Why is it so difficult to understand that Tactical captains are meant to do damage? That's their role. Read the text when rolling a new character - Tacticals do damage. Period.
How do you define "too powerful"? What evidence do you have to show them as broken and in need of fixing? The notion that Science or Engineering captains need buffs is a false one too.
I don't know about Science, but Engineering is in need of an adjustment.
Unlike Science or Engineering, none of a Tactical captain's abilities can be considered weak or undesirable. They get an ability that lowers BOff cooldowns, as well as three different abilities that increase damage output. Unlike Engineering, they don't have to wait two minutes for their abilities to cooldown. Compare Nadion Inversion (the ability that makes full beam broadsides viable) to Attack Pattern Alpha.
Success in this game is determined by the wreckage you leave behind, because that lets you win PvP fights, efficiently accomplish missions and optional objectives, and get the best loot. Tactical does the most damage by default; Science and Engineering have nothing that comes close, and are left to pick up scraps.
But that competition has access to the same items without ever paying a cent. People who spend real money are just getting an item faster versus spending a month grinding for it. It's still the same gear/ship no matter how you go about buying it. That is not what pay to win is.
Let's say you have two people joining the game at the same time. Someone who puts money into the game will progress faster, unlock and purchase the best loot sooner, and so on. One month in, the person who puts in money will be at a definite advantage compared to the person who did not. Pay to win is all about securing an advantage by expending real-world currency. All free to play games are like this, and the only thing that varies is how fair they are to those who do not pay with cash.
I've played tac and eng and getting into science. You have to understand the play style. For cruisers. since their turn rate isn't the best I use a combo beam array and turrets. you just need 2 turrets but only if you have room. my average build for the high level cruisers is 2 turrets, beam arrays, and dual beams. depending on cruiser I could do RCS then I focus on a balance to defends against all types of weapons types and shield enhancers. weapons of choice are either tets or antiproton. and officers are geared for healing and attack. and I barely touch TT.
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You can buy anything from the C-Store by converting dilithium to Zen without ever spending a cent. That's not pay to win.~By grinding your life away~added by mewi
Fixed ;o! Sorry but you have to be more reasonable about it.
Even if you never bought more character slots and are just using the free ones, the amount of "grind" for endgame/BiS-gear is still ridiculously low, especially if you take into account that there isn't any content and item progression.
Anyone claiming that STO is "p2W" or that "grind-time" is too high is completely clueless and exaggerating. Those people should take a look at any mmo outside of STO, where you really have to invest time (or money) to progress and where the gear they grinded (or bought) gets obsoleted 3 months after it was released.
Even if you never bought more character slots and are just using the free ones, the amount of "grind" for endgame/BiS-gear is still ridiculously low, especially if you take into account that there isn't any content and item progression.
Anyone claiming that STO is "p2W" or that "grind-time" is too high is completely clueless and exaggerating. Those people should take a look at any mmo outside of STO, where you really have to invest time (or money) to progress and where the gear they grinded (or bought) gets obsoleted 3 months after it was released.
Putting cash into the game will allow you to unlock Fleet assets far more quickly than someone who doesn't. With it, you can run the lockbox lottery until the odds give out, or buy some Zen store items and sell them for EC on the exchange to buy the very best items. You can use it to buy items that allow you to level faster, gain fleet resources more quickly, and so on.
However you put it, paying real-world currency secures a comparative advantage over those who don't, and that is p2w in of itself. STO is more fair than many MMOs about this, but the p2w element is still there.
Let's say you have two people joining the game at the same time. Someone who puts money into the game will progress faster, unlock and purchase the best loot sooner, and so on.
It really doesn't matter if someone joins at the same time or not. Anyone who an established character will have a larger advantage over those 2 poor people your comparing now. The longer you have been playing paid or not the more advantages you have. All "P2W" does is give a person a chance to catch up with those who have spent a long time in game. Even those who have been here since beta have some of these new item and have probably spent less money since it has gone f2p. The only difference is now the items are not account wide.
What you really should be comparing is a new character for a lifetimer who can spend 5 minutes claiming all his legacy c-store items and have a decked out character before entering the tutorial vs. a new f2p character. Now there is a disadvantage. No p2w there but it is still noticeable.
STO is more fair than many MMOs about this, but the p2w element is still there.
I'm sorry but that is so far from the truth. This is how Cryptic has bought you on the idea of dilithium. It isn't free, it is spend hours, upon hours of grinding your face into the dirt and drag yourself through recycled content that cryptic keeps pumping out.
Not to mention the argument you just made to "get best gear" is to buy c-store items to sell for EC, to buy best gear in the game.
Did I mention they nerfed ways of gaining EC in-game too?
Got to do it all with dilithium and c-points now. That is the point of dilithium, it isn't to help players, it is to ensure that somewhere, somehow, someone is spending c-store points to convert to dilithium to buy the "new" content. I am saddened that there are still those out there that are sold on this idea.
They hit shields, now do I use it for most of my ships, no but for my KDF carrier yes, and I have Omeaga mk 12 set on my Armitage with tets. pretty effective.
I'm sorry but that is so far from the truth. This is how Cryptic has bought you on the idea of dilithium. It isn't free, it is spend hours, upon hours of grinding your face into the dirt and drag yourself through recycled content that cryptic keeps pumping out.
Not to mention the argument you just made to "get best gear" is to buy c-store items to sell for EC, to buy best gear in the game.
Did I mention they nerfed ways of gaining EC in-game too?
Got to do it all with dilithium and c-points now. That is the point of dilithium, it isn't to help players, it is to ensure that somewhere, somehow, someone is spending c-store points to convert to dilithium to buy the "new" content. I am saddened that there are still those out there that are sold on this idea.
but your wrong. I only have to spend time to get the dil than i can convert it to c points and get the same stuff. I didn't pay a dime.
Why is it so difficult to understand that Tactical captains are meant to do damage? That's their role. Read the text when rolling a new character - Tacticals do damage. Period.
How do you define "too powerful"? What evidence do you have to show them as broken and in need of fixing? The notion that Science or Engineering captains need buffs is a false one too.
That's not the entire issue, it's one thing to do damage it's entirely another to be a cannon that's made of reinforced steel and not glass. That's the issue I and many others have with it. You can literally tank with an escort now. I know I've seen it done countless times.
They need to separate attack patterns and evasive patterns into two separate skills, reduce the escorts defense by 15% across the board and remove the ability of tactical boosts to science and engineering skills while simultaneously boosting the damage and holds on those skills and boosting the time subsystem targets on science ships last and then we'll see some real balance happening. Until then it's a moot argument to try to say it's balanced now because clearly it's not.
but your wrong. I only have to spend time to get the dil than i can convert it to c points and get the same stuff. I didn't pay a dime.
You paid in time my friend, and that equals money for Cryptic. Time = Money. They know this, that is why they have you as their slave, running recycled content over... and over... and over again, for hours, and hours and hours.
Even if you never bought more character slots and are just using the free ones, the amount of "grind" for endgame/BiS-gear is still ridiculously low, especially if you take into account that there isn't any content and item progression.
Anyone claiming that STO is "p2W" or that "grind-time" is too high is completely clueless and exaggerating. Those people should take a look at any mmo outside of STO, where you really have to invest time (or money) to progress and where the gear they grinded (or bought) gets obsoleted 3 months after it was released.
Imagine that, one of STO's oldest players, and one of the top PvPers in STO... saying that this game is P2W. I don't care that it is P2W, I care that their motivation is only to make cash by whatever scummy means they can come up with. Keyword: Scummy
Lower staff, virtually eliminate customer support, reduce bug fixes, pump out new untested overpowered eyecandy content IE: Specialization doffs, lockboxes, etc, recycle old content and call it new, nerf in-game currency rates, implement untradable c-store compatible currency, nerf untradable c-store compatible currency, kill small fleets to ensure dilithium costs are always at a premium, make untold sums of real life currency from currency conversion system known as Dilithium Exchange, break every game mechanic and state it is in working order.
The Star Trek IP is gone in STO.
Paramount should make a new sci fi called Greed, I'm sure Cryptic would quickly take the IP into their warm laps.
It is all there, clearly written out. Sure I expect gaming companies to be greedy, but the sheer magnitude of Cryptic's Greed has surpassed all other MMOs I have ever played. That tells a lot, because I have played an uncountable amount.
They need to separate attack patterns and evasive patterns into two separate skills, reduce the escorts defense by 15% across the board and remove the ability of tactical boosts to science and engineering skills while simultaneously boosting the damage and holds on those skills and boosting the time subsystem targets on science ships last and then we'll see some real balance happening. Until then it's a moot argument to try to say it's balanced now because clearly it's not.
No. When someone can do an 10k fleet galaxy-r with an aux2bat build then it is not an issue with escorts that can tank because they still aren't as tanky as that galaxy. The issue is that there are no enemies with a degree of difficulty between insta-invisi-torp-kill and the standard npcs we instantly kill. They tried to make things harder. Into the hive with the wave of tac cubes to start shows that a healer/tank can be practical. But why run it when you can do ISE/CSE/KASE with a better time to reward ratio.
We have High DSP cruisers and high powered aux2bat cruisers. We need content, that can reflect that without the the community screaming the content is too hard and the npcs in them nerfed with cryptic agreeing.
but your wrong. I only have to spend time to get the dil than i can convert it to c points and get the same stuff. I didn't pay a dime.
Does Zen magically appear in the game? No. Somebody had to buy that Zen - with actual money.
So what you're claiming you've done here then is the following:
Worked at well below minimum wage to farm a product that Cryptic can turn around and sell at a juicy profit (since they don't actually pay you any wage).
It's one thing to accrue it as you're normally playing the game.
It's another if you're actively grinding it out to convert to Zen to make purchases.
You're not logging into a game when you log into STO then...you're logging into a job. A job with no pay and no benefits... Cryptic's little sweatshop.
edit: Course, out of some sense of fairness - I'll grind Dil every now and again to convert to Zen for somebody that bought it - I'd like the game to stick around and all.
Does Zen magically appear in the game? No. Somebody had to buy that Zen - with actual money.
So what you're claiming you've done here then is the following:
Worked at well below minimum wage to farm a product that Cryptic can turn around and sell at a juicy profit (since they don't actually pay you any wage).
It's one thing to accrue it as you're normally playing the game.
It's another if you're actively grinding it out to convert to Zen to make purchases.
You're not logging into a game when you log into STO then...you're logging into a job. A job with no pay and no benefits... Cryptic's little sweatshop.
edit: Course, out of some sense of fairness - I'll grind Dil every now and again to convert to Zen for somebody that bought it - I'd like the game to stick around and all.
Grinding is apart of this mmo. That will not change. No matter how much time most people spend play games is at a loss. it is how much of a loss one is willing to take. if you want a profitable hobby then try arts and crafts or wood working. Then your hobbie might generate income albeit it is usually still way below minimum wage and normally just to cover costs.
Grinding is apart of this mmo. That will not change. No matter how much time most people spend play games is at a loss. it is how much of a loss one is willing to take. if you want a profitable hobby then try arts and crafts or wood working. Then your hobbie might generate income albeit it is usually still way below minimum wage and normally just to cover costs.
I do not follow where that has anything to do with what I said...hrmmm...
They hit shields, now do I use it for most of my ships, no but for my KDF carrier yes, and I have Omeaga mk 12 set on my Armitage with tets. pretty effective.
Mmmhmm...
Well, I'll say this much about Tetryon weapons: they're cheaper to pick up on the exchange than Disruptors, Phasers, or Polarons.
I feel sorry for the guy who has to pay money to get enough dilithium to get fleet items.
I was referring to fleet upgrades. Put enough money in, and you can run a fleet yourself. Even if you aren't running a fleet by yourself, putting money in will still let you meet upgrade requirements faster and with fewer members.
That being said, we have gotten way off topic.
Maybe I've said this before, but I don't find anything all that wrong with Tactical BOff skills except for Attack Pattern Omega. The necessity of Attack Pattern Beta as a crutch skill for damage is something that is brought on by other factors in-game. Would also change Scatter Volley so that it doesn't overlap nearly as much with Fire at Will
TacCap skills are a different matter entirely. Tactical Initiative should go, and Attack Pattern Alpha effects should be weakened. I'd also take out Go Down Fighting as well, albeit for reasons that don't have to do with balancing.
Well, I'll say this much about Tetryon weapons: they're cheaper to pick up on the exchange than Disruptors, Phasers, or Polarons.
I was referring to fleet upgrades. Put enough money in, and you can run a fleet yourself. Even if you aren't running a fleet by yourself, putting money in will still let you meet upgrade requirements faster and with fewer members.
That being said, we have gotten way off topic.
Maybe I've said this before, but I don't find anything all that wrong with Tactical BOff skills except for Attack Pattern Omega. The necessity of Attack Pattern Beta as a crutch skill for damage is something that is brought on by other factors in-game. Would also change Scatter Volley so that it doesn't overlap nearly as much with Fire at Will
TacCap skills are a different matter entirely. Tactical Initiative should go, and Attack Pattern Alpha effects should be weakened. I'd also take out Go Down Fighting as well, albeit for reasons that don't have to do with balancing.
Could be that they have access to a large number of +% damage boost which stack as well as shorter cds.
Could be that they have access to a large number of +% damage boost which stack as well as shorter cds.
If you say so, but science captains also have useful abilities with relatively short cooldowns.
The way I see it, captain abilities...
- Shouldn't be overly interchangeable with BOff abilities
- Represent their respective specialization, but not be overly restricted to that
- Retain usefulness across a variety of ships
I grow somewhat more concerned with the way that Cryptic attempt to suppress general negative opinions of their game. No other MMO forum attempts to suppress the opinions or freedom of speech of their members. Blatent trolls yes, but not negative comments.
I have seen whole topics dissapear just for speaking out against Cryptic. If they want people that will continually kiss their behind then just allow the largest fleets in the game access to the forums and nobody else.
Why is there such a need to be so tyrannical... why is there a need to suppress people's opinions on the state of the game and blatant favoritism that Cryptic have displayed over their own preferences in ships and weapons etc...
Does Zen magically appear in the game? No. Somebody had to buy that Zen - with actual money.
So what you're claiming you've done here then is the following:
Worked at well below minimum wage to farm a product that Cryptic can turn around and sell at a juicy profit (since they don't actually pay you any wage).
It's one thing to accrue it as you're normally playing the game.
It's another if you're actively grinding it out to convert to Zen to make purchases.
You're not logging into a game when you log into STO then...you're logging into a job. A job with no pay and no benefits... Cryptic's little sweatshop.
edit: Course, out of some sense of fairness - I'll grind Dil every now and again to convert to Zen for somebody that bought it - I'd like the game to stick around and all.
What is the exchange. except for the Ambassador I have spent a dime since S7 i convert dil to zen thus NOT P2W
What is the exchange. except for the Ambassador I have spent a dime since S7 i convert dil to zen thus NOT P2W
Dil-Zen exchange works on free market principles, or so I've heard.
Players trade around Zen and Dil, with demand setting the price. Point is, there's always someone paying out of their own pocket for the Zen that you buy...
Wow! A lot of posts since last night. Y'all are making me work for this, y'know that? :P
EDIT: Especially with this tangent on the nature of dilithium exchange and zen-store purchases going on...
No. When someone can do an 10k fleet galaxy-r with an aux2bat build then it is not an issue with escorts that can tank because they still aren't as tanky as that galaxy.
The Gal-X pays for its potentially quite-high weapon damage with lack-luster tactical officer stations, which acts as a rather large damper on their potential DPS (you only get one cannon skill, and it's a rank 1).
The Gal-X pays for its tankiness with this poor cannon support, and with an abysmal turn-rate, if I understand correctly.
The issue is that there are no enemies with a degree of difficulty between insta-invisi-torp-kill and the standard npcs we instantly kill. They tried to make things harder. Into the hive with the wave of tac cubes to start shows that a healer/tank can be practical. But why run it when you can do ISE/CSE/KASE with a better time to reward ratio.
We have High DSP cruisers and high powered aux2bat cruisers. We need content, that can reflect that without the the community screaming the content is too hard and the npcs in them nerfed with cryptic agreeing.
Here, I agree with you 80% on this count, Robdmc. Part of my reservation is that we do have an STF enemy with a degree of difficulty between insta-death and instantly-killed-- spheres! (Dum-dum-duuummm!)
This is one of the most wonderfully insidious things about Hive Onslaught-- the spheres are more dangerous than the tactical cubes, and their constant use of tachyon beams makes a shield-repair boat vital to keeping a balanced party alive.
... that's not to say that I haven't seen a party of 4 escorts and a tac cruiser roflstomp 'em, but it was my tac-cruiser, which is a heal-boat in disguise. So take that as you will.
I love a challenge, myself-- why bother playing if I'm not challenged?-- and the only time you'll ever see me complaining about "difficulty" in PvE is when it comes to the insta-gib-torp-spread-of-doom that the Unimatrix vessels in Hive Onslaught use. (I'd love to see that part of the encounter remain just as challenging, but without getting one-shot-killed every 30 seconds. :P)
If you say so, but science captains also have useful abilities with relatively short cooldowns.
The way I see it, captain abilities...
- Shouldn't be overly interchangeable with BOff abilities
- Represent their respective specialization, but not be overly restricted to that
- Retain usefulness across a variety of ships
If I understand things correctly, the captain abilities are actually quite flexible between ship types and party roles. My tac in an Ambassador is a decent heal-boat, but my tactical captain powers allow my cruiser to "hulk out" and drop a huge bundle of damage on whatever's in front of me. And Subnucleonic Beam has struck me as being incredibly useful in any chassis (Galaxy, Oddy, Bortas, and Vo'quv excluded on the basis of turn rate, of course). I can't help but imagine that Miracle Worker is just as flexible.
I'm really not out for any of the Tac powers' blood (although making attack patterns only apply to weapon damage would be a huge boon to science captains, since their powers can be allowed to do damage again).
I'm going to quote an old post from this thread that I think sums up what I've seen as the problem pretty well:
If I understand things correctly, the captain abilities are actually quite flexible between ship types and party roles. My tac in an Ambassador is a decent heal-boat, but my tactical captain powers allow my cruiser to "hulk out" and drop a huge bundle of damage on whatever's in front of me. And Subnucleonic Beam has struck me as being incredibly useful in any chassis (Galaxy, Oddy, Bortas, and Vo'quv excluded on the basis of turn rate, of course). I can't help but imagine that Miracle Worker is just as flexible.
I'm really not out for any of the Tac powers' blood (although making attack patterns only apply to weapon damage would be a huge boon to science captains, since their powers can be allowed to do damage again).
Well I got a lot of issues with how redundant and restrictive TacCap and EngCap abilities are.
Nadion Inversion is only useful for offsetting beam power drain. TacCap abilities only really boost damage. EPS is somewhat redundant with BOff abilities, and isn't nearly as useful outside of cruisers.
Well I got a lot of issues with how redundant and restrictive TacCap and EngCap abilities are.
Nadion Inversion is only useful for offsetting beam power drain. TacCap abilities only really boost damage. EPS is somewhat redundant with BOff abilities, and isn't nearly as useful outside of cruisers.
Really, though, any class can benefit from a nice little turn-rate boost and a healthy bump to their damage every 90 seconds or so. Even science vessels mount weapons of some sort which can be buffed by dropping Attack Pattern Alpha and Fire on My Target to finish a damaged target off, or to sprout teeth when cornered.
I've never played an Engineer, though, so I'm not all that familiar with their captain powers. Looking at what the Wiki says they do, though, EPS Power Transfer actually does look reasonably useful once you've reached Captain-level (the cooldown drops to a much more manageable 75 seconds, says the Wiki), and a +25 boost to all power levels looks like a nice way to add that last bit of power you need to god-strike the bejeezus out of someone with an Overloaded beam bank, while staying at high weapon power and getting a little extra shield resist and heal-efficacy for the next 25-30 seconds to help you ride out the agro.
That might apply even more substantively to a science vessel than a cruiser, since the sci has far fewer engineering station to devote to cycling Emergency Power abilities.
Escorts... maybe less so, depending on your build. I can see an Advanced Escort using EPS Power Transfer as an emergency panic button to boost their shield resist and healing powers when they draw too much heat.
... Or a generally conscientious eng/escort tossing it to their party tank/healer if they're looking a little roughed up and could use the boost.
... Nadion Inversion looks like a kinda' duff draw, though (from what the wiki says) unless you're fighting a Dual-cannon bugship or a science drain-boat or something.
Again, disclaimer repeats: I've never played an engineering captain, I'm just going by what the wiki says about their captain powers, and comparing them to powers and uses I'm familiar with.
Please take all of the above with a grain of salt.
Disclaimer ends.
True success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
-- Winston Churchill
You paid in time my friend, and that equals money for Cryptic. Time = Money. They know this, that is why they have you as their slave, running recycled content over... and over... and over again, for hours, and hours and hours.
Imagine that, one of STO's oldest players, and one of the top PvPers in STO... saying that this game is P2W. I don't care that it is P2W, I care that their motivation is only to make cash by whatever scummy means they can come up with. Keyword: Scummy
Lower staff, virtually eliminate customer support, reduce bug fixes, pump out new untested overpowered eyecandy content IE: Specialization doffs, lockboxes, etc, recycle old content and call it new, nerf in-game currency rates, implement untradable c-store compatible currency, nerf untradable c-store compatible currency, kill small fleets to ensure dilithium costs are always at a premium, make untold sums of real life currency from currency conversion system known as Dilithium Exchange, break every game mechanic and state it is in working order.
The Star Trek IP is gone in STO.
Paramount should make a new sci fi called Greed, I'm sure Cryptic would quickly take the IP into their warm laps.
It is all there, clearly written out. Sure I expect gaming companies to be greedy, but the sheer magnitude of Cryptic's Greed has surpassed all other MMOs I have ever played. That tells a lot, because I have played an uncountable amount.
So you never played The Old republic.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
I grow somewhat more concerned with the way that Cryptic attempt to suppress general negative opinions of their game. No other MMO forum attempts to suppress the opinions or freedom of speech of their members. Blatent trolls yes, but not negative comments.
I have seen whole topics dissapear just for speaking out against Cryptic. If they want people that will continually kiss their behind then just allow the largest fleets in the game access to the forums and nobody else.
Why is there such a need to be so tyrannical... why is there a need to suppress people's opinions on the state of the game and blatant favoritism that Cryptic have displayed over their own preferences in ships and weapons etc...
You must not play BSGO. Bigpoint's forums are so tightly censored it reminds me of some real countries. You can't even poke fun at them without having your thread removed and your account either suspended or threatened with a ban. It's quite sad and highly amusing.
Comments
Lets nerf everyone who cries nerf or posts a nerf X thread and only allow them to use nerfed uncommon MK I gear.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
I don't know about Science, but Engineering is in need of an adjustment.
Unlike Science or Engineering, none of a Tactical captain's abilities can be considered weak or undesirable. They get an ability that lowers BOff cooldowns, as well as three different abilities that increase damage output. Unlike Engineering, they don't have to wait two minutes for their abilities to cooldown. Compare Nadion Inversion (the ability that makes full beam broadsides viable) to Attack Pattern Alpha.
Success in this game is determined by the wreckage you leave behind, because that lets you win PvP fights, efficiently accomplish missions and optional objectives, and get the best loot. Tactical does the most damage by default; Science and Engineering have nothing that comes close, and are left to pick up scraps.
Let's say you have two people joining the game at the same time. Someone who puts money into the game will progress faster, unlock and purchase the best loot sooner, and so on. One month in, the person who puts in money will be at a definite advantage compared to the person who did not. Pay to win is all about securing an advantage by expending real-world currency. All free to play games are like this, and the only thing that varies is how fair they are to those who do not pay with cash.
Please don't try to argue the point further.
Tetryon.
Really?
Even if you never bought more character slots and are just using the free ones, the amount of "grind" for endgame/BiS-gear is still ridiculously low, especially if you take into account that there isn't any content and item progression.
Anyone claiming that STO is "p2W" or that "grind-time" is too high is completely clueless and exaggerating. Those people should take a look at any mmo outside of STO, where you really have to invest time (or money) to progress and where the gear they grinded (or bought) gets obsoleted 3 months after it was released.
Putting cash into the game will allow you to unlock Fleet assets far more quickly than someone who doesn't. With it, you can run the lockbox lottery until the odds give out, or buy some Zen store items and sell them for EC on the exchange to buy the very best items. You can use it to buy items that allow you to level faster, gain fleet resources more quickly, and so on.
However you put it, paying real-world currency secures a comparative advantage over those who don't, and that is p2w in of itself. STO is more fair than many MMOs about this, but the p2w element is still there.
It really doesn't matter if someone joins at the same time or not. Anyone who an established character will have a larger advantage over those 2 poor people your comparing now. The longer you have been playing paid or not the more advantages you have. All "P2W" does is give a person a chance to catch up with those who have spent a long time in game. Even those who have been here since beta have some of these new item and have probably spent less money since it has gone f2p. The only difference is now the items are not account wide.
What you really should be comparing is a new character for a lifetimer who can spend 5 minutes claiming all his legacy c-store items and have a decked out character before entering the tutorial vs. a new f2p character. Now there is a disadvantage. No p2w there but it is still noticeable.
I feel sorry for the guy who has to pay money to get enough dilithium to get fleet items.
I'm sorry but that is so far from the truth. This is how Cryptic has bought you on the idea of dilithium. It isn't free, it is spend hours, upon hours of grinding your face into the dirt and drag yourself through recycled content that cryptic keeps pumping out.
Not to mention the argument you just made to "get best gear" is to buy c-store items to sell for EC, to buy best gear in the game.
Did I mention they nerfed ways of gaining EC in-game too?
Got to do it all with dilithium and c-points now. That is the point of dilithium, it isn't to help players, it is to ensure that somewhere, somehow, someone is spending c-store points to convert to dilithium to buy the "new" content. I am saddened that there are still those out there that are sold on this idea.
| Join Date: January 2009 | Computer | Fleet: Broken Wings |
They hit shields, now do I use it for most of my ships, no but for my KDF carrier yes, and I have Omeaga mk 12 set on my Armitage with tets. pretty effective.
but your wrong. I only have to spend time to get the dil than i can convert it to c points and get the same stuff. I didn't pay a dime.
That's not the entire issue, it's one thing to do damage it's entirely another to be a cannon that's made of reinforced steel and not glass. That's the issue I and many others have with it. You can literally tank with an escort now. I know I've seen it done countless times.
They need to separate attack patterns and evasive patterns into two separate skills, reduce the escorts defense by 15% across the board and remove the ability of tactical boosts to science and engineering skills while simultaneously boosting the damage and holds on those skills and boosting the time subsystem targets on science ships last and then we'll see some real balance happening. Until then it's a moot argument to try to say it's balanced now because clearly it's not.
You paid in time my friend, and that equals money for Cryptic. Time = Money. They know this, that is why they have you as their slave, running recycled content over... and over... and over again, for hours, and hours and hours.
Imagine that, one of STO's oldest players, and one of the top PvPers in STO... saying that this game is P2W. I don't care that it is P2W, I care that their motivation is only to make cash by whatever scummy means they can come up with. Keyword: Scummy
Lower staff, virtually eliminate customer support, reduce bug fixes, pump out new untested overpowered eyecandy content IE: Specialization doffs, lockboxes, etc, recycle old content and call it new, nerf in-game currency rates, implement untradable c-store compatible currency, nerf untradable c-store compatible currency, kill small fleets to ensure dilithium costs are always at a premium, make untold sums of real life currency from currency conversion system known as Dilithium Exchange, break every game mechanic and state it is in working order.
The Star Trek IP is gone in STO.
Paramount should make a new sci fi called Greed, I'm sure Cryptic would quickly take the IP into their warm laps.
It is all there, clearly written out. Sure I expect gaming companies to be greedy, but the sheer magnitude of Cryptic's Greed has surpassed all other MMOs I have ever played. That tells a lot, because I have played an uncountable amount.
| Join Date: January 2009 | Computer | Fleet: Broken Wings |
No. When someone can do an 10k fleet galaxy-r with an aux2bat build then it is not an issue with escorts that can tank because they still aren't as tanky as that galaxy. The issue is that there are no enemies with a degree of difficulty between insta-invisi-torp-kill and the standard npcs we instantly kill. They tried to make things harder. Into the hive with the wave of tac cubes to start shows that a healer/tank can be practical. But why run it when you can do ISE/CSE/KASE with a better time to reward ratio.
We have High DSP cruisers and high powered aux2bat cruisers. We need content, that can reflect that without the the community screaming the content is too hard and the npcs in them nerfed with cryptic agreeing.
Does Zen magically appear in the game? No. Somebody had to buy that Zen - with actual money.
So what you're claiming you've done here then is the following:
Worked at well below minimum wage to farm a product that Cryptic can turn around and sell at a juicy profit (since they don't actually pay you any wage).
It's one thing to accrue it as you're normally playing the game.
It's another if you're actively grinding it out to convert to Zen to make purchases.
You're not logging into a game when you log into STO then...you're logging into a job. A job with no pay and no benefits... Cryptic's little sweatshop.
edit: Course, out of some sense of fairness - I'll grind Dil every now and again to convert to Zen for somebody that bought it - I'd like the game to stick around and all.
I can respect that.
Grinding is apart of this mmo. That will not change. No matter how much time most people spend play games is at a loss. it is how much of a loss one is willing to take. if you want a profitable hobby then try arts and crafts or wood working. Then your hobbie might generate income albeit it is usually still way below minimum wage and normally just to cover costs.
I do not follow where that has anything to do with what I said...hrmmm...
Mmmhmm...
Well, I'll say this much about Tetryon weapons: they're cheaper to pick up on the exchange than Disruptors, Phasers, or Polarons.
I was referring to fleet upgrades. Put enough money in, and you can run a fleet yourself. Even if you aren't running a fleet by yourself, putting money in will still let you meet upgrade requirements faster and with fewer members.
That being said, we have gotten way off topic.
Maybe I've said this before, but I don't find anything all that wrong with Tactical BOff skills except for Attack Pattern Omega. The necessity of Attack Pattern Beta as a crutch skill for damage is something that is brought on by other factors in-game. Would also change Scatter Volley so that it doesn't overlap nearly as much with Fire at Will
TacCap skills are a different matter entirely. Tactical Initiative should go, and Attack Pattern Alpha effects should be weakened. I'd also take out Go Down Fighting as well, albeit for reasons that don't have to do with balancing.
Could be that they have access to a large number of +% damage boost which stack as well as shorter cds.
If you say so, but science captains also have useful abilities with relatively short cooldowns.
The way I see it, captain abilities...
- Shouldn't be overly interchangeable with BOff abilities
- Represent their respective specialization, but not be overly restricted to that
- Retain usefulness across a variety of ships
I have seen whole topics dissapear just for speaking out against Cryptic. If they want people that will continually kiss their behind then just allow the largest fleets in the game access to the forums and nobody else.
Why is there such a need to be so tyrannical... why is there a need to suppress people's opinions on the state of the game and blatant favoritism that Cryptic have displayed over their own preferences in ships and weapons etc...
What is the exchange. except for the Ambassador I have spent a dime since S7 i convert dil to zen thus NOT P2W
Dil-Zen exchange works on free market principles, or so I've heard.
Players trade around Zen and Dil, with demand setting the price. Point is, there's always someone paying out of their own pocket for the Zen that you buy...
EDIT: Especially with this tangent on the nature of dilithium exchange and zen-store purchases going on...
The Gal-X pays for its potentially quite-high weapon damage with lack-luster tactical officer stations, which acts as a rather large damper on their potential DPS (you only get one cannon skill, and it's a rank 1).
The Gal-X pays for its tankiness with this poor cannon support, and with an abysmal turn-rate, if I understand correctly.
Here, I agree with you 80% on this count, Robdmc. Part of my reservation is that we do have an STF enemy with a degree of difficulty between insta-death and instantly-killed-- spheres! (Dum-dum-duuummm!)
This is one of the most wonderfully insidious things about Hive Onslaught-- the spheres are more dangerous than the tactical cubes, and their constant use of tachyon beams makes a shield-repair boat vital to keeping a balanced party alive.
... that's not to say that I haven't seen a party of 4 escorts and a tac cruiser roflstomp 'em, but it was my tac-cruiser, which is a heal-boat in disguise. So take that as you will.
I love a challenge, myself-- why bother playing if I'm not challenged?-- and the only time you'll ever see me complaining about "difficulty" in PvE is when it comes to the insta-gib-torp-spread-of-doom that the Unimatrix vessels in Hive Onslaught use. (I'd love to see that part of the encounter remain just as challenging, but without getting one-shot-killed every 30 seconds. :P)
If I understand things correctly, the captain abilities are actually quite flexible between ship types and party roles. My tac in an Ambassador is a decent heal-boat, but my tactical captain powers allow my cruiser to "hulk out" and drop a huge bundle of damage on whatever's in front of me. And Subnucleonic Beam has struck me as being incredibly useful in any chassis (Galaxy, Oddy, Bortas, and Vo'quv excluded on the basis of turn rate, of course). I can't help but imagine that Miracle Worker is just as flexible.
I'm really not out for any of the Tac powers' blood (although making attack patterns only apply to weapon damage would be a huge boon to science captains, since their powers can be allowed to do damage again).
I'm going to quote an old post from this thread that I think sums up what I've seen as the problem pretty well:
... Tsurutafan, you're so quotable.
-- Winston Churchill
Um maybe cryptic puts some in.
Well I got a lot of issues with how redundant and restrictive TacCap and EngCap abilities are.
Nadion Inversion is only useful for offsetting beam power drain. TacCap abilities only really boost damage. EPS is somewhat redundant with BOff abilities, and isn't nearly as useful outside of cruisers.
Really, though, any class can benefit from a nice little turn-rate boost and a healthy bump to their damage every 90 seconds or so. Even science vessels mount weapons of some sort which can be buffed by dropping Attack Pattern Alpha and Fire on My Target to finish a damaged target off, or to sprout teeth when cornered.
I've never played an Engineer, though, so I'm not all that familiar with their captain powers. Looking at what the Wiki says they do, though, EPS Power Transfer actually does look reasonably useful once you've reached Captain-level (the cooldown drops to a much more manageable 75 seconds, says the Wiki), and a +25 boost to all power levels looks like a nice way to add that last bit of power you need to god-strike the bejeezus out of someone with an Overloaded beam bank, while staying at high weapon power and getting a little extra shield resist and heal-efficacy for the next 25-30 seconds to help you ride out the agro.
That might apply even more substantively to a science vessel than a cruiser, since the sci has far fewer engineering station to devote to cycling Emergency Power abilities.
Escorts... maybe less so, depending on your build. I can see an Advanced Escort using EPS Power Transfer as an emergency panic button to boost their shield resist and healing powers when they draw too much heat.
... Or a generally conscientious eng/escort tossing it to their party tank/healer if they're looking a little roughed up and could use the boost.
... Nadion Inversion looks like a kinda' duff draw, though (from what the wiki says) unless you're fighting a Dual-cannon bugship or a science drain-boat or something.
Again, disclaimer repeats: I've never played an engineering captain, I'm just going by what the wiki says about their captain powers, and comparing them to powers and uses I'm familiar with.
Please take all of the above with a grain of salt.
Disclaimer ends.
-- Winston Churchill
So you never played The Old republic.
You must not play BSGO. Bigpoint's forums are so tightly censored it reminds me of some real countries. You can't even poke fun at them without having your thread removed and your account either suspended or threatened with a ban. It's quite sad and highly amusing.
... Can I have some of whatever it is you're smoking?