Once again Bonus Defense is availible to all ships.
Escorts get a plus 10% bonus to this to reflect thier speed.
Bonus defense can further be increased by trait choice and Boff ability.
The trait is Elusive. It will add 10% bonus defense.
Boff abilities are ApO 1,2 & 3. It will add varying bonuses based on which one you use when activated.
Some Cruisers and Battle cruisers can use this ability.
EvM will boost anyones Bonus Defense when used.
The only Escort Bonus Defense buff is that bonus 10%.
Everything else can be used by anyone.
Resistance Buffs via Boffs can be used by anyone. Timing and stacking in use make the difference.
The only advantage the Escort has is damage output, which is a product of its design.
Once again Bonus Defense is availible to all ships.
Escorts get a plus 10% bonus to this to reflect thier speed.
Bonus defense can further be increased by trait choice and Boff ability.
The trait is Elusive. It will add 10% bonus defense.
Boff abilities are ApO 1,2 & 3. It will add varying bonuses based on which one you use when activated.
Some Cruisers and Battle cruisers can use this ability.
EvM will boost anyones Bonus Defense when used.
The only Escort Bonus Defense buff is that bonus 10%.
Everything else can be used by anyone.
Resistance Buffs via Boffs can be used by anyone. Timing and stacking in use make the difference.
The only advantage the Escort has is damage output, which is a product of its design.
There are a couple of notes that need to be made in regard to Bonus Defense. It's not just the +10% Bonus Defense that most Escorts have (oddly enough, not all do); but there is also the following:
1) You can have up to 45% Base Bonus Defense based on your Impulse Speed. @24+ Impulse, you will have +45% Bonus Defense. It is easier for Escorts (because of Impulse Mods) to reach 24+ Impulse than Cruisers. They can run lower Eng Power to get the same results as a Cruiser which would require more Eng Power. Yes, Cruisers generally get that +5 Eng Power or so...but it's not enough to cover the gap created by the Impulse Mods. And yes, with the way folks ooze power...it may not matter as much as it once did, but it is still technically an advantage.
2) This relates to #1, and it involves the changes that have been made to Evasive. EM went from +25% to +15% to +25% based on Impulse Speed. So much like #1, the Escort technically has the advantage.
Regarding APO...the Cruiser/Battle Cruiser would either need a Cmdr Tac or Cmdr Uni to grab that...so that would be another defensive advantage for the Escort. Also, one would need two LCdr+ Tac/Uni stations to run 2x APO...so another defensive advantage for the Escort.
While talking about such things, maneuverability and the like, the Escort obviously has the huge maneuverability advantage that goes beyond just Bonus Defense. The ability to disengage is an advantage. The ability to rotate quickly off of a dropped facing is an advantage. The ability to move out of the most damaging arcs is an advantage. Likewise, the ability to sit better on a facing is an advantage.
Avoidance > Mitigation.
Speaking of Mitigation, how much less Mitigation does an Escort actually have? While they might have lower overall shield numbers - the shield mod only affects the numbers, not the damage reduction. What about hull? They can't mount as many Neuts, eh? There's heavy DR on damage resistance though. Add that second Neut, and you're likely not even getting half the bonus. Add a third, yeah...there's heavy DR.
So while they may have lower numbers for shield amount and hull amount, there isn't going to be a difference with shield damage reduction and there isn't going to be that much of a difference in the hull damage resistance.
Which still leaves the differences in numbers...which only really matter for spike buffer. There's so much healing in STO that as long as you can cover spike/burst...even those differences in numbers do not matter.
Yeah, because if Star Trek is about anything, it's getting as many warships as possible to pile up as high a body count as possible in as short a time as possible. :rolleyes:
But, to be fair we need to remove all the 'magic' powers from the game. Which is pretty much everything except maybe EPTx and Weapon buffs.
The easy way to understand the removal of magic from this game to make a more realistic and IP accurate portrayal of Star Trek is that you can do anything to your own ship, but not to someone else's.
That leaves all the Buffs.
That is what weapons are for. As it stands, Sci ships don't even need weapons in this game.
Star Trek level military equipment should be able to foul ANY invasive powers just like Anti-Malware keeps RL magic Sci Powers out of your computer. Yes, the magic Sci powers in STO are at least as dishonest if not more so than Malware.
That said, I'm for a general withdraw of these powers. Have them backfire onto the ship owners using them for a good while first to restore the "Galactic Karma Balance."
The easy way to understand the removal of magic from this game to make a more realistic and IP accurate portrayal of Star Trek is that you can do anything to your own ship, but not to someone else's.
Ok so you would remove:
Attack pattern Omega - Best Escort skill in the game (magic immunity to all movement debuffs)
Attack pattern Beta - Best Damage buff in the game (magic defence debuff to target)
Attack pattern Delta - Fairly neat resistance buff for escorts (Magic buff to own resistances and debuff to attacker defence)
Hazard emitters - Best boff hull heal
Transfer shield strength - only shield heal
Note how you just removed more escort skills than anything else...
And that in this game (PvE) only damage output matters which automatically catapults them to the top with no effort on their part.
Yes. In a DPS dependent environment he who throws the most the fastest is king by default. The Escort fills that exact role.
fix the game to be more than a DPS sink to victory.
On a side note I do not think the fact it takes a non-escort longer to complete a mission than an escort is a liability. Games are meant to be played, not raced through.
Yes. In a DPS dependent environment he who throws the most the fastest is king by default. The Escort fills that exact role.
fix the game to be more than a DPS sink to victory.
On a side note I do not think the fact it takes a non-escort longer to complete a mission than an escort is a liability. Games are meant to be played, not raced through.
Depends on what you play the game for.
Of course, if you play the game to race through missions quickly, then why are you trying to do it in a Cruiser?
This much is absolutely true but I'd very much like to oblige their "escorts or GTFO" when they are suffering from VMs and other disables.
-snip-
I actually think that were pvp properly balanced and pve remodelled based on it the game would benefit greatly, but that's just my opinion.
I deal with VM all the time in Gorn Minefield. I wait for it to effect my weapons and then...pop a battery, or EPtW, or my fancy new warp core thingie, or Mircale Worker, depending on which boat I'm in. Not a big deal.
I didn't phrase it very well in my original post. This game has an extremely casual oriented playerbase. They don't care to learn five formulas to optimize their ship, the don't spreadsheet warrior their build, and they sure as sure do not want to be forced to do anything resembling real teamwork.
So the content design takes that into account. They allow the content to be completed by enough total player capability to the degree that one stellar player can ensure the victory of four baddies. Or five meh players can still get said victory. They don't want content that requires specific players to have a specific capability.
That said even the borg really do bring a myrid of attacks against a player. The Assimilate Ship is nasty, fortunantly TT removes it. Shield Neutralizers can sap full shields in seconds, shame PI skill is maxed by most not to mention HE clears it. Plasma burn from sphere torps alone can really add up fast not the mention the giant plasma ball. Good thing HE removes the burn and CRF/FAW/TS take care of those. I dare you to run an ESTF in anything without TT or HE or PI skill and tell me how easy it is. It is possible don't get me wrong, but extremely annoying.
Then there are the Tholians that disable and web coupled with pathetic damage output. Better AI some would say, flat out annoying I say. Fortunately I always pack a few options to counter so its not a big deal.
The AI can only be made better or content more challenging IF the gaps between bad build, average build, and amazing build are lessened. And that will only happen with a balance pass of ships and boff skills along with lowering the learning curve. My escorts will passively regenerate more effective health in ten seconds than the average players ship has total health. How on earth do you create challenging damage output from NPCs for me without make the average player rage quit?
The average player will not become better on their own. Nor will cramming it down their throat at VA rank with 'L2P or GTFO' content, they will simply quit. Why do you think that rommie mission was patched so fast? Metrics likely showed a dangerously high number of players that quit right after playing it.
As for PvP balance I don't think you quite understand what I mean by meta. Many think that if EPtS was removed from the game PvP balance would be destroyed, it would not be. The meta would switch, engineers would become more popular and science less popular captain wise and many other things would happen to change the META but balance could still exist as the removal of EPtS would effect everyone.
I think a lot of people feel very passionate about this but they are getting tunnel vision.
Damage and Heal boosts help all ships, however the relative placement of various ship types in regards to damage and damage soaking do not change. Nor should they.
I do agree that there is one very big issue, what to do about the old ships? Old ships were made with a clearly different style of play. The galaxy, star cruiser and yes, even the intrepid and defiant are emblematic of this. Heck, the amby is superior to them simply because it manages to have a more hybrid boff layout. DO they update them to the new standarts? Sell a way to make them a little better through hybridization? Leave them as is and help push other ships as revenue generators? What can be done about them and will Cryptic do anything at all?
If any type of ship really benefits more than others from boosts is the hybrids/destroyers in the game. Which as we can see, are the way ships are designed now.
If I have 100 USD and you have 50 USD and bob has 10 USD and we all gain 50% more money what happens?
I now have 150 USD, a gain of 50.
You have 75 USD, a gain of 25.
Bob now has 15 USD, a gain of 5.
Additionally while before I only had 90 more USD than bob, now I have 135 more. The places in line stay the same, but the gap gets larger until it becomes so large those at the bottom are no longer relevant.
Once again Bonus Defense is availible to all ships.
Escorts get a plus 10% bonus to this to reflect thier speed.
-snip-
The only advantage the Escort has is damage output, which is a product of its design.
The advantage the escort has is 10% more Bonus Defense period. If everyone uses the same exact abilities the escort always has 10% more Bonus Defense.
The Cruiser gets 10% more total hull and passive hull regeneration, sadly the escorts hull is 10% more effective anyway.
The Sci Vessel gets 30% more total shield and passive shield regen, sadly the escorts shield is still 10% more effective nor is it missing the huge chunk of hull like said sci.
The ships are identical defensively before anything else enters the equation. And guess what, it is not hard to hit the resistance cap with the number of doff options and hybrid boff seating arrangements out there. In the end the escorts shields, hull, and heals applied to them are stronger thanks to the bonus defense. Best part? Most of my ships have positive defense values while at 0 speed!
By the posts in this thread it sounds like "some" just really need to learn the game, how its played, etc.
Most of them probably came to this game with no history except for what they see on Star Trek and want it to copy the IP to a "T".
Sorry folks its not going to happen. Game first, Star Trek Second. Play what you will in this game, don't like DPS, don't play a tac/escort. Its your choice. Why should the rest of the community suffer because "it isn't fair"? Sorry, life isn't fair. Put your big boy/girl underwear on and just play and stop your complaining.
By the posts in this thread it sounds like "some" just really need to learn the game, how its played, etc.
Most of them probably came to this game with no history except for what they see on Star Trek and want it to copy the IP to a "T".
Sorry folks its not going to happen. Game first, Star Trek Second. Play what you will in this game, don't like DPS, don't play a tac/escort. Its your choice. Why should the rest of the community suffer because "it isn't fair"? Sorry, life isn't fair. Put your big boy/girl underwear on and just play and stop your complaining...
There's certainly some of that, I think. But at the same time, I do think there's some truth to the fact that STO wavers on this uncomfortable edge between 'single-player, casual game' and 'multi-player, more involved game'. You can make a high DPS escort, and pretty much play the end-game content yourself. Or you can try to tinker around with Sci and Engi builds, and discover that unless it's geared towards doing damage specifically, you pretty much need a team to do anything.
That can be a little shocking, especially when in-game doesn't do a whole lot to explain that. I think the game would honestly benefit from an 'STF Tutorial', where people get a more in-depth explanation in the game itself about dealing damage and being support and how that works in a team. Because at the moment, you're just sort of tossed in and expected to have friends who can teach you.
I didn't have those friends, and it's only been until recently I've been willing to even try Elite STFs. My build was fine, it turns out (at least my escort, high DPS is :P), but I read all this stuff on the forums about "LTP N00B!" that it scared me. Even now, I only do the STFs I know I can do without having to interact with a team much, because I just don't have enough knowledge of how a team would function.
By the posts in this thread it sounds like "some" just really need to learn the game, how its played, etc.
Most of them probably came to this game with no history except for what they see on Star Trek and want it to copy the IP to a "T".
Sorry folks its not going to happen. Game first, Star Trek Second. Play what you will in this game, don't like DPS, don't play a tac/escort. Its your choice. Why should the rest of the community suffer because "it isn't fair"? Sorry, life isn't fair. Put your big boy/girl underwear on and just play and stop your complaining. After all, your complaints have no merit...
You don't seem to realise that this game is based on Star Trek in order to provide a Star Trek experience. It was built on the interest of something that has been going strong for 40 years and will keep going strong. If you're a Trekkie you should know better than to say what you did. If you're not, go and play WoW or some other such tripe.
As for the rest of the community suffering, if you didn't notice tactical is one of THREE classes and escorts are one of FIVE types of ship. You fail to see that tactical and escort comprises a PART of something BIGGER. This selfish attitude leads me to beleive that you're a me-me-me player who is most likely a tactical escort player. A very selfish one at that.
Wanting a game to be fair for ALL should be the desire of ALL players. Not wanting fairness in a game is a self-serving attitude, one that a person could only want because they have no consideration for others and/or they fear that they won't be able to compete on a level playing field.
Let escorts have huge damage outputs or reasonable tanking capability but not both. Why should one class get everything?
This is exactly it, only one of my characters fly an escort, but considering I am mainly a KDF player I don't really have a lot of choice in the matter being that the Fed have a vast advantage in that field.
The point is, cruisers/engineers and science/science vessels need to be buffed to allow them to fill their role better. I'd suggest that science officers get a special trait or something that massively boosts their crowd and debuffing abilities and engineers get a trait or something that massive boost their aggro/threat generation.
Beams been to be brought up to cannon standards, making them just a different means of delivering damage rather than a weaker alternative.
The game just needs a massive re-balance, the power creep that all these new c-store and lock box ships have brought to the game needs adjustment, older ships like the KDF BOP line for example (many more like the Nebula etc needs it too) needs to be brought up to current standards. Weapons need readjusting, beams and especially tetryons which are fairly useless in-game.
A full balance overhaul needs to be done, perhaps give season 8 to the KDF and get them to costumes, science ships and replace the Fed missions they have and have season 9 a total re-balance of the game. Make it viable again to play something other than a tactical in a escort.
Support the Game by Supporting the KDF, equality and uniqueness for all factions!
So you agree with removing the magic wand healing from the game and what that would mean for Escorts?
Well of course not, 'magic' that benefits escorts is obviously acceptable and needed and perfectly sensible. 'Magic' that benefits other playstyles on the other hand is obviously stupid and nonsensical and all those players need to gb2WoW. :rolleyes:
The easy way to understand the removal of magic from this game to make a more realistic and IP accurate portrayal of Star Trek is that you can do anything to your own ship, but not to someone else's.
That leaves all the Buffs.
That is what weapons are for. As it stands, Sci ships don't even need weapons in this game.
Star Trek level military equipment should be able to foul ANY invasive powers just like Anti-Malware keeps RL magic Sci Powers out of your computer. Yes, the magic Sci powers in STO are at least as dishonest if not more so than Malware.
That said, I'm for a general withdraw of these powers. Have them backfire onto the ship owners using them for a good while first to restore the "Galactic Karma Balance."
In that case every Captain in the history of Trek should be court martialed and summarily executed for staggering incompetence, due to constantly forgetting that all they had to do was push a few buttons to instantly repair massive amounts of hull damage, regenerate their shields, make the ship move and maneuver multiple times faster, and fire their weapons faster and make them hit harder.
In that case every Captain in the history of Trek should be court martialed and summarily executed for staggering incompetence, due to constantly forgetting that all they had to do was push a few buttons to instantly repair massive amounts of hull damage, regenerate their shields, make the ship move and maneuver multiple times faster, and fire their weapons faster and make them hit harder.
You know, realistically. :rolleyes:
Maybe so, But I know that they never slung Black Holes and Gravity Rifts at each other in any of the shows and movies. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
One of the benefits of cruisers that has been forgotten is the crew.
The crew should manage hull damage, repair systems and help a ship survive longer. At the moment they seem to just fade to black when the first shield facing goes red.
If we Leave weapons in their current state and make the crew play a bigger role in survivability vs BOFF abilities there would be more balance.
Also as ships take damage there is no diminshing performance.
Turnrate, power levels, speed, and max hull integrity should all be affected when there are serious holes in the hull. As it stands a ship can perform as well at 100% hull integrity as it can at 25% and that doesnt really make any sense in reality or Sci-Fi.
Having the crew play a role in returning the ships to optimum performance would also help create a new level of game play and bring some balance without hurting what escorts do best.
Ok so you would remove:
Attack pattern Omega - Best Escort skill in the game (magic immunity to all movement debuffs)
Attack pattern Beta - Best Damage buff in the game (magic defence debuff to target)
Attack pattern Delta - Fairly neat resistance buff for escorts (Magic buff to own resistances and debuff to attacker defence)
Hazard emitters - Best boff hull heal
Transfer shield strength - only shield heal
Note how you just removed more escort skills than anything else...
Attack Patterns are manifested on your ship.
Remember: Anything you can do to YOUR own ship is OK.
There shouldn't be any movement debuffs unless your engine is shot up!
This just removes blatantly stupid things like Gravity Well and Tykin's Rift because ships with that much Gravity Control wouldn't need Warp drives. :rolleyes:
Your ships Anti-Malware systems will prevent any tampering with your systems. No more cheating by disabling someones engines or weapons or shields and if you launch boarding shuttles at a ship with an active deflector shield up they should just bounce off.
The only sensor scramble would be the cloak or if your ship dumped chaff into space. Any effective sensor scramble would effect ALL ships in the area not just the intended target included the ship that launched it.
Or even easier to understand from a game point:
If everything has a countering power, why not ditch the lot and actually play Star trek like in the shows and movies.
All Cryptic has to do to balance out the ships is to make them be specialized like they intended.
Like they should make the science ships work like a science ship.....where it has sensors and the ability to see through cloaks and things easier...thus the reason its called a science ship...perhaps these should have more bridge stations too...so that the science ship becomes the skill sensing ship.
And the cruisers should have the ability to have either more weapons or more armor and protection...they could change the slots so that if a player puts weapons in they work as normal but if they have less weapons the cruisers get more armor. And they should put more weapon slots on then....this would allow the cruisers to have tons of missiles and phasers or turrets of the player wants.....or they could have a seemingly huge tank.
And escorts should get cannons.....they should have longer range on the cannons...but also they need to not have to deal with the ten trillion cannon types....they don't need to have a single cannon and dual cannon and heavy cannon...they need just one cannon.....or they need to have heavy cannon like they have with a long range cannon that fires slower but has a much longer range....and escorts should have special torpedos too that are real slow at firing but have ranges like 30...but you don't get the same bonus of the multi shot special abilities that effect the other torpedos.
I am still not sure why they decided to have them have a low turn radius on most ships except the escort ones.......if they are going to have that they need to have a reason.....since star trek ships create their own gravity fields which is how they travel fast with out their crews getting instant death then they can easily turn on a dime.
but go figure this is all just my opinion....
And I admit I am biased because I run a lot of table top games and play a lot of online games.....so to me the fix is obvious and easy to figure....as I know how most players think and the things they try to do all the time.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
Well of course not, 'magic' that benefits escorts is obviously acceptable and needed and perfectly sensible. 'Magic' that benefits other playstyles on the other hand is obviously stupid and nonsensical and all those players need to gb2WoW. :rolleyes:
oh LOL and when they do gb2WoW, and stay there, pigs will fly without wings
Title says it all. It was bad enough before, but now with LoR, you can add withering cloak alpha attacks to the escorts' already near-infinite inventory of ways to kill people.
Cryptic, you really need to address this problem. It's now getting beyond a joke. You've made it so that of the ships shown in the series only the Defiant is a real contender for an effective PvP ship. This spits in the face of what Star Trek is meant to be.
Whilst you're fixing the balance, do something about the JHAS. It's not a little OP, it's waaaaay OP. As evidenced by the sheer number of serious PvPers who use it.
(I know I'm wasting my breath with this post, but it really needs to be said and said and said again until Cryptic listens.)
ugh did you not watch enuff of the movies, Defiant was special case scenario, leave it outta this. but yes the cruisers feel under powered but really in all truth escorts are the only real warships-tact wise. your not playing the cruiser or science vessels right if you are going for a straight battleship which would be nice to see those. but you need to look outside the box like controlling and p-i-s-sing your opponent- hench the trololo.
they didn't balence it out. tec has more guns but less power to support them.. 3 forward cannons put out the same amount of damage as my 5 forward ones. there isn't enough power in anyship to handle 5 let alone 4. 3 forward cannon is you max. The other two could be photons torps.. The back guns should be borg laser and mine.. science ships have the power to handle 3 guns and science powers..
Remember: Anything you can do to YOUR own ship is OK.
So how does one manage a magical immunity to all holds?
There shouldn't be any movement debuffs unless your engine is shot up!
Tractor beams come to mind
This just removes blatantly stupid things like Gravity Well and Tykin's Rift because ships with that much Gravity Control wouldn't need Warp drives. :rolleyes:
I'm sure that if one can modify a deflector dish to open an inter-dimensional rift then increasing the intensity of a gravitational field or creating a minor rift in space is rather easy and far more realistic.
Your ships Anti-Malware systems will prevent any tampering with your systems. No more cheating by disabling someones engines or weapons or shields and if you launch boarding shuttles at a ship with an active deflector shield up they should just bounce off.
With regard to Viral matrix, most federation ships run the same computer systems so if you can write a virus to affect your own systems then there is a high chance that it will have the same effect on another federation ship and the KDF would likely have a similar problem with fed viruses and vice versa of course.
Also I agree that boarding party shields should have code to the effect of "IF target shield facing HP>=1, no effect, effect" but equally once on board a party can do any number of things.
The only sensor scramble would be the cloak or if your ship dumped chaff into space. Any effective sensor scramble would effect ALL ships in the area not just the intended target included the ship that launched it.
Isn't the idea of sensor scramble that a ship does literally block sensor strips? Thus yes I agree that all ships in the affected area should be equally affected INCLUDING those that are cloaked and jam targeting sensors should make ALL ships untarget-able by the victim ship.
Or even easier to understand from a game point:
If everything has a countering power, why not ditch the lot and actually play Star trek like in the shows and movies.
Because that would be the ultimate DPS-fest and you know it...
I didn't phrase it very well in my original post. This game has an extremely casual oriented playerbase. They don't care to learn five formulas to optimize their ship, the don't spreadsheet warrior their build, and they sure as sure do not want to be forced to do anything resembling real teamwork.
So the content design takes that into account. They allow the content to be completed by enough total player capability to the degree that one stellar player can ensure the victory of four baddies. Or five meh players can still get said victory. They don't want content that requires specific players to have a specific capability.
Well then why not give us another difficulty level where those of us who do want this sort of challenge can get it?
That said even the borg really do bring a myrid of attacks against a player. The Assimilate Ship is nasty, fortunantly TT removes it. Shield Neutralizers can sap full shields in seconds, shame PI skill is maxed by most not to mention HE clears it. Plasma burn from sphere torps alone can really add up fast not the mention the giant plasma ball. Good thing HE removes the burn and CRF/FAW/TS take care of those. I dare you to run an ESTF in anything without TT or HE or PI skill and tell me how easy it is. It is possible don't get me wrong, but extremely annoying.
Well you know as well as I do, most of these skills are required to get through most content... then again if FC and PI were properly balanced against one another...
Then there are the Tholians that disable and web coupled with pathetic damage output. Better AI some would say, flat out annoying I say. Fortunately I always pack a few options to counter so its not a big deal.
They disable? I thought it was a matter of 90% proc chance phased tetryon on their part... though they are more annoying than clever, a clever AI would follow up on said 'disables'
The AI can only be made better or content more challenging IF the gaps between bad build, average build, and amazing build are lessened. And that will only happen with a balance pass of ships and boff skills along with lowering the learning curve. My escorts will passively regenerate more effective health in ten seconds than the average players ship has total health. How on earth do you create challenging damage output from NPCs for me without make the average player rage quit?
Isn't that where education comes in?
The average player will not become better on their own. Nor will cramming it down their throat at VA rank with 'L2P or GTFO' content, they will simply quit. Why do you think that rommie mission was patched so fast? Metrics likely showed a dangerously high number of players that quit right after playing it.
Again, education, every game I have played before this taught the player how to play, be that through tutorials or specifically constructed missions that proved points to educate the player that for example bullets don't work well on tanks like rockets and shells don't work well on infantry, does STO teach you that holds are the way to kill fast ships? No, and what's more is they then give such ships APO so it doesn't matter anyway.
As for PvP balance I don't think you quite understand what I mean by meta. Many think that if EPtS was removed from the game PvP balance would be destroyed, it would not be. The meta would switch, engineers would become more popular and science less popular captain wise and many other things would happen to change the META but balance could still exist as the removal of EPtS would effect everyone.
Ok I now see what you mean and actually sci's would become even more useful as dampening field (space) would be a more widely used and in some cases needed skill, sadly sci and eng/scorts would then be all the more potent, eng/MVAE? (might try that sometime with the Omega force set :P)
By the posts in this thread it sounds like "some" just really need to learn the game, how its played, etc.
Most of them probably came to this game with no history except for what they see on Star Trek and want it to copy the IP to a "T".
Sorry folks its not going to happen. Game first, Star Trek Second. Play what you will in this game, don't like DPS, don't play a tac/escort. Its your choice. Why should the rest of the community suffer because "it isn't fair"? Sorry, life isn't fair. Put your big boy/girl underwear on and just play and stop your complaining.
People here know fully well how the game works. And thats why they play escorts or complain about escorts being so much better than all other ships.
Those people would really like to follow your "advise", but they realize that by not playing tacscorts they are penalizing themselves.
Attack pattern Delta - Fairly neat resistance buff for escorts (Magic buff to own resistances and debuff to attacker defence)
APD also has a doff which increases threat generation. Increasing active space doff seating for cruisers would go a long way towards bringing them on par with escorts. Granted, that boff seating can still be problematic.
A proper overhaul would move most boff abilities to the ships themselves, and then specialize ships from there through a combination of boffs and doffs.
You don't seem to realise that this game is based on Star Trek in order to provide a Star Trek experience. It was built on the interest of something that has been going strong for 40 years and will keep going strong. If you're a Trekkie you should know better than to say what you did. If you're not, go and play WoW or some other such tripe.
As for the rest of the community suffering, if you didn't notice tactical is one of THREE classes and escorts are one of FIVE types of ship. You fail to see that tactical and escort comprises a PART of something BIGGER. This selfish attitude leads me to beleive that you're a me-me-me player who is most likely a tactical escort player. A very selfish one at that.
Wanting a game to be fair for ALL should be the desire of ALL players. Not wanting fairness in a game is a self-serving attitude, one that a person could only want because they have no consideration for others and/or they fear that they won't be able to compete on a level playing field.
Yes I do play tac/escort and yes I am very proud of where I am in doing so. Selfish? Not at all. But I also know life isn't fair. Escorts killing stuff fast because of DPS is a PART of the game, like all games. You have one specific class/race/ship/whatever that's sole part is DPS. You have to have it otherwise you don't have a game. As far as escorts being tanking, lets face it, in PvE there is no "Brain" behind the NPC's. They don't "Alpha", they just have huge crits. Enabling the right powers at the right time allows escorts to do the so-called "tanking". Its not science. If people knew the game, then they would know this.
PvP is a whole 'nother ball game. Escorts can't tank for s**t in PvP unless they are getting healed/buffed from a teammate. Again, if people knew the game they would know this...
As I said before " Put your big boy/girl underwear on and just play and stop your complaining." Get over the fact that someone can out DPS you. If you want DPS, play a tac. If you want healing play an engineer. If you want support, play Sci. It doesn't take alot of DPS in PvE to bring stuff down..
I surmise this thread was just started because someone was jealous of someone else for being just plain awesome. They can't be that awesome, so they want everyone else brought down to their level. Some would call this "fair". I call shenanigans on this.
That's usually what all these "nerf" and "complaining" threads are. Someone who can't be as awesome as the guy they just fought/played with so they want to nerf them... Just look at the PvP forums and you will see what I am talking about...
Edited: BTW I already think this game is fair and working as intended when it comes to the classes/ships.
So how does one manage a magical immunity to all holds?
Tractor beams come to mind
I'm sure that if one can modify a deflector dish to open an inter-dimensional rift then increasing the intensity of a gravitational field or creating a minor rift in space is rather easy and far more realistic.
With regard to Viral matrix, most federation ships run the same computer systems so if you can write a virus to affect your own systems then there is a high chance that it will have the same effect on another federation ship and the KDF would likely have a similar problem with fed viruses and vice versa of course.
Also I agree that boarding party shields should have code to the effect of "IF target shield facing HP>=1, no effect, effect" but equally once on board a party can do any number of things.
Isn't the idea of sensor scramble that a ship does literally block sensor strips? Thus yes I agree that all ships in the affected area should be equally affected INCLUDING those that are cloaked and jam targeting sensors should make ALL ships untarget-able by the victim ship.
Because that would be the ultimate DPS-fest and you know it...
LOL this is fun!
There would be no more holds to be "magically immune" to if they got rid of the magic.
Tractor beams were only used in ST to pull in relatively small masses or non resisting objects. It's another magic power needlessly added to STO. Wesley used it once to push away another ship, but that was experimental and it was Wesley.
You are relying on the TNG habit of making the Deflector Dish do everything from Gravity manipulation to a Spinal Lance. Watch the REAL Star Trek TOS and you might get my point. And again, if you have Gravity Tech that good, you would be using it as a Propulsion system rather than Warp. It's just another magic spell for WoWTrek.
Viral Matrix would work ONCE per battle as the receiving ship "adapts" to the Malware. Also Feds should not be using Malware if they were loyal to the IP.
Glad you agree about the shuttles. How about this: Cloaks have been shown throughout Trek to be notoriously fragile. Thus, when I reduce a BoP to less than 50% hull, he should NOT be able to Battle Cloak and bravely run away like a little girl which is the norm in this game.
It IS the ultimate DPS fest because that's how a realistic environment should work. Instead of Malware and magic spells it should be weapon's power against Hull and Shields.
Comments
And get rid of those awful 3rd ensign slots.
Escorts get a plus 10% bonus to this to reflect thier speed.
Bonus defense can further be increased by trait choice and Boff ability.
The trait is Elusive. It will add 10% bonus defense.
Boff abilities are ApO 1,2 & 3. It will add varying bonuses based on which one you use when activated.
Some Cruisers and Battle cruisers can use this ability.
EvM will boost anyones Bonus Defense when used.
The only Escort Bonus Defense buff is that bonus 10%.
Everything else can be used by anyone.
Resistance Buffs via Boffs can be used by anyone. Timing and stacking in use make the difference.
The only advantage the Escort has is damage output, which is a product of its design.
R.I.P
And that in this game (PvE) only damage output matters which automatically catapults them to the top with no effort on their part.
There are a couple of notes that need to be made in regard to Bonus Defense. It's not just the +10% Bonus Defense that most Escorts have (oddly enough, not all do); but there is also the following:
1) You can have up to 45% Base Bonus Defense based on your Impulse Speed. @24+ Impulse, you will have +45% Bonus Defense. It is easier for Escorts (because of Impulse Mods) to reach 24+ Impulse than Cruisers. They can run lower Eng Power to get the same results as a Cruiser which would require more Eng Power. Yes, Cruisers generally get that +5 Eng Power or so...but it's not enough to cover the gap created by the Impulse Mods. And yes, with the way folks ooze power...it may not matter as much as it once did, but it is still technically an advantage.
2) This relates to #1, and it involves the changes that have been made to Evasive. EM went from +25% to +15% to +25% based on Impulse Speed. So much like #1, the Escort technically has the advantage.
Regarding APO...the Cruiser/Battle Cruiser would either need a Cmdr Tac or Cmdr Uni to grab that...so that would be another defensive advantage for the Escort. Also, one would need two LCdr+ Tac/Uni stations to run 2x APO...so another defensive advantage for the Escort.
While talking about such things, maneuverability and the like, the Escort obviously has the huge maneuverability advantage that goes beyond just Bonus Defense. The ability to disengage is an advantage. The ability to rotate quickly off of a dropped facing is an advantage. The ability to move out of the most damaging arcs is an advantage. Likewise, the ability to sit better on a facing is an advantage.
Avoidance > Mitigation.
Speaking of Mitigation, how much less Mitigation does an Escort actually have? While they might have lower overall shield numbers - the shield mod only affects the numbers, not the damage reduction. What about hull? They can't mount as many Neuts, eh? There's heavy DR on damage resistance though. Add that second Neut, and you're likely not even getting half the bonus. Add a third, yeah...there's heavy DR.
So while they may have lower numbers for shield amount and hull amount, there isn't going to be a difference with shield damage reduction and there isn't going to be that much of a difference in the hull damage resistance.
Which still leaves the differences in numbers...which only really matter for spike buffer. There's so much healing in STO that as long as you can cover spike/burst...even those differences in numbers do not matter.
So it's more than just the damage advantage...
The easy way to understand the removal of magic from this game to make a more realistic and IP accurate portrayal of Star Trek is that you can do anything to your own ship, but not to someone else's.
That leaves all the Buffs.
That is what weapons are for. As it stands, Sci ships don't even need weapons in this game.
Star Trek level military equipment should be able to foul ANY invasive powers just like Anti-Malware keeps RL magic Sci Powers out of your computer. Yes, the magic Sci powers in STO are at least as dishonest if not more so than Malware.
That said, I'm for a general withdraw of these powers. Have them backfire onto the ship owners using them for a good while first to restore the "Galactic Karma Balance."
Ok so you would remove:
Attack pattern Omega - Best Escort skill in the game (magic immunity to all movement debuffs)
Attack pattern Beta - Best Damage buff in the game (magic defence debuff to target)
Attack pattern Delta - Fairly neat resistance buff for escorts (Magic buff to own resistances and debuff to attacker defence)
Hazard emitters - Best boff hull heal
Transfer shield strength - only shield heal
Note how you just removed more escort skills than anything else...
Yes. In a DPS dependent environment he who throws the most the fastest is king by default. The Escort fills that exact role.
fix the game to be more than a DPS sink to victory.
On a side note I do not think the fact it takes a non-escort longer to complete a mission than an escort is a liability. Games are meant to be played, not raced through.
R.I.P
Depends on what you play the game for.
Of course, if you play the game to race through missions quickly, then why are you trying to do it in a Cruiser?
I deal with VM all the time in Gorn Minefield. I wait for it to effect my weapons and then...pop a battery, or EPtW, or my fancy new warp core thingie, or Mircale Worker, depending on which boat I'm in. Not a big deal.
I didn't phrase it very well in my original post. This game has an extremely casual oriented playerbase. They don't care to learn five formulas to optimize their ship, the don't spreadsheet warrior their build, and they sure as sure do not want to be forced to do anything resembling real teamwork.
So the content design takes that into account. They allow the content to be completed by enough total player capability to the degree that one stellar player can ensure the victory of four baddies. Or five meh players can still get said victory. They don't want content that requires specific players to have a specific capability.
That said even the borg really do bring a myrid of attacks against a player. The Assimilate Ship is nasty, fortunantly TT removes it. Shield Neutralizers can sap full shields in seconds, shame PI skill is maxed by most not to mention HE clears it. Plasma burn from sphere torps alone can really add up fast not the mention the giant plasma ball. Good thing HE removes the burn and CRF/FAW/TS take care of those. I dare you to run an ESTF in anything without TT or HE or PI skill and tell me how easy it is. It is possible don't get me wrong, but extremely annoying.
Then there are the Tholians that disable and web coupled with pathetic damage output. Better AI some would say, flat out annoying I say. Fortunately I always pack a few options to counter so its not a big deal.
The AI can only be made better or content more challenging IF the gaps between bad build, average build, and amazing build are lessened. And that will only happen with a balance pass of ships and boff skills along with lowering the learning curve. My escorts will passively regenerate more effective health in ten seconds than the average players ship has total health. How on earth do you create challenging damage output from NPCs for me without make the average player rage quit?
The average player will not become better on their own. Nor will cramming it down their throat at VA rank with 'L2P or GTFO' content, they will simply quit. Why do you think that rommie mission was patched so fast? Metrics likely showed a dangerously high number of players that quit right after playing it.
As for PvP balance I don't think you quite understand what I mean by meta. Many think that if EPtS was removed from the game PvP balance would be destroyed, it would not be. The meta would switch, engineers would become more popular and science less popular captain wise and many other things would happen to change the META but balance could still exist as the removal of EPtS would effect everyone.
If I have 100 USD and you have 50 USD and bob has 10 USD and we all gain 50% more money what happens?
I now have 150 USD, a gain of 50.
You have 75 USD, a gain of 25.
Bob now has 15 USD, a gain of 5.
Additionally while before I only had 90 more USD than bob, now I have 135 more. The places in line stay the same, but the gap gets larger until it becomes so large those at the bottom are no longer relevant.
The advantage the escort has is 10% more Bonus Defense period. If everyone uses the same exact abilities the escort always has 10% more Bonus Defense.
The Cruiser gets 10% more total hull and passive hull regeneration, sadly the escorts hull is 10% more effective anyway.
The Sci Vessel gets 30% more total shield and passive shield regen, sadly the escorts shield is still 10% more effective nor is it missing the huge chunk of hull like said sci.
The ships are identical defensively before anything else enters the equation. And guess what, it is not hard to hit the resistance cap with the number of doff options and hybrid boff seating arrangements out there. In the end the escorts shields, hull, and heals applied to them are stronger thanks to the bonus defense. Best part? Most of my ships have positive defense values while at 0 speed!
Most of them probably came to this game with no history except for what they see on Star Trek and want it to copy the IP to a "T".
Sorry folks its not going to happen. Game first, Star Trek Second. Play what you will in this game, don't like DPS, don't play a tac/escort. Its your choice. Why should the rest of the community suffer because "it isn't fair"? Sorry, life isn't fair. Put your big boy/girl underwear on and just play and stop your complaining.
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Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard
There's certainly some of that, I think. But at the same time, I do think there's some truth to the fact that STO wavers on this uncomfortable edge between 'single-player, casual game' and 'multi-player, more involved game'. You can make a high DPS escort, and pretty much play the end-game content yourself. Or you can try to tinker around with Sci and Engi builds, and discover that unless it's geared towards doing damage specifically, you pretty much need a team to do anything.
That can be a little shocking, especially when in-game doesn't do a whole lot to explain that. I think the game would honestly benefit from an 'STF Tutorial', where people get a more in-depth explanation in the game itself about dealing damage and being support and how that works in a team. Because at the moment, you're just sort of tossed in and expected to have friends who can teach you.
I didn't have those friends, and it's only been until recently I've been willing to even try Elite STFs. My build was fine, it turns out (at least my escort, high DPS is :P), but I read all this stuff on the forums about "LTP N00B!" that it scared me. Even now, I only do the STFs I know I can do without having to interact with a team much, because I just don't have enough knowledge of how a team would function.
And that's just space. I know jack about ground.
You don't seem to realise that this game is based on Star Trek in order to provide a Star Trek experience. It was built on the interest of something that has been going strong for 40 years and will keep going strong. If you're a Trekkie you should know better than to say what you did. If you're not, go and play WoW or some other such tripe.
As for the rest of the community suffering, if you didn't notice tactical is one of THREE classes and escorts are one of FIVE types of ship. You fail to see that tactical and escort comprises a PART of something BIGGER. This selfish attitude leads me to beleive that you're a me-me-me player who is most likely a tactical escort player. A very selfish one at that.
Wanting a game to be fair for ALL should be the desire of ALL players. Not wanting fairness in a game is a self-serving attitude, one that a person could only want because they have no consideration for others and/or they fear that they won't be able to compete on a level playing field.
This is exactly it, only one of my characters fly an escort, but considering I am mainly a KDF player I don't really have a lot of choice in the matter being that the Fed have a vast advantage in that field.
The point is, cruisers/engineers and science/science vessels need to be buffed to allow them to fill their role better. I'd suggest that science officers get a special trait or something that massively boosts their crowd and debuffing abilities and engineers get a trait or something that massive boost their aggro/threat generation.
Beams been to be brought up to cannon standards, making them just a different means of delivering damage rather than a weaker alternative.
The game just needs a massive re-balance, the power creep that all these new c-store and lock box ships have brought to the game needs adjustment, older ships like the KDF BOP line for example (many more like the Nebula etc needs it too) needs to be brought up to current standards. Weapons need readjusting, beams and especially tetryons which are fairly useless in-game.
A full balance overhaul needs to be done, perhaps give season 8 to the KDF and get them to costumes, science ships and replace the Fed missions they have and have season 9 a total re-balance of the game. Make it viable again to play something other than a tactical in a escort.
Well of course not, 'magic' that benefits escorts is obviously acceptable and needed and perfectly sensible. 'Magic' that benefits other playstyles on the other hand is obviously stupid and nonsensical and all those players need to gb2WoW. :rolleyes:
In that case every Captain in the history of Trek should be court martialed and summarily executed for staggering incompetence, due to constantly forgetting that all they had to do was push a few buttons to instantly repair massive amounts of hull damage, regenerate their shields, make the ship move and maneuver multiple times faster, and fire their weapons faster and make them hit harder.
You know, realistically. :rolleyes:
Maybe so, But I know that they never slung Black Holes and Gravity Rifts at each other in any of the shows and movies. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
The crew should manage hull damage, repair systems and help a ship survive longer. At the moment they seem to just fade to black when the first shield facing goes red.
If we Leave weapons in their current state and make the crew play a bigger role in survivability vs BOFF abilities there would be more balance.
Also as ships take damage there is no diminshing performance.
Turnrate, power levels, speed, and max hull integrity should all be affected when there are serious holes in the hull. As it stands a ship can perform as well at 100% hull integrity as it can at 25% and that doesnt really make any sense in reality or Sci-Fi.
Having the crew play a role in returning the ships to optimum performance would also help create a new level of game play and bring some balance without hurting what escorts do best.
Attack Patterns are manifested on your ship.
Remember: Anything you can do to YOUR own ship is OK.
There shouldn't be any movement debuffs unless your engine is shot up!
This just removes blatantly stupid things like Gravity Well and Tykin's Rift because ships with that much Gravity Control wouldn't need Warp drives. :rolleyes:
Your ships Anti-Malware systems will prevent any tampering with your systems. No more cheating by disabling someones engines or weapons or shields and if you launch boarding shuttles at a ship with an active deflector shield up they should just bounce off.
The only sensor scramble would be the cloak or if your ship dumped chaff into space. Any effective sensor scramble would effect ALL ships in the area not just the intended target included the ship that launched it.
Or even easier to understand from a game point:
If everything has a countering power, why not ditch the lot and actually play Star trek like in the shows and movies.
All Cryptic has to do to balance out the ships is to make them be specialized like they intended.
Like they should make the science ships work like a science ship.....where it has sensors and the ability to see through cloaks and things easier...thus the reason its called a science ship...perhaps these should have more bridge stations too...so that the science ship becomes the skill sensing ship.
And the cruisers should have the ability to have either more weapons or more armor and protection...they could change the slots so that if a player puts weapons in they work as normal but if they have less weapons the cruisers get more armor. And they should put more weapon slots on then....this would allow the cruisers to have tons of missiles and phasers or turrets of the player wants.....or they could have a seemingly huge tank.
And escorts should get cannons.....they should have longer range on the cannons...but also they need to not have to deal with the ten trillion cannon types....they don't need to have a single cannon and dual cannon and heavy cannon...they need just one cannon.....or they need to have heavy cannon like they have with a long range cannon that fires slower but has a much longer range....and escorts should have special torpedos too that are real slow at firing but have ranges like 30...but you don't get the same bonus of the multi shot special abilities that effect the other torpedos.
I am still not sure why they decided to have them have a low turn radius on most ships except the escort ones.......if they are going to have that they need to have a reason.....since star trek ships create their own gravity fields which is how they travel fast with out their crews getting instant death then they can easily turn on a dime.
but go figure this is all just my opinion....
And I admit I am biased because I run a lot of table top games and play a lot of online games.....so to me the fix is obvious and easy to figure....as I know how most players think and the things they try to do all the time.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
Maybe it's just my dirty mind working, but whatever it's entertaining
oh LOL and when they do gb2WoW, and stay there, pigs will fly without wings
ugh did you not watch enuff of the movies, Defiant was special case scenario, leave it outta this. but yes the cruisers feel under powered but really in all truth escorts are the only real warships-tact wise. your not playing the cruiser or science vessels right if you are going for a straight battleship which would be nice to see those. but you need to look outside the box like controlling and p-i-s-sing your opponent- hench the trololo.
So how does one manage a magical immunity to all holds?
Tractor beams come to mind
I'm sure that if one can modify a deflector dish to open an inter-dimensional rift then increasing the intensity of a gravitational field or creating a minor rift in space is rather easy and far more realistic.
With regard to Viral matrix, most federation ships run the same computer systems so if you can write a virus to affect your own systems then there is a high chance that it will have the same effect on another federation ship and the KDF would likely have a similar problem with fed viruses and vice versa of course.
Also I agree that boarding party shields should have code to the effect of "IF target shield facing HP>=1, no effect, effect" but equally once on board a party can do any number of things.
Isn't the idea of sensor scramble that a ship does literally block sensor strips? Thus yes I agree that all ships in the affected area should be equally affected INCLUDING those that are cloaked and jam targeting sensors should make ALL ships untarget-able by the victim ship.
Because that would be the ultimate DPS-fest and you know it...
Well then why not give us another difficulty level where those of us who do want this sort of challenge can get it?
Well you know as well as I do, most of these skills are required to get through most content... then again if FC and PI were properly balanced against one another...
They disable? I thought it was a matter of 90% proc chance phased tetryon on their part... though they are more annoying than clever, a clever AI would follow up on said 'disables'
Isn't that where education comes in?
Again, education, every game I have played before this taught the player how to play, be that through tutorials or specifically constructed missions that proved points to educate the player that for example bullets don't work well on tanks like rockets and shells don't work well on infantry, does STO teach you that holds are the way to kill fast ships? No, and what's more is they then give such ships APO so it doesn't matter anyway.
Ok I now see what you mean and actually sci's would become even more useful as dampening field (space) would be a more widely used and in some cases needed skill, sadly sci and eng/scorts would then be all the more potent, eng/MVAE? (might try that sometime with the Omega force set :P)
People here know fully well how the game works. And thats why they play escorts or complain about escorts being so much better than all other ships.
Those people would really like to follow your "advise", but they realize that by not playing tacscorts they are penalizing themselves.
A proper overhaul would move most boff abilities to the ships themselves, and then specialize ships from there through a combination of boffs and doffs.
That's a poor example, and an even poorer lesson to take away. Say goodbye to any chance for challenging content.
Yes I do play tac/escort and yes I am very proud of where I am in doing so. Selfish? Not at all. But I also know life isn't fair. Escorts killing stuff fast because of DPS is a PART of the game, like all games. You have one specific class/race/ship/whatever that's sole part is DPS. You have to have it otherwise you don't have a game. As far as escorts being tanking, lets face it, in PvE there is no "Brain" behind the NPC's. They don't "Alpha", they just have huge crits. Enabling the right powers at the right time allows escorts to do the so-called "tanking". Its not science. If people knew the game, then they would know this.
PvP is a whole 'nother ball game. Escorts can't tank for s**t in PvP unless they are getting healed/buffed from a teammate. Again, if people knew the game they would know this...
As I said before " Put your big boy/girl underwear on and just play and stop your complaining." Get over the fact that someone can out DPS you. If you want DPS, play a tac. If you want healing play an engineer. If you want support, play Sci. It doesn't take alot of DPS in PvE to bring stuff down..
I surmise this thread was just started because someone was jealous of someone else for being just plain awesome. They can't be that awesome, so they want everyone else brought down to their level. Some would call this "fair". I call shenanigans on this.
That's usually what all these "nerf" and "complaining" threads are. Someone who can't be as awesome as the guy they just fought/played with so they want to nerf them... Just look at the PvP forums and you will see what I am talking about...
Edited: BTW I already think this game is fair and working as intended when it comes to the classes/ships.
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Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard
LOL this is fun!
There would be no more holds to be "magically immune" to if they got rid of the magic.
Tractor beams were only used in ST to pull in relatively small masses or non resisting objects. It's another magic power needlessly added to STO. Wesley used it once to push away another ship, but that was experimental and it was Wesley.
You are relying on the TNG habit of making the Deflector Dish do everything from Gravity manipulation to a Spinal Lance. Watch the REAL Star Trek TOS and you might get my point. And again, if you have Gravity Tech that good, you would be using it as a Propulsion system rather than Warp. It's just another magic spell for WoWTrek.
Viral Matrix would work ONCE per battle as the receiving ship "adapts" to the Malware. Also Feds should not be using Malware if they were loyal to the IP.
Glad you agree about the shuttles. How about this: Cloaks have been shown throughout Trek to be notoriously fragile. Thus, when I reduce a BoP to less than 50% hull, he should NOT be able to Battle Cloak and bravely run away like a little girl which is the norm in this game.
It IS the ultimate DPS fest because that's how a realistic environment should work. Instead of Malware and magic spells it should be weapon's power against Hull and Shields.