf them.
Cool.
You know what happens next? They're still ideal for for PvE. Tac/Escort would still be tough enough to do the content, it'd still be the optimal setup for speed running anything other than Hive and No Win, it'd still be the most efficient setup for leveling up.
Why?
With two, maybe three, notable exceptions, the mob and encounter design of STO does not contain sufficient complexity to match the capabilities of players outside of the current binary state of "not hurting you meaningfully or you are dead." Until it grows and evolves (hopefully the revamped Crystalline Entity marks the first step in this direction) into something more fluid in line with capabilities of players than the current "kill everything as fast you can and try not to be instagibbed," killing everything as fast as possible will remain the optimal way to play PvE content.
PvP is a whole different ballgame, and if you think "Hi, I'm a Tac in a Bug, I'm going to win now" accurately sums it up, you are sorely mistaken, though it seemed the main thrust of your point was aimed at the PvE performance of the Tac/Escort combo.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
nothing needs to be nerfed. people should just LEARN TO PLAY
How should they play their Engineering Captains?
How should they play their Science Captains?
How should they play their Cruisers?
How should they play their Science Vessels?
If it's a case they need to learn to play, it's obvious that you must know how to play, so share those juicy tidbits for them, eh?
I mean, if you really want them to stop with the threads and it is just a L2P issue...then explain to them what they need to be doing, eh?
im not hurt im not the one oh here crying I want tacs nerfed, I play all 3 classes and have no problems with any of them, seems you need tacs nerfed to make yourself feel better
Crying for tacs to be nerfed? Well, nerfing tacs isn't my main goal. It's balance. Nerfing tacs is just one step on that path.
If you think that the classes are equally balanced then you must be living in a dream world or you PRIMARY ship is an escort. How do I know? In every single thread about balancing the ships it is usually the escort players who seem to think that everything is all as it should be. What surprises me is the fact that there are escort captains in this thread who are stating that escorts are too powerful. To those captains I say thank you for being objective about the game. Objectivity when you have a stronger position is an admirable quality and shows true character.
How should they play their Engineering Captains?
How should they play their Science Captains?
How should they play their Cruisers?
How should they play their Science Vessels?
It would not surprise me if his definition of learning to play is to pop APA and then sit on the spacebar. If people who have spent months attempting to get viable builds have found that these ships are just too uncompetitive, I would believe them over some one-liner wally.
It would not surprise me if his definition of learning to play is to pop APA and then sit on the spacebar. If people who have spent months attempting to get viable builds have found that these ships are just too uncompetitive, I would believe them over some one-liner wally.
That tends to be along the lines of the responses, eh? Folks post thread after thread, going into various details - providing examples - offering comparisons, etc, etc, etc.
The typical replies are:
"I fly other stuff. It's fine."
"It's fine. L2P."
To an extent, those replies are kind of amusing...
Just thought I'd share my experiences. I have an engineer, science and tactical captain fed side and have used cruisers and escorts for engineer, science ships and escorts for the science and escorts for the tactical. I mainly do PvE but have dabbled in a slight bit of PvP on my sci and tactical.
For PvP I've enjoyed the power a tactical has in terms of doing attack runs but found out pretty quickly I need to hit and run and not get caught near (5km) more than 2 enemy ships or I will most likely die if they're good. As a sci in a sci ship, oh wow that was fun but I hear insulators have severely crippled drains and I once faced a bug with 9 in insulators, dampners and sensors and could do nothing to him even with 180 in flow caps or switching to 150+ in grav gens.
As for PvP. I mostly do STF for the dilithium and I've found that my tactical in an escort does them the quickest as it kills the fastest, it can survive about 30s at 0km (for max damage) to a gate but I have to run after that or I will die even with the shield and hull heals and resists and defence.
My engineer completes faster and can also carry a team in an escort (HEC as I like it to be more class focused) however since the assimilated set and a few other things help to mitigate weapon power drain I have started flying a DKora which can tank most things and still output 5.7k dps according to ACT and should go to 6k when I'm finished getting the gear.
My science performs better in the mobius or advanced escort packing a GW1. It's useful in a vesta or other sci ships when it can use GW3 and other power drains but it can't compete to using the escorts.
Why is this? It's because the entire mission revolves around destroying X number of enemies in Y time for the optional, though I consider failing the optional as failing the mission. If I had 5 exact duplicates of my cruisers or sci ships then the team would do it with optional though the science would be the slowest.
Fleet missions: Now there's a bit more variety here as you can fail for different reasons like letting things get destroyed and with so many enemies spawning sometimes having crowd control helps. My tactical and the escorts perform generally better here as they can melt through most enemies quicker than they can get to the objective to destroy it. However the sci and science ships will shine a bit better here as CC, scramble sensors and other skills will keep the enemy occupied. My cruiser performs less well here because even with 6 in threat control and 2 mk XII +threat consoles things ignore it but can keep the objective alive so it has its own little niche too.
Starbase 24 and gorn minefield: Escorts win hands down as they can rip apart the higher value objectives quicker. Yes CC is nice to have and tanking 100 ships is great but it won't earn you as many points as killing 10 negh'vars or other ships.
Now the way I see it in PvE, which is what most people play, there's no content that requires anything more than kill these dudes fast or that cannot be won by kill these dudes faster. What needs to happen is that we need more content that requires something other than killing things fast or faster. Hive onslaught for STFs was a step in the right direction, not ferpect but a step. Star base blockade is a great example of a balanced mission however people are too stupid to even complete it well. Yes I do mean that. I see many pugs not use tactical team on freighters, all club together on one, not heal it, some even go after enemies nowhere near the freighter.
Anyway to sum up,
Content needs to be more balanced before classes get balanced.
Tacticals complete all content faster.
Escorts with a science or engineer slant complete all content faster.
This is all when you max out the ship/captain for said content.
Exceptions star base blockade and maybe Hive onslaught.
very well said 95% of players crying have never done any real pvp, they play pve and think have a killer set up then do some pvp and get there TRIBBLE handed too them, a pvp set up is far different to a pve set up
There's no mention of PvP in the OP's post.
The thread is not in the PvP section of the forums.
very well said 95% of players crying have never done any real pvp, they play pve and think have a killer set up then do some pvp and get there TRIBBLE handed too them, a pvp set up is far different to a pve set up
Agreed but it also works the other way, a PvP set up is still useful PvE but can be made to be better for PvE
Also I think a lot of the escort pilots for PvP don't invest in skill resists too.
very well said 95% of players crying have never done any real pvp, they play pve and think have a killer set up then do some pvp and get there TRIBBLE handed too them, a pvp set up is far different to a pve set up
You know, the arrogance of some players are astounding. Pretty much everyone and their mum knows that PvP set ups are different from PvE. That is basically the same in EVERY mmo where there is PvE and PvP content, with the exception of EvE. For example, in WoW you need resilience gear to do PvP effectively.
The problem is not with people being "under" equipped, the problem is the damage increase of tactical powers are way way way too high when taking the other two classes into consideration.
The reason I say "nerf tacs" is that Cryptic are NOT CAPABLE of creating game balance. They have shown this within 3 years of play. So this is an easier option which does not serve the long time problem but will essentially take minimum Cryptic effort or intelligence. So they should love that idea.
no what I do think is you need to learn how to play your class
Again with that old nugget. It is the worst thing you could have contributed to this thread. Then again I expected nothing else. Because you see a few successful science and engi players (and respect to them of course), you assume the entire class is fine. This is tunnel vision. The vast majority of science and engineers (who will not be on these forums to give their testament by the way) will not hold up anywhere near as well.
Comments
The main problem is people who don't admit that there is a problem, and who make unsubstantiated claims about how to play other classes and ships "properly". As for "people who play well", are you referring to those TacEscorts who are able to simply throttle down to zero on someone's facing, and hammer away at them because their weapons are too weak to even breach their shields? If you do not fly Federation cruisers as a matter of course, then you have no right to disparagingly talk about how people should play.
Anyone who claims that there are no problems at all with the current game dynamic is full of ****.
Secondly, steadfastly NO; if tacs get any weaker on ground then they're going to be one-shotted by pretty much everything, I can't tell you how many hypos and what not I go through in ground combat and I STILL have to get rezz at least once on pretty much every map, given that I know how to spec and equip my team to be effective and I fight cautiously, that shouldn't happen nearly so often - nerfing their durability any more than they have already would just ruin them.
Thirdly, finally, WHAT?!?: Now look, I can see why tacs should be nerfed in pvp, that's fair but I, personally, get tired of the constant ******** and moaning from people with a pvp/fleet action mentality (I don't see any other reason that you'd be complaining so if you're not in that group, just take this as disjointed ranting), there is more to the game than pvp/fleet action.
Having said all of that, nerfing the high level npc ships for solo players, now THAT, that I can understand.
I'm not THAT difficult to please, I just have a very low tolerance threshold for stupid BS! - George Carlin.
Tell us your load-out and I will tell you what the hell you are doing wrong.
Agreed. I also have a fine Fleet Excelsior who can tank any tactical cube or Donatra scimitar that happens to cross its way. Oooh..and deal medium damage.
I alone in my ship let 4 pugs survive instead of gettine one shotted. I let them fight and deal some damage myself, and I'm awesome to do that.
What was essential (for me, at least) when dealing with the nastier enemies in the solo PvE content was to out-maneuver them, engage in multiple hit-and-run attacks, darting out of range entirely when I had lost the tactical upper-hand, and pinning the more front-loaded enemies in place whenever possible. I have very fond memories of when my Heavy Escort and I would "joust" with D'deridexes in order to exploit their turn-rate, weapons positioning, and firing behaviors.
I don't think I've seen anyone talk about nerfing tacs on the ground. Closest I've seen is someone saying that tacs suck at ground combat, and them rocking at space combat is their compensation for it.
No, tac officers do not need ground debuffs, and I will back you up on that if anyone suggests otherwise. (Frankly between my Fed tac and my KDF sci-- it's the science officer who rocks at ground combat. I don't think any other class can solo Manus on elite difficulty!)
Do STFs count in the fleet action territory? Because that's where I am. I like cooperative play, but I suck too bad for PvP. :P
However, when the best STF party consists of 5 tac/escorts (followed closely by 4 tac/escorts and either 1 tac/cruiser or 1 sci/escort), you've got a problem. Any job that anyone needs to do in an STF, an escort can do it best.
Also I would be pretty sad if high-level NPC ships in solo play were debuffed. I may be weird in wanting a challenge and feeling like I might lose, but even the supposed-to-be-difficult encounters in the Foundry and the single-player daily missions... I can handle easier than I'd prefer. It doesn't even qualifies as a boast to say that my escort has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to rip apart a Keldon-class battleship on advanced difficulty in 45 seconds or less. Frankly, the fact that it often took me more than 30 seconds says that I fail at escort. :P
-- Winston Churchill
Their is no abilities that Engineers and Science have that would make logical sense to have a shared cooldown like Attack Pattern Alpha has with other Attack Patterns. In addition Tactical powers are just so dam good compared to others. This oh no don't touch my thing unless you touch theirs in same negative way is what causes problems for the game. The current state of the game with balance is horrid. Tactical Officers are just so dam good either nerf them in some way or boost all the others.
Exactly, not only should the share a cooldown but they have needed to split the attack and evasive maneuver patterns for a very long time now so that tacticals no longer have an iWin button to use every match. Sorry but that's just not canon we've seen it in the shows over and over. Even the show "Message in a Bottle" Attack Pattern Alpha at no time provided a defense so why should attack pattern Omega or any of the other abilities provide a defense against anything. That's like saying that Directed Energy Modulation and Energy Siphon should also provide a defense buff at the same time as being an attack.
Oh and I agree, our cooldowns are just fine on both science and engineer him saying that we need to address engineer and science abilities is a complete straw man argument because they are already too weak to be a problem, which is the whole point of these posts to let the devs know that changes are needed big time.
Judging by your fervour I'd recommend you keep the number of a counselor handy in case they do change it up. Sounds like you might have trouble dealing with things and may hurt yourself.
It's a vicious cycle. The more you make escorts better, the more people will fly them, the more people will buy them, the less people will fly other ships. For Cryptic to not see this is ludicrous. Time to hire a new business manager!!
Or maybe its just that science and eng captains are doing something wrong. I have a very strong fleet defiant but from time to time, i face science and/or eng captains with a ship that is able to withstand everything i throw at them. As a tac captain, you do not have much options how to build your ship. You can do much more things wrong as a science or eng captain. Thats the fact. Stop writing posts like this.. doesnt make any sense.
Not quite what I was saying. By developing things for the most casual players, making things as easy as possible, boosting everything based on them...when you scale things for not so casual players - you get a lot of what we see in the game.
There are folks that still think that Escorts are too squishy and need to do more damage.
That's the lowest denominator.
Cryptic will continue to boost ships for them.
So when somebody that's not in that particular group, doesn't have that line of thought, well - they tend to be off the charts with what they can do with their Escorts.
So my logical conclusion of either nerfing Tacitcal Officers in some way OR boosting all the others in some way make you laugh OK your a biased immature person who don't care about the game balance because anyone who does would have to admit that things are not fine as is and that Tactical officers need a nerf OR others need a boost.
I have officers on both the Federation side and Klingon side with at least 1 character from each career path for those factions and plan on doing the same when Romulans come out. I want them to all be balanced because a better balanced game is a healthier game and a healthier game lasts longer because it is more fun for all and people who have more fun spend more and play more. Unlike you I care about the state of the game and am not biased toward any career path.
So many people do not get this.
So take the one Captain in STO whose capabilities, whose Captain powers, aren't particularly over or under performing and nerf them.
Cool.
You know what happens next? They're still ideal for for PvE. Tac/Escort would still be tough enough to do the content, it'd still be the optimal setup for speed running anything other than Hive and No Win, it'd still be the most efficient setup for leveling up.
Why?
With two, maybe three, notable exceptions, the mob and encounter design of STO does not contain sufficient complexity to match the capabilities of players outside of the current binary state of "not hurting you meaningfully or you are dead." Until it grows and evolves (hopefully the revamped Crystalline Entity marks the first step in this direction) into something more fluid in line with capabilities of players than the current "kill everything as fast you can and try not to be instagibbed," killing everything as fast as possible will remain the optimal way to play PvE content.
PvP is a whole different ballgame, and if you think "Hi, I'm a Tac in a Bug, I'm going to win now" accurately sums it up, you are sorely mistaken, though it seemed the main thrust of your point was aimed at the PvE performance of the Tac/Escort combo.
How should they play their Engineering Captains?
How should they play their Science Captains?
How should they play their Cruisers?
How should they play their Science Vessels?
If it's a case they need to learn to play, it's obvious that you must know how to play, so share those juicy tidbits for them, eh?
I mean, if you really want them to stop with the threads and it is just a L2P issue...then explain to them what they need to be doing, eh?
Crying for tacs to be nerfed? Well, nerfing tacs isn't my main goal. It's balance. Nerfing tacs is just one step on that path.
If you think that the classes are equally balanced then you must be living in a dream world or you PRIMARY ship is an escort. How do I know? In every single thread about balancing the ships it is usually the escort players who seem to think that everything is all as it should be. What surprises me is the fact that there are escort captains in this thread who are stating that escorts are too powerful. To those captains I say thank you for being objective about the game. Objectivity when you have a stronger position is an admirable quality and shows true character.
It would not surprise me if his definition of learning to play is to pop APA and then sit on the spacebar. If people who have spent months attempting to get viable builds have found that these ships are just too uncompetitive, I would believe them over some one-liner wally.
My character Tsin'xing
That tends to be along the lines of the responses, eh? Folks post thread after thread, going into various details - providing examples - offering comparisons, etc, etc, etc.
The typical replies are:
"I fly other stuff. It's fine."
"It's fine. L2P."
To an extent, those replies are kind of amusing...
For PvP I've enjoyed the power a tactical has in terms of doing attack runs but found out pretty quickly I need to hit and run and not get caught near (5km) more than 2 enemy ships or I will most likely die if they're good. As a sci in a sci ship, oh wow that was fun but I hear insulators have severely crippled drains and I once faced a bug with 9 in insulators, dampners and sensors and could do nothing to him even with 180 in flow caps or switching to 150+ in grav gens.
As for PvP. I mostly do STF for the dilithium and I've found that my tactical in an escort does them the quickest as it kills the fastest, it can survive about 30s at 0km (for max damage) to a gate but I have to run after that or I will die even with the shield and hull heals and resists and defence.
My engineer completes faster and can also carry a team in an escort (HEC as I like it to be more class focused) however since the assimilated set and a few other things help to mitigate weapon power drain I have started flying a DKora which can tank most things and still output 5.7k dps according to ACT and should go to 6k when I'm finished getting the gear.
My science performs better in the mobius or advanced escort packing a GW1. It's useful in a vesta or other sci ships when it can use GW3 and other power drains but it can't compete to using the escorts.
Why is this? It's because the entire mission revolves around destroying X number of enemies in Y time for the optional, though I consider failing the optional as failing the mission. If I had 5 exact duplicates of my cruisers or sci ships then the team would do it with optional though the science would be the slowest.
Fleet missions: Now there's a bit more variety here as you can fail for different reasons like letting things get destroyed and with so many enemies spawning sometimes having crowd control helps. My tactical and the escorts perform generally better here as they can melt through most enemies quicker than they can get to the objective to destroy it. However the sci and science ships will shine a bit better here as CC, scramble sensors and other skills will keep the enemy occupied. My cruiser performs less well here because even with 6 in threat control and 2 mk XII +threat consoles things ignore it but can keep the objective alive so it has its own little niche too.
Starbase 24 and gorn minefield: Escorts win hands down as they can rip apart the higher value objectives quicker. Yes CC is nice to have and tanking 100 ships is great but it won't earn you as many points as killing 10 negh'vars or other ships.
Now the way I see it in PvE, which is what most people play, there's no content that requires anything more than kill these dudes fast or that cannot be won by kill these dudes faster. What needs to happen is that we need more content that requires something other than killing things fast or faster. Hive onslaught for STFs was a step in the right direction, not ferpect but a step. Star base blockade is a great example of a balanced mission however people are too stupid to even complete it well. Yes I do mean that. I see many pugs not use tactical team on freighters, all club together on one, not heal it, some even go after enemies nowhere near the freighter.
Anyway to sum up,
Content needs to be more balanced before classes get balanced.
Tacticals complete all content faster.
Escorts with a science or engineer slant complete all content faster.
This is all when you max out the ship/captain for said content.
Exceptions star base blockade and maybe Hive onslaught.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
There's no mention of PvP in the OP's post.
The thread is not in the PvP section of the forums.
...just saying.
Agreed but it also works the other way, a PvP set up is still useful PvE but can be made to be better for PvE
Also I think a lot of the escort pilots for PvP don't invest in skill resists too.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
You know, the arrogance of some players are astounding. Pretty much everyone and their mum knows that PvP set ups are different from PvE. That is basically the same in EVERY mmo where there is PvE and PvP content, with the exception of EvE. For example, in WoW you need resilience gear to do PvP effectively.
The problem is not with people being "under" equipped, the problem is the damage increase of tactical powers are way way way too high when taking the other two classes into consideration.
The reason I say "nerf tacs" is that Cryptic are NOT CAPABLE of creating game balance. They have shown this within 3 years of play. So this is an easier option which does not serve the long time problem but will essentially take minimum Cryptic effort or intelligence. So they should love that idea.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
Again with that old nugget. It is the worst thing you could have contributed to this thread. Then again I expected nothing else. Because you see a few successful science and engi players (and respect to them of course), you assume the entire class is fine. This is tunnel vision. The vast majority of science and engineers (who will not be on these forums to give their testament by the way) will not hold up anywhere near as well.