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Aux Power and Abilities tied to it

edalgoedalgo Member Posts: 4,244 Arc User
edited April 2013 in PvP Gameplay
I've recently been a part of some epic matches with some of the games top PvP fleets and I've had some observations and suggestions. The matches in question were private matches so everytime both teams went in heal and science heavy. With this the amount of shield and hull healing was threw the roof. Last night we fought for nearly 40 minutes before either side recorded a kill. After 2 hours we called the match with a score of 5-1. Nothing to hang our heads about but brutal. Everytime we focused fire our target instantly received 2-3 TSS and whatever team necessary for a clear. Now what i see is that healers are running with full power to Aux, of course they should. But the healing abilities that are used do not drain Aux power at all.

If these abilities took power out of Aux then the ultra high resist of throwing someone TSS, AUX2SIF, HE etc wouldn't be so high. Healers couldn't run around with 125 power in Aux while throwing everything for max effect all at once. Im not calling for a nerf of the abilities themselves just making the heals work similar to how firing energy weapons drains and the need to take a second or 2 to recover to max level.

It just seems to make sense to me that if you give someone else your power from an Aux ability then yours should be reduced in accordance with said power.
Post edited by edalgo on
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Comments

  • darkfader1988darkfader1988 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    edalgo wrote: »
    I've recently been a part of some epic matches with some of the games top PvP fleets and I've had some observations and suggestions. The matches in question were private matches so everytime both teams went in heal and science heavy. With this the amount of shield and hull healing was threw the roof. Last night we fought for nearly 40 minutes before either side recorded a kill. After 2 hours we called the match with a score of 5-1. Nothing to hang our heads about but brutal. Everytime we focused fire our target instantly received 2-3 TSS and whatever team necessary for a clear. Now what i see is that healers are running with full power to Aux, of course they should. But the healing abilities that are used do not drain Aux power at all.

    If these abilities took power out of Aux then the ultra high resist of throwing someone TSS, AUX2SIF, HE etc wouldn't be so high. Healers couldn't run around with 125 power in Aux while throwing everything for max effect all at once. Im not calling for a nerf of the abilities themselves just making the heals work similar to how firing energy weapons drains and the need to take a second or 2 to recover to max level.

    It just seems to make sense to me that if you give someone else your power from an Aux ability then yours should be reduced in accordance with said power.

    Are you sure there was no engineer on either side? or worse, more of them? Because that is what increases the duration of a match by hours.

    Engi's are kinda useless these days they only postpone the inevitable.
    MT - Sad Pandas
  • dummynamedummyname Member Posts: 99 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I could get down with this if you also took out or significantly reduced the cooldowns on healing abilities. :P Then it would be like a mana bar...wow in space!
    24 Hours a day, 365 days a week.
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  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    edalgo wrote: »
    Well you were the engineer in one of these matches a few days ago. Lol


    Actually what really hurt are the Wells ship healers... Damn hard to break and maneuverable enough to avoid dps unlike the Recluse or Odyssey.


    Are you sure MT wasn't on his Sci?
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  • virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    dummyname wrote: »
    I could get down with this if you also took out or significantly reduced the cooldowns on healing abilities. :P Then it would be like a mana bar...wow in space!

    Once you hear Geko say the ships are classes enough times, any diehard resistance to that thought process fades away and you realize that he's pretty much making WoW in Space. Accept the ship as the class, and suddenly all those things that don't make sense suddenly make sense in a twisted world where the ship is the class. That twisted world where rather than the ship being part of the itemization for your character, your character is part of the itemization for the ship. Don't forget, we're getting pips with LoR.../picard.

    /cough

    Okay, in all seriousness though - change the abilities so it looks like this in the end:

    -Self-
    TT, APD
    ET, EPtS, RSP, AtD
    ST, HE

    -Ally-
    ExS
    TSS

    -Self/Ally-
    AtS

    Add an Emergency Power Pool (/cough) - have EPtX abilities drain from that. Have AtX abilities drain Aux Power. Have ExS drain Shield Power. Have TSS drain Shield and Aux Power.

    Yeah, I think that's enough - folks will already be laughing/raging...and it will never happen.

    Because we need to have our magic wand healing and our healing classes...because this isn't Star Trek Online it's WoW/RIFT/Misc-Random-FantasyMMO in Space.
  • antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I completely agree with this one...

    Aux power should be drained by X amount when a sci skill is used and return at eps rating... as should weapons like they used to.

    For most people this will make no difference to them as they run 1-2 aux powered skills anyway.

    However it will help reduce the insane amount of healing in this game.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    edalgo wrote: »
    Possibly... I believe he was the Recluse healer

    That's his Sci/Recluse.


    Out of curiosity, in these healfest matches which ships were targeted most often and killed most successfully?
  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Because we need to have our magic wand healing and our healing classes...because this isn't Star Trek Online it's WoW/RIFT/Misc-Random-FantasyMMO in Space.

    It's an MMO with MMO conventions.

    It always has been the case that ships are (part of) your class, a lot of players have just been in denial.



    The only difference is now Cpt Gecko has come out and said this in a podcast.


    The unique aspect in STO is that you can apply a separate template: ENG, SCI or TAC to that "ship as a class" concept and that you can change that part of your overall class equation by swapping ships.
  • hurleybirdhurleybird Member Posts: 909
    edited April 2013
    It's easily possible to break through three sci/sci healers with the right group and strategy.

    What really prolongs matches is either one side taking engineers (guarantees that team's loss, but can make the game take forever nonetheless) or escorts that aren't playing at the same level as the sci healers (either not enough spike, not enough coordination, or a lack of good target calling)
  • antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Taking the one engi is a 100% loss... because the other side still has way to much healing on the other side with there 3 sci. lol

    Healing is out to lunch in this game and it has been getting worse and worse.

    It is time for Cryptic to start addressing it.

    its true matches with 2 great teams have matches that never end.... and matches with 2 good teams won't end it for north of an hour easy. There isn't even any way to defend that.

    In any MMO that has ever existed arena style pvp matches last 5-10 min on average... this idea of matches that can go all night... is novel... can be fun at times... but mosty its just frustrating and the reason so many fantastic STO players are no longer around.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
  • dalnar83dalnar83 Member Posts: 2,420 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Hours long matches...ugh....such....great stuff...really...the team which needs to go first to toilet looses. :o
    "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.”
  • virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    It's an MMO with MMO conventions.

    There are MMOs that do not have such "conventions"...
    It always has been the case that ships are (part of) your class, a lot of players have just been in denial.

    But that is not the case. People have been in denial by thinking that ships are part of the class, a part of it - that you select a Tac, Eng, or Sci and you gear them. Cause, that's what you do. You select a Tac, Eng, or Sci and you gear them. When you run around on the ground, you are that Tac, Eng, or Sci...geared, etc, etc, etc.

    You head to space...you're an Escort, Raider, Cruiser, Raptor, Battle Cruiser, and you're geared...where part of that gear is your Tac, Eng, or Sci.
    The only difference is now Cpt Gecko has come out and said this in a podcast.

    The unique aspect in STO is that you can apply a separate template: ENG, SCI or TAC to that "ship as a class"concept and that you can change that part of your overall class equation by swapping ships.

    Players can change classes and apply their Tac, Eng, or Sci itemization to that new class.

    ...is not the same thing as...

    Players can change the role their class plays by selecting a different ship and the itemization that comes with that.

    It's a design thing. It's a thought process. There's a major difference between considering the character as part of the itemization for the ship and the ship as itemization for the character.

    Look at all the discussions about how ship layouts should be. It's because players are character centric. The game is ship centric. Players want to be Kirk, Picard, Worf, Data, Spock, etc, etc, etc. They want to fly the Enterprise (just an example)...not be the Enterprise.

    Think of all the folks asking for those additional Uni BOFF slots...that's where they're coming from. Think of all the ships without those slots...that's where Cryptic is coming from.

    It's not a case of what kind of Tac, Eng, or Sci you want to be...it's a case of what kind of Escort, Cruiser, or Science Vessel you want to be.
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  • virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    In any MMO that has ever existed arena style pvp matches last 5-10 min on average... this idea of matches that can go all night... is novel... can be fun at times... but mosty its just frustrating and the reason so many fantastic STO players are no longer around.

    But should STO PvP just be the equivalent of some TPS/FPS? Ground...sure...cause it's just people running around. Space? They're starships...not starfighters.

    While no doubt there is an issue with the magic wand healing/resists, etc - perhaps one could also say that an issue exists in that default number of kills for a match. What might be fine on ground...perhaps shouldn't be the default number in space.
  • hurleybirdhurleybird Member Posts: 909
    edited April 2013
    The best matches I've ever had were 45 minute to 2 hour affairs, with very even teams that both had tip top defensive and offensive coordination.

    The problem starts when a team's offense or defense is unbalanced. If teams have far greater offensive than defensive coordination you can get 10-15m minute matches. If teams have far greater defensive than offensive coordination, you can be left with matches that never end and have to eventually be called off.

    Healing isn't too powerful. Nerf it, and you risk making every match a short affair, a DPS race like PvE. Right now I think we're actually at a pretty good point in terms of healing vs. damage. There's a very small minority of battles that are unending and take too long, a larger minority that are in the "sweet spot", and the majority are very quick affairs -- mostly because pugs suck at healing -- but still, nerfing healing is going to aggravate the problem and drive more matches out of the sweet spot than in.
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  • darkfader1988darkfader1988 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    edalgo wrote: »
    Well you were the engineer in one of these matches a few days ago. Lol


    Actually what really hurt are the Wells ship healers... Damn hard to break and maneuverable enough to avoid dps unlike the Recluse or Odyssey.

    ? No. It was a Sci lol.

    Sci Recluse :)

    With Maco shields, shouldnt be that hard to punch tru tbh. Im less self defense, more team heal oriented, i expect heals (and tt's from my fellow teammates as well sometimes :D

    Could go Fleet shields, but i dont like zombie :D
    MT - Sad Pandas
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  • antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    hurleybird wrote: »
    The best matches I've ever had were 45 minute to 2 hour affairs, with very even teams that both had tip top defensive and offensive coordination.

    The problem starts when a team's offense or defense is unbalanced. If teams have far greater offensive than defensive coordination you can get 10-15m minute matches. If teams have far greater defensive than offensive coordination, you can be left with matches that never end and have to eventually be called off.

    Healing isn't too powerful. Nerf it, and you risk making every match a short affair, a DPS race like PvE. Right now I think we're actually at a pretty good point in terms of healing vs. damage. There's a very small minority of battles that are unending and take too long, a larger minority that are in the "sweet spot", and the majority are very quick affairs -- mostly because pugs suck at healing -- but still, nerfing healing is going to aggravate the problem and drive more matches out of the sweet spot than in.

    EVERY teams defense to offense ratio is off... its the nature of this game... how can you even claim otherwise. lol

    If the teams where not super heal setups the matches wouldn't go 1+ hours would they.

    Healing in this game is a joke because everyone can do it... and the "healers" can still do far to much CC and DMG to justify it.

    Frankly I don't even know where to start to fix it... imo its beyond ever being fixed.

    You can claim most matches hit the sweet spot... but they don't.

    There either pug roles... or there heal fest premade matches.

    In 3 years sure I have been involved in plenty of fantastic matches... and many of them have been a good hour and some even more. (matches I would consider great)

    However the last year or so... those long matches have NOT been dragged out due to skill... but rather by insane amounts of "skill buffer" as I call it... hot heals that heal for 20-30k, clears that last 15s... shield spins that last 10s... resists that are nailed to max by sci fleet. In general they are extended by zero skill skills and items.

    Yes healing is out of wack... and I find it hard to think that people with so much experience in PvP in Video Games in general would think otherwise.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
  • hurleybirdhurleybird Member Posts: 909
    edited April 2013
    edalgo wrote: »
    I understand that but I'm talking about 2 premades going at it

    Even disregarding pugs -- which we shouldn't since it's undeniable that nerfing healing would make pug matches God awful -- you're still likely to do more harm than good for premade matches. Matches that go on for ever are an incredibly small minority. By nerfing healing you're still more likely to drive more premade matches out of the sweet spot than you let in.
  • darkfader1988darkfader1988 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    edalgo wrote: »
    So that was you who nuked me a few times lol


    Could be :p
    MT - Sad Pandas
  • antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    But should STO PvP just be the equivalent of some TPS/FPS? Ground...sure...cause it's just people running around. Space? They're starships...not starfighters.

    While no doubt there is an issue with the magic wand healing/resists, etc - perhaps one could also say that an issue exists in that default number of kills for a match. What might be fine on ground...perhaps shouldn't be the default number in space.

    I'm not saying it should be like a 5min FPS....

    However many great team based MMOs DO NOT have hour long matches. People really do get board... or they come on and say I can't pvp cause I might have to leave in an hour... I have honestly heard that from people "I might have to leave in an hour" lol

    I think the sweet spot for the average STO pvp match should be like 20min... and the devs need to put together a plan to try an hit that... great teams should still be able to push that to 1 hour with great team work... I would say that would be perfection.

    Right now where calling matches well over that that would litterly go 4-5 hours if people don't just log first. lol
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
  • edited April 2013
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  • hurleybirdhurleybird Member Posts: 909
    edited April 2013
    EVERY teams defense to offense ratio is off... its the nature of this game... how can you even claim otherwise. lol

    If the teams where not super heal setups the matches wouldn't go 1+ hours would they.

    Dude, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, because we have different opinions on where the game should be.

    You seem to want some sort of fast paced, simpler, "FPS" type game if you'll forgive the comparison.

    Personally, I love matches that take an hour or even a bit more to get up to 15 kills. It's like hokey vs. basketball. You aren't getting a point every other moment. You have a large amount of spike available, that's perfectly counter balanced by a large amount of healing. This creates a ton of strategic and tactical depth, where well coordinated spike is hugely difficult to counter, well coordinated cross healing is hugely difficult to overcome, and when you have two teams with equal measures of both the match turns into a chess match that's nail biting and rewarding.

    Turn this game into something where premade vs. premade matches take 20 minutes, and you've destroyed all of the depth that this game has. You've also took a giant dump on pug PvP.
  • hurleybirdhurleybird Member Posts: 909
    edited April 2013
    edalgo wrote: »
    What i recommended was that by having to wait 2 seconds

    2 seconds is more than enough to guarantee a kill if you have an alpha strike up and a subnuke ready.
  • antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    hurleybird wrote: »
    Dude, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, because we have different opinions on where the game should be.

    You seem to want some sort of fast paced, simpler, "FPS" type game if you'll forgive the comparison.

    Personally, I love matches that take an hour or even a bit more to get up to 15 kills. It's like hokey vs. basketball. You aren't getting a point every other moment. You have a large amount of spike available, that's perfectly counter balanced by a large amount of healing. This creates a ton of strategic and tactical depth, where well coordinated spike is hugely difficult to counter, well coordinated cross healing is hugely difficult to overcome, and when you have two teams with equal measures of both the match turns into a chess match that's nail biting and rewarding.

    We can agree to disagree for sure.

    I am not thinking things need to be FPS style though no.

    However I do think that the average skilled match shouldn't take north of 1hr all the time no.

    Yes fantastic games should be able to go over an hour... however right now even relatively unskilled games are going that long.

    The games I really remember over the last few years that have went over an hour are all from over a year ago. Back when games didn't in general go that long.

    I think the devs need to be shooting for 30m or so per match as a design goal.

    At that point great teams would be able to drag it out to an hour or so.

    Frankly what we have means even lackluster games go 2 times as long as the average team sports match. lol
    You mentioned hockey... 3 20 min periods... that's a hockey game.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
  • hurleybirdhurleybird Member Posts: 909
    edited April 2013
    Yes fantastic games should be able to go over an hour... however right now even relatively unskilled games are going that long.

    It's not about skill level, it's about discrepancy between offense and defense. You could have a relatively unskilled team where they have far better offense than defense and the match would be over in 10-20 minutes. You could have far better defense than offense and have a match go on forever. Or you could have a balance and be in the "sweet spot."

    The reason why less skilled matches trend towards shorter duration has nothing to do with skill, but the correlation that less skilled teams tend to go heavier into offense and light on heal support.
  • virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I think the devs need to be shooting for 30m or so per match as a design goal.

    Given various things they've said, I think their actual goal is at least 15m per match. That's based on Cryptic's thought process regarding Dilithium. 15m = 480 Dil. The PvP wrappers which reward 1440 Dil for 3 matches - 1440/3 = 480...thus...15m matches, eh?

    Them trying to do a "median" range is likely going to be well beyond what they're capable of doing...it would just be too much work.

    So, what if instead they added the following option to private matches:

    Battle Stress Debuff
    When the match is created, those involved can decide if they want this or not. If not, then it would play out as it currently does. If they do want it, then they could set the following options:
    Resistance Debuff Amount
    Initial Time Interval
    Recurring Time Interval

    So you could say that at 30 minutes, a Resistance Debuff Amount of X would be applied to all the players and every 15 minutes after that it would be applied again. It could be set to an hour and then every 30 minutes. Etc, etc, etc - the folks fighting would have the option to set the amount, initial application, and when additional applications if needed would be applied.

    Folks that don't want it - can continue to play without it.
    Folks that don't want to fall asleep during matches - could shorten them.
  • antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    hurleybird wrote: »
    It's not about skill level, it's about discrepancy between offense and defense. You could have a relatively unskilled team where they have far better offense than defense and the match would be over in 10-20 minutes. You could have far better defense than offense and have a match go on forever. Or you could have a balance and be in the "sweet spot."

    The reason why less skilled matches trend towards shorter duration has nothing to do with skill, but the correlation that less skilled teams tend to go heavier into offense and light on heal support.

    We are for sure going to have to agree to disagree on that one. lol

    It isn't about balance of offense to defense anymore imo.

    These are some of the many skill buffers on my list...

    Fleet shields
    Sci Fleet
    EPTS (yes I said it... its not a balance build decision anymore its just a defacto 30% shield resist for everyone)
    Rom Tier 4 Passive
    Borg Tier 4 passive
    Human Boffs
    Embassy Sci Consoles
    Wells Time Set
    Shield Regen Pets
    Danoob Fighters
    Invis Warp Plasma
    Extend spam
    Shockwave Spam thanks to doffs
    Hazards. (yes it takes next to no skill to use... its far to powerful these days)
    Wells rewind consoles

    I am sure I'm forgting things... and perhaps some like epts don't deserve to be in my list. However the cumulative effect of all these things is this. The average players doesn't need a ton of skill to drag matches out past the hour mark. Any combo of 2-3 of those things will control MOST half decent spike... and on the reverse any 2-3 of those things can make even lacklust spike effective. The game just has to many skill buffers imo. No one is really punished for TRIBBLE up in this game.

    Anyway I'm getting ranty... so I'll stop...

    Bottom line IMO heals are WAY to active in this game. Either Cryptic needs to spread effects around like removing hazards clears... or simply increasing cool downs on almost every thing in this game. We say we don't want FPS style game play... but every boff skill in this game has FPS style cool downs. :)
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
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