No, when people talk about how much they hate the trinity, they mean "I hate having to wait hours to find a group"
When people talk about how much they love the trinity, they mean "I love having people beholden to me just because i tank/heal, regardless of how good or bad I am"
Yup, you caught us. Absolutely nobody enjoys the tanking or healing play styles, we all do it just so we can keep other players 'beholden' to us. :rolleyes:
There are plenty of reasons people prefer dps. For one it is the most proactive role in a fight. The dps actually makes things happen, while the tank and the healer's only role is to stick around long enough for the dps to succeed. A tank and healer really cannot do anything to make an encounter take a shorter period of time. (And when I am discussing encounter here I mean something in it's simplest form. Ie. tons of health, only hits tank, etc.)
As such while they definitely contribute, playing a healer does not promote a feeling of moving towards a win state, merely staving off a lose state. Same with a tank, though somewhat mitigated by the fact that a tank stares at boss hp as well as a dps does.
However what the tank in particular is integral for is setting the pace of content clearing, and this tends to shift the burden of leadership onto those types of classes, particularly in a random setting. So this and combined with the lack of direct contribution towards a win state means that playing a tank and healer should be more stressful and demand a lot more. And some people that kind of play, but I do feel it is possible outside of the trinity.
Having any of those classes be required feels limiting. And in many games that limit can feel wrong, I especially think a Star Trek game should not have that limit. The IP in general is about individual ships being self contained and having their own unique way of handling a situation. Kirk used finesse and charm, Picard diplomacy and intelligence, and Sisko used the U.S.S. Ben Sisko's Mother****ing Pimp Hand.
Ships came together but it just makes sense that as a captain your first concern should be safeguarding the lives of your crew(self defense) while housing the capability to combat threats (moar dots).
Now I doubt I can convince anyone at all, but I would say look at Trek ships less as the Dps/Healer/Second Healer and more like how fighting games arrange their 'classes'. Beatdown, bruiser, zone. Different ways, that appeal to different play styles, of accomplishing the same goal. (kill dudes) And I am not saying that I want to remove support, but meaningful support is more than just whack-a-moling bars upwards.
On my DPS sniper, it takes anywhere from 30 mins to an hour. On my 2 tanks, its instantaneous.
Even mighty WoW has this problem, Blizz has tried all sorts of things to get more people to play as tanks and healers, but the truth is most people do not want to. No amount of bribing or of dumbing down of the roles, or of trying to make tanking and healing "exciting" via power rotation vs. CD mechanics has worked.
The trinity is a poor crutch to build encounters around.
Unfortunately what most people complaining REALLY want is to sit at the extreme tanky side of the scale and do way more damage than a ship at that extreme end of the scale should do.
I think you got this figured backwards. It's escorts that are at the extreme end of the DPS scale, and can tank way too well.
Plus, your gliding scale argument is flawed to begin with, as DPS is itself a form of tanking (the sooner you kill something, the less dmg it can do to you).
There's nothing inherently wrong with some ships being built more for DPS. Not even the fact that they can tank way too good detracts from that. The real problem, however, is that the game only rewards DPS. I can bring a hefty cruiser on the field, and heal Kang when nobody else seems willing or able. Yet what do I get for my trouble?! The least amount of Omega marks possible, as I did the least DPS. Similar cases can be made for sci vessels. THAT, man-friend, is what's wrong with the game.
(And don't go tell me now I do The Cure wrong: it's just an example)
Then there's Go Down Fighting, an ability Tactical Captain get, allowing them to out-DPS everyone. Again, nothing inherently wrong with that, when you get another good ability yourself, like aux2bat; except, of course, that at the end of the Elite, the tact guy with the highest DPS gets it all. THAT, man-friend, is what gets tiresome over time -- no matter how much I like being an engineer.
Even mighty WoW has this problem, Blizz has tried all sorts of things to get more people to play as tanks and healers, but the truth is most people do not want to. No amount of bribing or of dumbing down of the roles, or of trying to make tanking and healing "exciting" via power rotation vs. CD mechanics has worked.
The trinity is a poor crutch to build encounters around.
People are tired of the grief they get when playing said roles from the DPSers. There isn't a shortage of healers or tanks in WoW, it is just the vast majority of them don't use the PuG queue they go in ready made groups. What they have tried to do is encourage them to use the PuG queue, and that is not working because of the "once bitten twice shy" mentality and I can't blame them either.
Try playing a new healer or tank in the PuG queue and say you are new and see what happens.
Which role do you see saying "go,go,go"? DPSers
Which role do you see giving hell to the healer because they died from something easily avoidable? The DPSers
Which role do you see throwing the most insults around at the others? The DPSers
Are you noticing a theme yet?
If you ask me, Escorts are at the root of many of the problems in STO. When it boils down to it, Escorts need to be glass cannons. They need to be able to out-DPS everyone, but they should also need support from either cruisers or science ships in order to last any amount of time.
In PVE, they should be the first targets that the AI goes after simly due to the threat generation of their DPS. No exceptions. I have, on too many ocasions, watched an Escort pwn the **** out of a cube, just sapping shields and hull, and the cube was more interested in locking a tractor beam onto a cruiser, and firing a few shots.
If Escorts had a natural (and very high) threat generation stat (that did not buff defense rating), combined with the glass cannon philosophy, then that would go a long way in tipping the scales in favor of mighty cruisers and fancy science ships. There needs to be a real downside to flying Escorts, that are very obvious. They need to have limitations and heavy drawbacks.
If STO ever got to a point where you need at least 1 Escort, 1 Cruiser, and 1 Science in order to beat Elite or endgame scenarios, things would be pretty great IMO.
A trifecta can work, it just needs to be extreme.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If you oppose the Reputation nerf, feel free to use my signature
Step 1:
20% hull nerf to all escorts, including escort carriers
10%-15% defense buff to all escorts, including escort carriers
Resoult:
1. Lowered hull is negated by even higher bonus defense - so moving escort actually take SAME damage as before change
2. All hold abilities are now much more deadlier against escorts (if you catch escort in between APO, you do 25% more damage then before change)
3. Escorts are more vulnerable to abilities not requiring targeting (sci powers)
4. Escorts in teams are now more support-dependant
Step 2
DC shoot now reduce Engines power by 3-6
DHC shoot now reduce Engines power by 6-12 (need balance check)
(Same mechanic already exist in Quad Cannons)
Resoult:
Shooting escort is slower and therefore has lower defense. Escort player must either be more careful, or spend extra power on engine settings.
Step 3:
TAC damage consoles now give dimnishing returns with following formula:
square root ((Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2)
It basically mean:
1x +30% console give +30% damage
2x +30% consoles give only +42.4% damage
3x +30% consoles give only +52% damage
4x +30% consoles give only +60% damage
5x +30% consoles give only +67% damage
Resoult:
1. There actually is a reason to use universal consoles in TAC slots
2. Difference between 2 Tac (sci/engi ships) consoles and 5 Tac consoles (top escorts) is no longer overwhelming and is on-pair with dimnishing returns from other console types
3. It gives more diversity in ship build (ATM al TAC slots are locked for damage consoles)
If you ask me, Escorts are at the root of many of the problems in STO. When it boils down to it, Escorts need to be glass cannons. They need to be able to out-DPS everyone, but they should also need support from either cruisers or science ships in order to last any amount of time.
In PVE, they should be the first targets that the AI goes after simly due to the threat generation of their DPS. No exceptions. I have, on too many ocasions, watched an Escort pwn the **** out of a cube, just sapping shields and hull, and the cube was more interested in locking a tractor beam onto a cruiser, and firing a few shots.
If Escorts had a natural (and very high) threat generation stat (that did not buff defense rating), combined with the glass cannon philosophy, then that would go a long way in tipping the scales in favor of mighty cruisers and fancy science ships. There needs to be a real downside to flying Escorts, that are very obvious. They need to have limitations and heavy drawbacks.
If STO ever got to a point where you need at least 1 Escort, 1 Cruiser, and 1 Science in order to beat Elite or endgame scenarios, things would be pretty great IMO.
A trifecta can work, it just needs to be extreme.
cruisers with aux2bat outdps escorts...
In PvE you dont need sci ships or tanks....thats how games work ,is not like pvp where you can loose a match if you die.I dont know what kind of pve content anyone can make other ships better in pve.
Escorts are glass cannon once you stop them.The way escorts tank is by moving fast.Once you stop them they cant tank ... (rsp is not tanking ,1 rsp followed by subnuc or dem BO3 will go through a rsp ).
Step 1:
20% hull nerf to all escorts, including escort carriers
10%-15% defense buff to all escorts, including escort carriers
Resoult:
1. Lowered hull is negated by even higher bonus defense - so moving escort actually take SAME damage as before change
2. All hold abilities are now much more deadlier against escorts (if you catch escort in between APO, you do 25% more damage then before change)
3. Escorts are more vulnerable to abilities not requiring targeting (sci powers)
4. Escorts in teams are now more support-dependant
defence is more important than any hull.100hp are completly fine if nothing can hit you.
Not entirely true, but for those optionals that do, that's a design flaw in the STFs then, not escorts.
Because tac/escorts whined until they nerfed the Borg. It was impossible to die from a single non-HYT torpedo if you kept your shields and resistances up.
defence is more important than any hull.100hp are completly fine if nothing can hit you.
and it will be fine. Hitting escort should be difficult, but every hit should be deadly. And if you sucessfully find a way to negate escort defense, even for a moment (Tractor, Gravity well), you will be able to do extreme damage in short time. It is basically giving escorts natural counter without altering their role and behaviour
I hate the trinity for a singular reason, it means I am forced to rely upon 2-3 of the other players to be highly skilled to complete content. It is why I played an enchanter in EQ and a priest in WoW so atleast I had those roles covered.
This is a casual game. The fact a single really good player can carry a group of 4 baddies is intended by design and will not, and should not change. Casual nature of the game is the best part of STO and should not be changed.
and it will be fine. Hitting escort should be difficult, but every hit should be deadly. And if you sucessfully find a way to negate escort defense, even for a moment (Tractor, Gravity well), you will be able to do extreme damage in short time. It is basically giving escorts natural counter without altering their role and behaviour
Extra Bonus defense (from hull, aegis, skills, etc) remains even when your movement is zero.
I was of the belief that Aegis only gives a bonus while moving.
Yet anyone can use aegis, retrait to use elusive or otherwise spend points on the needed skills to increase defense.
How are those three examples buffing escorts unfairly if they are open to all?
Keep in mind that after the lot of you nerf escorts into being useless the playerbase will just shift to whatever is the topvessel class and play it with the same level of annoying capability that you all have cried is unfair for Escorts till said new top vessel is found unfair by a portion of the playerbase and is similiarily nerfed in the court of public opinion.
While the issue of ship imbalance is ingrained in several systems in STO, it seems the way Accuracy and Defense are set up is one of the bigger culprits of the imbalance between ships.
Accuracy spilling over to boost Critical Chance and Severity is a big problem.
Ships which tend to be more DPS focused and favor an emphasis on higher Accuracy also favors naturally high Defense stats inherently.
It seems to me that the more elegant way of addressing this is to do away with modifying these two stats outside of mechanics such as temporary buffs/debuffs or very limited availability via items.
Fixed rate of Accuracy for everyone, in any ship. Only modified by a choice few abilities/consoles/what have you.
Fixed rate of Defense for everyone, in any ship. Only modified by a choice few abilities/consoles/what have you.
Accuracy spill over is no longer a concern.
Bbuffs could be set up to deliver short term accuracy or defense buffs, without worry of the spill over effect.
Debuffs could be set up to reduce Defense or Accuracy without worry of the spill over effect.
Step 3:
TAC damage consoles now give dimnishing returns with following formula:
square root ((Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2)
It basically mean:
1x +30% console give +30% damage
2x +30% consoles give only +42.4% damage
3x +30% consoles give only +52% damage
4x +30% consoles give only +60% damage
5x +30% consoles give only +67% damage
Result:
1. There actually is a reason to use universal consoles in TAC slots
2. Difference between 2 Tac (sci/engi ships) consoles and 5 Tac consoles (top escorts) is no longer overwhelming and is on-pair with dimnishing returns from other console types
3. It gives more diversity in ship build (ATM al TAC slots are locked for damage consoles)
Congratulations, you just nerfed anything that should ever attempt to do damage as it stands each console applies it's value to the weapon's base (Mk 0) damage stat which limits things already.
A better method of sorting things without nerfing anything, rather adjusting, would be to do what I suggested here
There's nothing inherently wrong with some ships being built more for DPS. Not even the fact that they can tank way too good detracts from that. The real problem, however, is that the game only rewards DPS. I can bring a hefty cruiser on the field, and heal Kang when nobody else seems willing or able. Yet what do I get for my trouble?! The least amount of Omega marks possible, as I did the least DPS. Similar cases can be made for sci vessels. THAT, man-friend, is what's wrong with the game.
(And don't go tell me now I do The Cure wrong: it's just an example)
Then there's Go Down Fighting, an ability Tactical Captain get, allowing them to out-DPS everyone. Again, nothing inherently wrong with that, when you get another good ability yourself, like aux2bat; except, of course, that at the end of the Elite, the tact guy with the highest DPS gets it all. THAT, man-friend, is what gets tiresome over time -- no matter how much I like being an engineer.
Whoah, whoah stop! Rewards from STFs have NOTHING to do with DPS. At all. Not even a little. None. The way STFs work is everyone gets the same amount of Omega marks for completing the mission and getting the optional. Then, in addition, some people randomly get more marks as part of their loot bag. The key word here is "random". You can get 11 processors and 105 marks in you loot bag, and have been AFK for the entire match.
The only places where rewards are tied to performance are PvP (where the amount of EC you get varies) or in Fleet Actions, where the scoreboard counts damage done, objectives accomplished, and healing done, so still doesn't reward dps exclusively.
Keep in mind that after the lot of you nerf escorts into being useless the playerbase will just shift to whatever is the topvessel class and play it with the same level of annoying capability that you all have cried is unfair for Escorts till said new top vessel is found unfair by a portion of the playerbase and is similiarily nerfed in the court of public opinion.
This is exactly the case, plus they'd lose so many customers it isn't funny.
But reading the responses from most of the people in this thread is comical, and its why the devs don't change anything. An easy 90% here have no clue what they are talking about. The problem with PvE content is there is very little that pushes any ships to their limit, the exceptioins are Hive Onslaught, NWS and the current version of Crystaline Entity.
Ask in an STF channel for a team for Hive Onslaught and you get crickets. People are terrified of it, their cookie cutter escorts blow in seconds, their fail build cruisers can't do enough damage. We'll ignore that right now the lance weapons are completely broken, but even when they are working people don't play it often. A team of 5 good escorts are going to lose a lot of ships. The torp spreads can one hit most of them, pulling multiple tactical cube groups at the start is a team wipe. This is the only STF that pushes past an escorts ability to tank from passive damage unless you get really lucky and the Houston doesn't agro everything. Throw in a well build high agro cruiser (that can easily pass 8k in this STF) and it has far more value than all but the best escorts. Even 3 tactical cube groups on a cruiser is going to crush it without some fast reactions.
CE elite is run badly by most players. An escort is limited here, needing to stay far back and also needing to point cannons forward. Most get crushed by shards, in the last phase the beam weapon will remove a shield facing and part of the hull. A cruiser can fly sideways, broadside, avoid shards and keep their shields up. Escorts need to retreat often. I'd like to see the score modified here to give large negative points to people getting hit by shards.
NWS is funny, when things start to go bad the escorts pop fast. When escorts pop in NWS, the mission fails. If you want any hope to survive here you need to be in the top percent of players. There is no trinity here, glass cannons need not apply, you want tough hybrid escorts that can aoe burst damage, you want a heavy sci/eng healer/protector controller around the freighter, you need the game plan, and you need people capable of pulling it off without ruining it constantly.
When you push escorts to the tanking limit you see there are very real limits to when they can be used. A well built cruiser can tank far more and put out 75% of the damage on the low end, exceeding escorts sometimes. While they do put out good damage, their inability to lay out large amounts of burst damage is their limitation. The old STFs should be brought up to par with Hive, but I think that'd be a problem for too many people.
Anything that isn't elite is just easy and any ship can plow through it. The unfortunate part is that there is so little elite content in the game that an escort dominates all but a select few.
I hate the trinity for a singular reason, it means I am forced to rely upon 2-3 of the other players to be highly skilled to complete content. It is why I played an enchanter in EQ and a priest in WoW so atleast I had those roles covered.
This is a casual game. The fact a single really good player can carry a group of 4 baddies is intended by design and will not, and should not change. Casual nature of the game is the best part of STO and should not be changed.
You might be happier playing Starfleet Command then.
Because saying, "Even if every other person on the team is terrible, a good DPS can burn through everything." is about a half step away from, "This is a single player game that occasionally requires me to let other people fly ships around on my screen."
Having any of those classes be required feels limiting. And in many games that limit can feel wrong, I especially think a Star Trek game should not have that limit. The IP in general is about individual ships being self contained and having their own unique way of handling a situation. Kirk used finesse and charm, Picard diplomacy and intelligence, and Sisko used the U.S.S. Ben Sisko's Mother****ing Pimp Hand.
All warships, all the time, is about as far from the spirit of the IP as you can get without dropping a Star Destroyer into Sol.
But if we're going to go that route, then simply remove the ship type distinctions. All BOffs universal, all ships with the same turn rate and and console slots, all ships able to fit all weapons. If we're all going to be fit for maximum dps because nothing else matters, at least let us do it in a ship we like to fly, and doesn't require special builds with multi-million EC DOffs and consoles to be viable. :P
You might be happier playing Starfleet Command then.
Because saying, "Even if every other person on the team is terrible, a good DPS can burn through everything." is about a half step away from, "This is a single player game that occasionally requires me to let other people fly ships around on my screen."
Believe it or not I do prefer the solo experience combined with the design style of MMOs such as shared economies, large loot variety and character building options (gear/skills/ships/etc).
Unfortunately STO continues to insist on it's high focus on group content for a variety of progression systems. That forces me to play with others.
Here is the deal though. Your average STO player, well MMO player for that matter, are baddies. They have terrible builds, awful attitudes, and struggle to complete tasks that I find trivial. But do you know why I choose STO as my MMO?
Because of it's casual nature and design I can carry baddies and complete the group based content anyway. I don't have to deal with a bunch of players with terrible attitudes forcing me to play at specific times or in a specific manner by joining a 'raiding guild'. Nor do I have to deal with getting grouped with a bad healer/tank/cc/whatever and wasting time becoming frustrated with the teams inability to succeed. That is a good thing.
I am not an amazing player by any stretch, but I am good enough to carry baddies, ignore those with bad attitudes, and not fail an ESTF because of an AFKer. I encourage those who rant and rave about the 'baddies' to learn to carry instead of raging. And I can do that with nearly any ship/captain assuming of course I have set it up properly.
My issue is with the stupid high amounts of tribal knowledge and exotic gear one needs to get proper performance out of many of them. That is all.
I was of the belief that Aegis only gives a bonus while moving.
Yet anyone can use aegis, retrait to use elusive or otherwise spend points on the needed skills to increase defense.
How are those three examples buffing escorts unfairly if they are open to all?
Some of the gear may be like that, and the UI is strangely buggy with properly displaying sometimes. And it's not unfair at all my comment was directed at the false idea that you can completely strip an escort of it's inherent defense bonus. You cannot last I checked.
Keep in mind that I do not for an instant feel the game is balanced either by any stretch of the imagination. Far too many options are too weak and useless, others far too strong and borderline required. Here are my personal favorite changes that would be very good.
1) Allow all 3 team abilities to rebalanced shields.
1a) Add an 'auto balance' option.
1b) Give Tactical Team a +accuracy mod if needed.
2) Give all sci(some eng) abilities a secondary effect. IE tachyon beam reduces enemy shield resist as well as drain, CPB reduces enemy defense as well, etc.
3) Remove shield regeneration boost effect from shield power.
4) Add hull resist boost to auxiliary power.
5) Change weapon power drain to give a flat damage reduction for multiple weapons firing at the same time and remove the drain.
6) Make all heals a % of the 'casting' ships base values.
7) Reduce amount of 'accuracy overflow' converting into Crit.
8) Increase overall ship hit points, reduce overall healing values.
9) ADD MOAR BOFF ABILITIES ESPECIALLY ENSIGN ENGINEERING AND TACTICAL PLEASE I BEG YOU!!!!
Really though those are simply the big ones to me.
6) Make all heals a % of the 'casting' ships base values.
I like this idea more than any of your other ones and have suggested a form of it on multiple occasions but I feel that basing it on base values will penalise science ships
I hate the trinity for a singular reason, it means I am forced to rely upon 2-3 of the other players to be highly skilled to complete content. It is why I played an enchanter in EQ and a priest in WoW so atleast I had those roles covered.
This is a casual game. The fact a single really good player can carry a group of 4 baddies is intended by design and will not, and should not change. Casual nature of the game is the best part of STO and should not be changed.
Extra Bonus defense (from hull, aegis, skills, etc) remains even when your movement is zero.
Yeah you're definitely right about the casual nature of the game and the player base. I don't know if its the best thing about it, but it does keep it separate from all the other games doing the trinity.
It does make the game much more solo friendly, but it brings the downside that everything is a grind now. In WoW you can practically gear up a new player in one week if you want to carry them through content. In this game, since the content is so easy, everyone has to go through the gear grind.
Fun fact, trinity originally meant tank, heal, controller. It didn't include DPS. In the original Everquest you were practically required to have an Enchanter in order to Mez BAF mobs.
Yeah you're definitely right about the casual nature of the game and the player base. I don't know if its the best thing about it, but it does keep it separate from all the other games doing the trinity.
It does make the game much more solo friendly, but it brings the downside that everything is a grind now. In WoW you can practically gear up a new player in one week if you want to carry them through content. In this game, since the content is so easy, everyone has to go through the gear grind.
Fun fact, trinity originally meant tank, heal, controller. It didn't include DPS. In the original Everquest you were practically required to have an Enchanter in order to Mez BAF mobs.
Not to mention DPS for the longest time was not supposed to out damage the tank lest they take agro and go squish.
Even without the trinity we as players in a multiplayer mission are always required to put some of said missions completion on our teams skills to complete said mission though.
If not was the case said missions would not be designed for a team.
The only way I know of to strip an Escort of its Bonus Defense is the same for any vesssel.
Any power that disrupts thier movement. Last I checked Bonus Defense works only while moving.
When standing still no one ingame has a Bonus Defense as per the definition of the power. As far as I know only the elusive trait works around this to give a 10% buff when sitting still.
Not to mention DPS for the longest time was not supposed to out damage the tank lest they take agro and go squish.
True, but that eventually was moved over into threat. One of my favorite raid fights of all time is still Vael in Blackwing Lair in WoW. Though by today's standards it would be fairly trivial due to built in threat meters in WoW, but having played UO, EQ, and AC to varying degrees before getting heavy into WoW it was pretty awesome.
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.)
It really is now. I just saw the next consoles and warp cores coming out guess what. All kinetic damage resist which was the last bit we could viably use in combat as Sci captains.
They need to change all of our skills back to exotic damage and be done with it. They've already nerfed the damage so they don't need adjusting but with the new kinetic resist and power transfer rate combo items escorts are going to be severely OP now, Think it's bad now? Just wait for this release they'll be impossible to kill when it does and everyone gets their consoles with resist on it.
It's bad enough neither the TR or the GW stops anything but now everything is going to be resistant to their damage output. IT won't even matter if we have a shield killer skillset because when the shields are down they won't take 0 damage anyways. spsssh
The only way I know of to strip an Escort of its Bonus Defense is the same for any vesssel.
Any power that disrupts thier movement. Last I checked Bonus Defense works only while moving.
When standing still no one ingame has a Bonus Defense as per the definition of the power. As far as I know only the elusive trait works around this to give a 10% buff when sitting still.
That is not correct. I have 10% bonus defense at a dead stop just thanks to elusive trait and max skill rank in maneuvers. Oddly enough though it seems to be that way in both cruisers and escorts so perhaps they do loose their additional 10% at a dead stop, or the fleet defiant doesn't get the bonus. Learn something new everday I suppose.
Keep in mind the UI display is jittery and doesn't always show you may have to move around and stop a few times to get the display right.
Comments
Yup, you caught us. Absolutely nobody enjoys the tanking or healing play styles, we all do it just so we can keep other players 'beholden' to us. :rolleyes:
As such while they definitely contribute, playing a healer does not promote a feeling of moving towards a win state, merely staving off a lose state. Same with a tank, though somewhat mitigated by the fact that a tank stares at boss hp as well as a dps does.
However what the tank in particular is integral for is setting the pace of content clearing, and this tends to shift the burden of leadership onto those types of classes, particularly in a random setting. So this and combined with the lack of direct contribution towards a win state means that playing a tank and healer should be more stressful and demand a lot more. And some people that kind of play, but I do feel it is possible outside of the trinity.
Having any of those classes be required feels limiting. And in many games that limit can feel wrong, I especially think a Star Trek game should not have that limit. The IP in general is about individual ships being self contained and having their own unique way of handling a situation. Kirk used finesse and charm, Picard diplomacy and intelligence, and Sisko used the U.S.S. Ben Sisko's Mother****ing Pimp Hand.
Ships came together but it just makes sense that as a captain your first concern should be safeguarding the lives of your crew(self defense) while housing the capability to combat threats (moar dots).
Now I doubt I can convince anyone at all, but I would say look at Trek ships less as the Dps/Healer/Second Healer and more like how fighting games arrange their 'classes'. Beatdown, bruiser, zone. Different ways, that appeal to different play styles, of accomplishing the same goal. (kill dudes) And I am not saying that I want to remove support, but meaningful support is more than just whack-a-moling bars upwards.
Even mighty WoW has this problem, Blizz has tried all sorts of things to get more people to play as tanks and healers, but the truth is most people do not want to. No amount of bribing or of dumbing down of the roles, or of trying to make tanking and healing "exciting" via power rotation vs. CD mechanics has worked.
The trinity is a poor crutch to build encounters around.
I think you got this figured backwards. It's escorts that are at the extreme end of the DPS scale, and can tank way too well.
Plus, your gliding scale argument is flawed to begin with, as DPS is itself a form of tanking (the sooner you kill something, the less dmg it can do to you).
There's nothing inherently wrong with some ships being built more for DPS. Not even the fact that they can tank way too good detracts from that. The real problem, however, is that the game only rewards DPS. I can bring a hefty cruiser on the field, and heal Kang when nobody else seems willing or able. Yet what do I get for my trouble?! The least amount of Omega marks possible, as I did the least DPS. Similar cases can be made for sci vessels. THAT, man-friend, is what's wrong with the game.
(And don't go tell me now I do The Cure wrong: it's just an example)
Then there's Go Down Fighting, an ability Tactical Captain get, allowing them to out-DPS everyone. Again, nothing inherently wrong with that, when you get another good ability yourself, like aux2bat; except, of course, that at the end of the Elite, the tact guy with the highest DPS gets it all. THAT, man-friend, is what gets tiresome over time -- no matter how much I like being an engineer.
People are tired of the grief they get when playing said roles from the DPSers. There isn't a shortage of healers or tanks in WoW, it is just the vast majority of them don't use the PuG queue they go in ready made groups. What they have tried to do is encourage them to use the PuG queue, and that is not working because of the "once bitten twice shy" mentality and I can't blame them either.
Try playing a new healer or tank in the PuG queue and say you are new and see what happens.
Which role do you see saying "go,go,go"? DPSers
Which role do you see giving hell to the healer because they died from something easily avoidable? The DPSers
Which role do you see throwing the most insults around at the others? The DPSers
Are you noticing a theme yet?
In PVE, they should be the first targets that the AI goes after simly due to the threat generation of their DPS. No exceptions. I have, on too many ocasions, watched an Escort pwn the **** out of a cube, just sapping shields and hull, and the cube was more interested in locking a tractor beam onto a cruiser, and firing a few shots.
If Escorts had a natural (and very high) threat generation stat (that did not buff defense rating), combined with the glass cannon philosophy, then that would go a long way in tipping the scales in favor of mighty cruisers and fancy science ships. There needs to be a real downside to flying Escorts, that are very obvious. They need to have limitations and heavy drawbacks.
If STO ever got to a point where you need at least 1 Escort, 1 Cruiser, and 1 Science in order to beat Elite or endgame scenarios, things would be pretty great IMO.
A trifecta can work, it just needs to be extreme.
Step 1:
20% hull nerf to all escorts, including escort carriers
10%-15% defense buff to all escorts, including escort carriers
Resoult:
1. Lowered hull is negated by even higher bonus defense - so moving escort actually take SAME damage as before change
2. All hold abilities are now much more deadlier against escorts (if you catch escort in between APO, you do 25% more damage then before change)
3. Escorts are more vulnerable to abilities not requiring targeting (sci powers)
4. Escorts in teams are now more support-dependant
Step 2
DC shoot now reduce Engines power by 3-6
DHC shoot now reduce Engines power by 6-12 (need balance check)
(Same mechanic already exist in Quad Cannons)
Resoult:
Shooting escort is slower and therefore has lower defense. Escort player must either be more careful, or spend extra power on engine settings.
Step 3:
TAC damage consoles now give dimnishing returns with following formula:
square root ((Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2+(Tac consle bonus%)^2)
It basically mean:
1x +30% console give +30% damage
2x +30% consoles give only +42.4% damage
3x +30% consoles give only +52% damage
4x +30% consoles give only +60% damage
5x +30% consoles give only +67% damage
Resoult:
1. There actually is a reason to use universal consoles in TAC slots
2. Difference between 2 Tac (sci/engi ships) consoles and 5 Tac consoles (top escorts) is no longer overwhelming and is on-pair with dimnishing returns from other console types
3. It gives more diversity in ship build (ATM al TAC slots are locked for damage consoles)
3 simple steps and we are back in Star Tek Online
cruisers with aux2bat outdps escorts...
In PvE you dont need sci ships or tanks....thats how games work ,is not like pvp where you can loose a match if you die.I dont know what kind of pve content anyone can make other ships better in pve.
Escorts are glass cannon once you stop them.The way escorts tank is by moving fast.Once you stop them they cant tank ... (rsp is not tanking ,1 rsp followed by subnuc or dem BO3 will go through a rsp ).
defence is more important than any hull.100hp are completly fine if nothing can hit you.
Because tac/escorts whined until they nerfed the Borg. It was impossible to die from a single non-HYT torpedo if you kept your shields and resistances up.
Scatter Volley is pure magic too. How can get a damage bonus against a single target when most of your shots miss?
and it will be fine. Hitting escort should be difficult, but every hit should be deadly. And if you sucessfully find a way to negate escort defense, even for a moment (Tractor, Gravity well), you will be able to do extreme damage in short time. It is basically giving escorts natural counter without altering their role and behaviour
This is a casual game. The fact a single really good player can carry a group of 4 baddies is intended by design and will not, and should not change. Casual nature of the game is the best part of STO and should not be changed.
Extra Bonus defense (from hull, aegis, skills, etc) remains even when your movement is zero.
Yet anyone can use aegis, retrait to use elusive or otherwise spend points on the needed skills to increase defense.
How are those three examples buffing escorts unfairly if they are open to all?
R.I.P
R.I.P
Accuracy spilling over to boost Critical Chance and Severity is a big problem.
Ships which tend to be more DPS focused and favor an emphasis on higher Accuracy also favors naturally high Defense stats inherently.
It seems to me that the more elegant way of addressing this is to do away with modifying these two stats outside of mechanics such as temporary buffs/debuffs or very limited availability via items.
Fixed rate of Accuracy for everyone, in any ship. Only modified by a choice few abilities/consoles/what have you.
Fixed rate of Defense for everyone, in any ship. Only modified by a choice few abilities/consoles/what have you.
Accuracy spill over is no longer a concern.
Bbuffs could be set up to deliver short term accuracy or defense buffs, without worry of the spill over effect.
Debuffs could be set up to reduce Defense or Accuracy without worry of the spill over effect.
Congratulations, you just nerfed anything that should ever attempt to do damage as it stands each console applies it's value to the weapon's base (Mk 0) damage stat which limits things already.
A better method of sorting things without nerfing anything, rather adjusting, would be to do what I suggested here
Whoah, whoah stop! Rewards from STFs have NOTHING to do with DPS. At all. Not even a little. None. The way STFs work is everyone gets the same amount of Omega marks for completing the mission and getting the optional. Then, in addition, some people randomly get more marks as part of their loot bag. The key word here is "random". You can get 11 processors and 105 marks in you loot bag, and have been AFK for the entire match.
The only places where rewards are tied to performance are PvP (where the amount of EC you get varies) or in Fleet Actions, where the scoreboard counts damage done, objectives accomplished, and healing done, so still doesn't reward dps exclusively.
This is exactly the case, plus they'd lose so many customers it isn't funny.
But reading the responses from most of the people in this thread is comical, and its why the devs don't change anything. An easy 90% here have no clue what they are talking about. The problem with PvE content is there is very little that pushes any ships to their limit, the exceptioins are Hive Onslaught, NWS and the current version of Crystaline Entity.
Ask in an STF channel for a team for Hive Onslaught and you get crickets. People are terrified of it, their cookie cutter escorts blow in seconds, their fail build cruisers can't do enough damage. We'll ignore that right now the lance weapons are completely broken, but even when they are working people don't play it often. A team of 5 good escorts are going to lose a lot of ships. The torp spreads can one hit most of them, pulling multiple tactical cube groups at the start is a team wipe. This is the only STF that pushes past an escorts ability to tank from passive damage unless you get really lucky and the Houston doesn't agro everything. Throw in a well build high agro cruiser (that can easily pass 8k in this STF) and it has far more value than all but the best escorts. Even 3 tactical cube groups on a cruiser is going to crush it without some fast reactions.
CE elite is run badly by most players. An escort is limited here, needing to stay far back and also needing to point cannons forward. Most get crushed by shards, in the last phase the beam weapon will remove a shield facing and part of the hull. A cruiser can fly sideways, broadside, avoid shards and keep their shields up. Escorts need to retreat often. I'd like to see the score modified here to give large negative points to people getting hit by shards.
NWS is funny, when things start to go bad the escorts pop fast. When escorts pop in NWS, the mission fails. If you want any hope to survive here you need to be in the top percent of players. There is no trinity here, glass cannons need not apply, you want tough hybrid escorts that can aoe burst damage, you want a heavy sci/eng healer/protector controller around the freighter, you need the game plan, and you need people capable of pulling it off without ruining it constantly.
When you push escorts to the tanking limit you see there are very real limits to when they can be used. A well built cruiser can tank far more and put out 75% of the damage on the low end, exceeding escorts sometimes. While they do put out good damage, their inability to lay out large amounts of burst damage is their limitation. The old STFs should be brought up to par with Hive, but I think that'd be a problem for too many people.
Anything that isn't elite is just easy and any ship can plow through it. The unfortunate part is that there is so little elite content in the game that an escort dominates all but a select few.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
http://dtfleet.com/
Visit our Youtube channel
You might be happier playing Starfleet Command then.
Because saying, "Even if every other person on the team is terrible, a good DPS can burn through everything." is about a half step away from, "This is a single player game that occasionally requires me to let other people fly ships around on my screen."
All warships, all the time, is about as far from the spirit of the IP as you can get without dropping a Star Destroyer into Sol.
But if we're going to go that route, then simply remove the ship type distinctions. All BOffs universal, all ships with the same turn rate and and console slots, all ships able to fit all weapons. If we're all going to be fit for maximum dps because nothing else matters, at least let us do it in a ship we like to fly, and doesn't require special builds with multi-million EC DOffs and consoles to be viable. :P
Believe it or not I do prefer the solo experience combined with the design style of MMOs such as shared economies, large loot variety and character building options (gear/skills/ships/etc).
Unfortunately STO continues to insist on it's high focus on group content for a variety of progression systems. That forces me to play with others.
Here is the deal though. Your average STO player, well MMO player for that matter, are baddies. They have terrible builds, awful attitudes, and struggle to complete tasks that I find trivial. But do you know why I choose STO as my MMO?
Because of it's casual nature and design I can carry baddies and complete the group based content anyway. I don't have to deal with a bunch of players with terrible attitudes forcing me to play at specific times or in a specific manner by joining a 'raiding guild'. Nor do I have to deal with getting grouped with a bad healer/tank/cc/whatever and wasting time becoming frustrated with the teams inability to succeed. That is a good thing.
I am not an amazing player by any stretch, but I am good enough to carry baddies, ignore those with bad attitudes, and not fail an ESTF because of an AFKer. I encourage those who rant and rave about the 'baddies' to learn to carry instead of raging. And I can do that with nearly any ship/captain assuming of course I have set it up properly.
My issue is with the stupid high amounts of tribal knowledge and exotic gear one needs to get proper performance out of many of them. That is all.
Some of the gear may be like that, and the UI is strangely buggy with properly displaying sometimes. And it's not unfair at all my comment was directed at the false idea that you can completely strip an escort of it's inherent defense bonus. You cannot last I checked.
1) Allow all 3 team abilities to rebalanced shields.
1a) Add an 'auto balance' option.
1b) Give Tactical Team a +accuracy mod if needed.
2) Give all sci(some eng) abilities a secondary effect. IE tachyon beam reduces enemy shield resist as well as drain, CPB reduces enemy defense as well, etc.
3) Remove shield regeneration boost effect from shield power.
4) Add hull resist boost to auxiliary power.
5) Change weapon power drain to give a flat damage reduction for multiple weapons firing at the same time and remove the drain.
6) Make all heals a % of the 'casting' ships base values.
7) Reduce amount of 'accuracy overflow' converting into Crit.
8) Increase overall ship hit points, reduce overall healing values.
9) ADD MOAR BOFF ABILITIES ESPECIALLY ENSIGN ENGINEERING AND TACTICAL PLEASE I BEG YOU!!!!
Really though those are simply the big ones to me.
I like this idea more than any of your other ones and have suggested a form of it on multiple occasions but I feel that basing it on base values will penalise science ships
Umm, this IS Star Trek Online, right? Not World of ********, or have I been mind melted again?
/joke off
Yeah you're definitely right about the casual nature of the game and the player base. I don't know if its the best thing about it, but it does keep it separate from all the other games doing the trinity.
It does make the game much more solo friendly, but it brings the downside that everything is a grind now. In WoW you can practically gear up a new player in one week if you want to carry them through content. In this game, since the content is so easy, everyone has to go through the gear grind.
Fun fact, trinity originally meant tank, heal, controller. It didn't include DPS. In the original Everquest you were practically required to have an Enchanter in order to Mez BAF mobs.
Not to mention DPS for the longest time was not supposed to out damage the tank lest they take agro and go squish.
If not was the case said missions would not be designed for a team.
R.I.P
Any power that disrupts thier movement. Last I checked Bonus Defense works only while moving.
When standing still no one ingame has a Bonus Defense as per the definition of the power. As far as I know only the elusive trait works around this to give a 10% buff when sitting still.
R.I.P
True, but that eventually was moved over into threat. One of my favorite raid fights of all time is still Vael in Blackwing Lair in WoW. Though by today's standards it would be fairly trivial due to built in threat meters in WoW, but having played UO, EQ, and AC to varying degrees before getting heavy into WoW it was pretty awesome.
It really is now. I just saw the next consoles and warp cores coming out guess what. All kinetic damage resist which was the last bit we could viably use in combat as Sci captains.
They need to change all of our skills back to exotic damage and be done with it. They've already nerfed the damage so they don't need adjusting but with the new kinetic resist and power transfer rate combo items escorts are going to be severely OP now, Think it's bad now? Just wait for this release they'll be impossible to kill when it does and everyone gets their consoles with resist on it.
It's bad enough neither the TR or the GW stops anything but now everything is going to be resistant to their damage output. IT won't even matter if we have a shield killer skillset because when the shields are down they won't take 0 damage anyways. spsssh
That is not correct. I have 10% bonus defense at a dead stop just thanks to elusive trait and max skill rank in maneuvers. Oddly enough though it seems to be that way in both cruisers and escorts so perhaps they do loose their additional 10% at a dead stop, or the fleet defiant doesn't get the bonus. Learn something new everday I suppose.
Keep in mind the UI display is jittery and doesn't always show you may have to move around and stop a few times to get the display right.