The biggest force force multiplier / op power in this game is teamwork. Always has been and always will be.
When people die to premades, why do they always shout premades ruining games? The whole point of 5 v 5 is teamwork, so join a fleet and get the team love going:)
Back to topic....lol
Vapers aren't cheap. There is more than 1 way to vape. Trust me, it isn't as easy as people make it out to be or else you would have seen every escort in one.
Double tap may be considered cheap but definately not vaping. It requires skill, coordination, battlefield awareness and a knack for timing. How is that cheap?
When a full transphasic team was run, it was called cheap, 4 man faw boat + 1 tac scort was called cheap. Using 3 sci in a match was cheap but now it's an accepted norm.
I bet the next premade build team that comes out will be cheap.
There will always be something to complain about. Hopefully, it will be something petty in the future like skins on ships when Cryptic have balanced the game
sounds like this fix isn't worth the tantrum being thrown about it then
its just giving feedback, agree to disagree we can about what should or shoulddnt be doable in game. when the devs come after ur precious aux to batt i predict rage
The biggest force force multiplier / op power in this game is teamwork. Always has been and always will be.
When people die to premades, why do they always shout premades ruining games? The whole point of 5 v 5 is teamwork, so join a fleet and get the team love going:)
Back to topic....lol
Vapers aren't cheap. There is more than 1 way to vape. Trust me, it isn't as easy as people make it out to be or else you would have seen every escort in one.
Double tap may be considered cheap but definately not vaping. It requires skill, coordination, battlefield awareness and a knack for timing. How is that cheap?
When a full transphasic team was run, it was called cheap, 4 man faw boat + 1 tac scort was called cheap. Using 3 sci in a match was cheap but now it's an accepted norm.
I bet the next premade build team that comes out will be cheap.
There will always be something to complain about. Hopefully, it will be something petty in the future like skins on ships when Cryptic have balanced the game
NAZ, the thing is , we have preamde able to kill ur preamde without the double tap, but if we use the preamde who is able to kill your, agais your with double tap, its like impossible its just BROKEN kill ppl in one sec when he is full bufed its broken, AND one thing about the double tap its make ur target complain and dont like you , Imagine u go in battle u choose a target and BOOM u got backstabed by somone else and die in one sec without get the time to react its not fun ... i made myself a double tap and its realy easy to make it and i saw how ppl react .. so more the double tap will be popular more this game will lost PVPer
[System] Link has been on active duty for 415 days, 23 hours, 9 minutes, 16 seconds.
[System] Zelda has been on active duty for 126 days, 11 hours, 51 minutes, 48 seconds.
First off Hawk, thanks for the detailed replies. I actually agree with quite a few of your points, but I'm not going to address that right now. Rather, I'm going to address the points where we don't see eye to eye. Full disclosure -- I don't fly a double tap build, though I did around two years ago.
With regards to your disagreement, I evaluate good or bad gameplay on two axes: Is this "fun", and does it feel "fair"? Both axes are highly subjective, so of course it's possible that I may gauge something to be a problem on both axes and you may find it fine on both, but it's my job to be as objective as possible and consider the entire spectrum of our playerbase when making such evaluations.
I've also seen this philosophy described as comparing the amount of fun created to the amount of anti-fun, where good gameplay generates a net positive, bad gameplay a net negative. It's a very common motif in game deisgn. There is a minor, albeit important error in your philosophy though.
Your two axes are: Is this fun, and does it feel fair.
The correct axes are: Is this fun, and is this fair. Ergo, is this balanced.
Whether something feels fair or not is irrelevant, it's also highly subjective and varies from person to person and group to group. There will always be someone who proclaims, and proclaims loudly, that anything under the sun is unfair.
Balance is something that needs to be looked at objectively, and generally speaking the more balanced and fair a game is the less negative feelings are generated.
Something like Double-tap Overloads feels very fun to the person using it, but is extremely anti-fun to the recipient. A large portion of fun in combat comes from the base human state cycle of analyze events, determine action, take action, gauge success of action, recalculate, goto 1. Any time something cuts out that cycle, it creates a deep feeling of resentment or unfairness, and the earlier in the cycle you drop out, the more unfair it feels. In the case of anything that deals massive damage to a player with no warning, they are removed from the behavior cycle outlined above before they even start - it's essentially the worst problem a piece of gameplay can have.
For myself and many other high end PvPers, we don't mind playing against vape builds. In fact, it can be rather exhilarating: You need to intuit when a vape is likely to come in and keep team resistances high, be lightning quick sending out cross heals, work on detecting and neutralizing the vaper or killing him after he delivers his strike, and there's something inherently interesting about playing 4v5 with a wildcard in the mix (or 4v4 with two wildcards). It might be presumptuous of me to speak for the community, but I think the general consensus of high end PvPers is that the tactic does need a nerf, but only a minor to moderate one.
As far as Pandas (and I'm sure many other PvP fleets) go, there's one player who uses double tap that we fear twice as much as any other, a handful that genuinely make us nervous, many more that we're indifferent to, and quite a few that are only good for a chuckle as they fail their attacks and die trying to disengage. Many of the players in the last two categories are by no means bad players, which is a testament to the degree of skill the tactic requires to use effectively.
You are entirely correct that to the low level player being vaped the situation seems entirely unfair -- The encounter generates a huge amount of unfun, he's going to blame the game mechanics in question, and there's a good chance you'll see rage threads on the forums.
There is a fatal flaw in your reasoning though, because you still need to think ahead one more step: What happens when you take away double tap beam overloads from the "bleeding-edge, very high-knowledge player" and put him back against the lowbie?
The answer is that the lowbie will again be quickly -- if not instantly -- annihilated, it will feel entirely unfair, he'll blame whatever mechanic he perceives the bleeding edge player is using, and you'll hear rage on the forums. Absolutely nothing has changed.
This is why it is futile to eliminate high skill tactics to protect low skill players. It just doesn't do anything. The only reason the low skilled player is raging in the first place is because he doesn't perceive himself that way and subconsciously needs to find an excuse for his performance.
If you want to protect low skill players, you have to fix low skill and cheap tactics. Doing so also makes PvP at the higher ends of the spectrum more enjoyable -- an improvement across the board. That's why it seems like you have your priorities backwards.
Another way to help low skill players is to give them better access to the tools that high tier players have. For example, automatic toggleable shield redistribution would vastly improve the viability of low tier players with no sacrifice in depth at the top end. Gradual buffs to underpowered skills would make it harder to create poor builds.
Double-tap is bad gameplay - period, end of story. It's a workaround for a shared cooldown that was always supposed to prevent exactly what's happening.
I understand the argument that double tap is somewhat inconsistent with the way other shared cooldowns work, but there are a lot of inconsistencies in this game: Look at hull vs. shield vs. control resistance, the science section of the skill tree, or how shared cooldowns work between EPtW/EPtS/EPtE/EPtA vs. TT/ET/ST. Inconsistency is something that is generally good to minimize, but sometimes exceptions need to exist in a game as complex and deep as STO. You'll never eliminate inconsistency altogether, nor should you try.
That being said, I disagree entirely that double-taping is inherently bad gameplay. In fact, I see a lot of inherit good in it. It's a skillshot... Relatively intuitive and easy to explain, yet difficult to pull off and even harder to master. To me, that sounds like depth.
STO does have it's share of bad and outright disgusting design though:
ResA/ResB is a prime example -- it reduces skill dependence and increases fluke, the rock-paper-scissors gameplay that results is the opposite of meaningful depth, it creates unfun for everyone who now needs to carry around multiple sets of weapons and shields, and there's the unintuitive factor that you can't see whether an enemy is using ResA or ResB, but need to gauge it by feel and react accordingly.
Another example of shocking design is that the difficulty curve of a large percentage of the game moves backwards. When you're just starting out, enemies in an exploration mission might be able to kill you if you're not careful, but those enemies dumbly scale up hitpoints and damage without gaining abilities and items like the player does -- an endgame character can sit still and endlessly tank those scaled up NPCs without activating powers, or if not that just balancing shields will suffice. Is it any wonder that the skill level of the playerbase is so darn low? Difficulty curves exist for a reason, and TRIBBLE up something this fundamental has dire consequences -- in this case, the average STO player lacks any sort of basic aptitude at the game.
The trick to any of these changes is that our PvE combat is in a pretty good place - people can have a lot of fun flying just about any ship, and can contribute meaningfully to queued events and basically have a blast. Therefore, any change to combat math that also affects PvE is extremely high risk - so the TRIBBLE we have to balance and tweak PvP pacing are limited to those that don't have unintended side effects.
That's very debatable. I'd say your PvE is in a terrible state -- it's a DPS race in which only one of the three classes excels, while NPCs have terrible AI and lackluster design. Outside of a small handful of outlier missions, PvE is so casual that it's basically impossible to lose. In fact, from a design perspective almost anything that you do that decreases player strength will make PvE more interesting. In it's current state, there is no such thing as balance with the exception of how quickly you can plow through the content. STO's PvE is designed for people who want to feel powerful, but not for players who want interesting or challenging gameplay. As a result you've been very successful in attracting the former type of player while pushing away less casual elements. As such, it came as no surprise to me when Voyager was overwhelmingly voted the most popular series by the STO population (and apologies in advance to any Voyager fans )
Now, I understand that nobody likes to be nerfed and that it could be unwise to take away too many toys from the playerbase at once, but this has nothing to do with PvE game design and you know it. It would be nice if you had said "We don't want to make too many waves with nerfs" rather than the PvE balance argument -- no PvPer is ever going to buy that one.
Again, I want to thank you for the dialog and I hope you find some food for thought in my response!
^^ kudos to jorfs most excellent response there. double tap or not there will always be the quest for insta kill by those hwo seek that path, and they ought not be hated
its just giving feedback, agree to disagree we can about what should or shoulddnt be doable in game. when the devs come after ur precious aux to batt i predict rage
thankfuly AtB does nothing that puts it on the same radar as double taps, and other design goal violations. if i thought it was as much of an exploit as double taps, i would not have embraced it, talked about, and subsequently made 2 AtB builds super popular. i would have been against it to, on principle.
^^ kudos to jorfs most excellent response there. double tap or not there will always be the quest for insta kill by those hwo seek that path, and they ought not be hated
im not against insta vapes. a combo of a whole bunch of things, executed absolutely perfectly, id congratulate the person pulling off such a difficult thing. except when it comes to those double taps. those arent hard to do, they just require a tiny bit of preparation and timming, and are a clear loophole exploit.
Well if you scroll back a few pages I think you will see Hawk admit Tech doffs are to good but they have been in the game for to long to make any quick changes to them at this point.
We all know having aux to bat... dem 3 x 2 faw 3 x 2... along with beta x 2... RSP x 2... and EPTx x 2 x 2
Is broken as hel* and much more unbalanced then the double tap.... well ok perhaps not more unbalanced but not any less.
I think purple aux2batt technicians are probably a little too strong in general, but they've been in-game as-is for so long that touching them is high-risk.
I'm not sure why Technicians are protected by the amount of time they have been in game "as is", considering Beam Overload & Torpedo Stacking has been in the game since, what? Beta?
Probably because Technicians and Aux to Batts are popular in PvE and no one in PvE will even notice Double Taps or Double Torps going away. Player investment is more widespread on one, and not the other.
So there you go, the mechanic you use is considered by a Dev to be an outlier.
He may change it at some point, or he may not because politically it would cause an uproar. I don't think I can hold him at fault, considering how popular it is now in PvE.
The moral of the story is don't be so comfortable in your stance that what you are using is not an outlier - the final judges are always the devs - and keep in mind that what you are using might in fact be overpowered but won't be touched because of player investment in it.
Yeah you're definitely right, them not paying attention to PvP balance issues has really hit them hard in the wallet. :rolleyes:
I'd love for them to go back and rebalance stuff, they will not be doing this because it pisses off their massive money spending audience of PvE only players.
Feel free to delude yourself, but that's the reality of it.
The most "balancing" we will see from this point on is new things added to balance out things that might be over-performing (through itemized microtransaction counters) or to build up areas that are weak.
I think this post has made me quit STO. I think it's time to go!
I really want to get a %healing reduction ability into every career somewhere. Not sure if the right flavor for an ability like that is to apply it to the healer (I target your deflector! Your TSS sucks now!) or the heal-ee (Proton Scattering Ray blasts your shields, making them receive 50% less healing from abilities!), but either way, it lets us make distinctions between PvE and PvP time-to-kill without hurting one for the sake of the other.
I go to work and this thing just gets bigger and bigger, i wanted to reply to a dev post of yours earlier from twitter but this actually is even more interesting.
I like heal attacks, as well as the idea of damage reducing attacks or energy fields. I think more energy drains could be employed now that we have so many power level boosts. It would be great to tie an energy drain to beam arrays or something. Everyone talks about the speed being good, I might be one of a few that likes a longer drawn out conflict.
As far as Grav Pulse being changed, is it possible to modify the effect based on attacker's turn rate. It is one of the abilities that makes people shoot at my cruiser, I bought it to compel the enemy to deal with my tank. Everyone is concerned that fast turn rate ships can use it more effectively but I think some problems could be addressed by adding modifiers of base full or turn rate into the equation with the thought that bigger ships have more room for toys. Yeah the bigger ships have better power boosts to some systems, but it would be logical to assume that larger spaces would allow for more efficient systems than the same type of machine/weapon crammed in a smaller space.
I just feel hull is underutilized when the reality of what a much more massive ship can have in it, especially since crew is kinda wonky. Some of the issues in the affect calcs could be impacted by the unique numbers to big lumbering ships such as base hull and turn rates.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Thanks Hawk for your comments, I only hope you seriously consider the changes and why people changed to double tapping. Of course there's the balanced to be made not to make PVE unplayable, which is understandable.
I am in a camp, possibly alone, or with a few other loons, that pve and pvp cannot be balanced in the same modifiers, at least till the AI can be balanced to a human.
My gut feeling is the resolution will involve a segregation of pve and pvp math, not some magic compromise. We woudl then need separate skill trees so we can have a pvp and pve set, with unique modifiers in each, and then balance on both sides can be obtained. I don't see skill tree duplication as that big an issue if you implement separate modifiers. I don't see it being that much harder to test with new content, you had to test both initially, now to tweak a new ability/console/wizzbang to pve, perfect. Lock that in place and move to pvp. No worries that optimizing pvp messes up all that work spend in pve land.
I don't pretend to say this is easy as a fix, but I don't see the balance between game play modes as obtainable and don't know where it has ever been obtained.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Yeah you're definitely right, them not paying attention to PvP balance issues has really hit them hard in the wallet. :rolleyes:
I'd love for them to go back and rebalance stuff, they will not be doing this because it pisses off their massive money spending audience of PvE only players.
Feel free to delude yourself, but that's the reality of it.
The most "balancing" we will see from this point on is new things added to balance out things that might be over-performing (through itemized microtransaction counters) or to build up areas that are weak.
I don't think the lack of PvP will hurt them to cause a shuttering of the doors, but I think there is more money to be made if PvP were in top form along side PvE. I totally agree PvE will not be sacrificed. My fear is the repetitive PvE on top of weak pvp could develop to a problem. STO is a very much focused on appearance with graphics taking the center stage, and it is reviewed highly in that department but not in areas of substance and sustained play. Remakes of prior missions at lower tiers and new faction, both of which the reputation system inhibits full exploitation, and end game missions that success is not the main concern, but how fast optional tasks can be achieved. Really anyone that grinds ESTF chat channel expects to get the optional and you are good as dead to them if you are party to its failure. We are focusing on PvP, but I am flat out bored with PvE. At least I can make some good matches of PvP in the fleet for fun and excitement.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
While perhaps being able to unload two overloads in 1 second may seem a bit much, I think 5 seconds is too much of a gap. Also, being able to stack the buffs and have them ready as needed was part of the incentive of running Beam Overload. I question whether having 2 BO's, or BO itself under the proposed changes is even worthwhile. DBB's may go by way of the torp; useless. I have no interest in going back to having 4 cannon 3 turret builds being the only viable option for an escort. While the decloak instavape may be too much, the potential gain of using a more skilled build shouldn't be removed so that those that fly around with 4 DHC's smashing the spacebar can 'feel good.'
Furthermore, this was never a problem before BO Doffs, Marion, Elachi Weapons, rep passives that add a large amount of raw damage to every tac build, and the extent that mitigation and healing has reached to force people to pile all this stuff on a build. Add to that, placates that make your opponent dissapear every 2 seconds so they can zip around unharmed healing themselves. Why is a mechanic that has been around since day 1 being overhauled instead of re-examining all that which came afterward?
Respectfully Hawk, I pose this question to ponder: If I am forced to ditch BO because they become useless or less advantageous than having 4 DHC, what should I put in those BOff slots? AP DOffs make it so that I can keep APO3 at global so I don't need any more attack patterns and torps are all but useless except in sci and niche builds.
I also have an idea to allow teams to do a bit more damage and to allow regular (non-cloaking) escorts to do some damage (and have some fun while at it). It is often the case in organized matches that I have noticed my ability to be effective heavily hampered because my Alpha becomes a 'please nuke me' flag. As the visible escort in the match I'm more often a sponge for everyone's viral/scramble/SNB/etc. What if APA were to be given a 5 second immunity to subnuc and other debuffs? The idea is not to clear existing debuffs, but to 'grey out' the ability for any more to be applied for that 5 second window. The 30 second alpha ability is really laughable unless pugging against a team of all engies and tacs or doing PvE.
NAZ, the thing is , we have preamde able to kill ur preamde without the double tap, but if we use the preamde who is able to kill your, agais your with double tap, its like impossible its just BROKEN kill ppl in one sec when he is full bufed its broken, AND one thing about the double tap its make ur target complain and dont like you , Imagine u go in battle u choose a target and BOOM u got backstabed by somone else and die in one sec without get the time to react its not fun ... i made myself a double tap and its realy easy to make it and i saw how ppl react .. so more the double tap will be popular more this game will lost PVPer
Sounds like fighting talk. My dad is bigger than your dad.....lol
Challenge accepted with 2 conditions:
No vapers
No disruptors
BS3 rule rematch? Hello..... We literally threw the team together half hour before rematch. Still managed to win but didn't complain in public about our team. Had no vaper in that match.
Just find it funny when you mention not fair & broken. I remember you guys being caught red handed many a time using far worse things. Remember the boffs that super cooled attack pattern alpha to less than a minute? (You guys = HOBOS & not Nova Core)
Caught on camera. Tut tut tut......
Sure we have the undisputed top vaper, who ironically doesn't care too much about the nerf because he'll always come up with the most efficient way to kill targets anyway, but more importantly we also have (arguably) the top cross healing in the game -- and the best way to mitigate that just flew out the window.
Don't confuse civil discussion with reactionary disagreement, and don't fall into the delusion that top teams only do well because of the mechanics they use; even if the alternative hurts your ego.
Even non-pvp'rs can see what fleet was abusing bad gameplay
So self healling zombie cruisers that will let their escorts die to ensure they stay alive even though they have no chance to actually kill anything is also considered bad game play then?
I don't think so, but I also don't like it either.
If upcoming changes in the game would detract from the players that wish to fly like that's ability to do so... Would we not hear push back against the changes?
So self healling zombie cruisers that will let their escorts die to ensure they stay alive even though they have no chance to actually kill anything is also considered bad game play then?
healing zombies must be next thing to fix, yes, healing numbers are to strong
Yesterday I was cutting pretty deep in my 5 DHC Kumari in one pass. But that was over about 5 seconds I'd say.
My tac kumari can make pretty short work of a badguy in the 5-7 sec range, but they see me coming in 1v1. In a 5v5 match with such limited peripheral I can get lost in the mix easier, line up an alpha when no one is targeting me and then make a run once the team is ready. At least they have a chance to track me, if I were cloaked then it would be different I could attack when i chose.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Reputation-based defensive and offensive abilities are individually within acceptable power limits, but ultimately the systems scale too well in that you don't have to give anything up to equip many, many passive powers. Ultimately I think this system makes more sense to move towards a deck-building system (e.g., you have 8 slots for Rep powers and can slot any 8 powers you've unlocked), but that'd be a huge system overhaul and would understandably upset players who already have access to more than 8 rep powers. We could also do something like make all the Rep powers much more potent, but limit you to 2 or 3 each in Space and Ground, plus 1 tier 5 active power, or something like that. This is all just me thinking out loud - there are no plans to change the reputation powers at this time.
I think a deck-building system would have been a great idea if it had been implemented that way. But you're right... a lot of people would be upset if it changed now and it would sour them on building Rep.
You'd also have to lower the bar somewhat on building Rep to make the grind worth the more limited reward, and let people change their "decks" as long as they aren't under Red Alert. If it was easier to build Rep and if I could change my deck as long as I wasn't in combat, I would welcome something like this.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I really want to get a %healing reduction ability into every career somewhere. Not sure if the right flavor for an ability like that is to apply it to the healer (I target your deflector! Your TSS sucks now!) or the heal-ee (Proton Scattering Ray blasts your shields, making them receive 50% less healing from abilities!), but either way, it lets us make distinctions between PvE and PvP time-to-kill without hurting one for the sake of the other.
With the understanding that we're all just throwing around ideas and theories here, I'm all for anything that reasonably fixes the "magic space heal". I've always hated the idea that hull, especially, can be remotely fixed by "magic".
But if you did that, you'd have to deal with the fact that support builds would take a huge hit in effectiveness and it would be harder to shake the "Escorts Online" stigma.
My crazy idea would be to throw in a sort of "rock, paper, scissors" mechanic.
Rock - Hardened against healing reduction, but healing abilities less effective.
Paper - Healing abilities more effective, but healing reduction less effective.
Scissors - Healing reduction more effective, but healing abilities less effective.
At any given time, let the captain decide whether his ship should be "rock, paper, or scissors". He can change it, but not while in combat and there's a delay before it takes effect.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
While perhaps being able to unload two overloads in 1 second may seem a bit much, I think 5 seconds is too much of a gap. Also, being able to stack the buffs and have them ready as needed was part of the incentive of running Beam Overload. I question whether having 2 BO's, or BO itself under the proposed changes is even worthwhile. DBB's may go by way of the torp; useless. I have no interest in going back to having 4 cannon 3 turret builds being the only viable option for an escort. While the decloak instavape may be too much, the potential gain of using a more skilled build shouldn't be removed so that those that fly around with 4 DHC's smashing the spacebar can 'feel good.'
Furthermore, this was never a problem before BO Doffs, Marion, Elachi Weapons, rep passives that add a large amount of raw damage to every tac build, and the extent that mitigation and healing has reached to force people to pile all this stuff on a build. Add to that, placates that make your opponent dissapear every 2 seconds so they can zip around unharmed healing themselves. Why is a mechanic that has been around since day 1 being overhauled instead of re-examining all that which came afterward?
Respectfully Hawk, I pose this question to ponder: If I am forced to ditch BO because they become useless or less advantageous than having 4 DHC, what should I put in those BOff slots? AP DOffs make it so that I can keep APO3 at global so I don't need any more attack patterns and torps are all but useless except in sci and niche builds.
I also have an idea to allow teams to do a bit more damage and to allow regular (non-cloaking) escorts to do some damage (and have some fun while at it). It is often the case in organized matches that I have noticed my ability to be effective heavily hampered because my Alpha becomes a 'please nuke me' flag. As the visible escort in the match I'm more often a sponge for everyone's viral/scramble/SNB/etc. What if APA were to be given a 5 second immunity to subnuc and other debuffs? The idea is not to clear existing debuffs, but to 'grey out' the ability for any more to be applied for that 5 second window. The 30 second alpha ability is really laughable unless pugging against a team of all engies and tacs or doing PvE.
The proposed change doesn't just make beam overload to be used at minimal of 5 seconds in between, it will be too hard to pull of and time properly on. You would have to activate first BO, wait 28 seconds then fire it, pop the next one and wait 5 seconds.
1st problem would be to time something like that properly in the first place.
This change will really turn well formed premade matches into extremely long sparring battles in which it may take hours to get to 15 kills.
It will also greatly improve the quality of pug matches I think. That is in the minds of the career puggers. From my understanding that's what puggers want. A longer back and forth and a chance to, as a beginner or someone with no support, actually make an impact.
Ah either way, the expert ship builders will find ways around the change to kill quickly.
Have fun kill bad guys
-thrusters on full-
Also, you have to wonder exactly why this change is being made. Was it the feedback from the pvp community that spawned it? And if so, why did the devs only take this feedback and really nothing else? I mean, Borg cubes don't post on the forums or write the devs complaining that they are being killed too quickly....
Let's play spreadsheet warriors for a moment, eh? I did this once before and it went a certain way - but that was just a quickie. Let's do a more detailed and comparative version, eh?
BO3+BO2 vs BO3+HY3 vs BO3+TS3 vs BO3+HY2 vs BO3+TS2 vs BO2+HY3 vs BO2+TS3 vs BO2+HY2 vs BO2+TS2
First, let's set up the commonalities for the fictional player.
Weapon Training
Base: 99
+Omega Weapon Training: 30
+79 Aux - Aux Power Config-Offense: 15.8
= 144.8
Energy Weapons
Base: 99
+79 Aux - Aux Power Config-Offense: 15.8
+TT1: +18
= 132.8
Projectile Weapons
Base: 99
+79 Aux - Aux Power Config-Offense: 15.8
+TT1: +18
= 132.8
Energy Weapon Specialization: 99 Projectile Weapon Specialization: 99
Figure 125 Weapon Power and 4x VR Mk XII energy specific Tac consoles. Maximizing for that quick damage (since the complaint is quick damage), figure Rom Captain w/5x Rom BOFFs. Don't care about the CrtH (nor Acc/Def) - we'll assume the hits are crits and there's no Accuracy Overflow (weapons will have Acc mods - just to make the shots hit).
Perhaps a surprise to some - not a surprise to many, imho. It's somewhat meaningless for the point that I'm making...that's right, I'm not done yet. For the rest, I'm only going to bother with the BO3+BO2, BO3+HY3, and BO3+TS3...
Damage needs a target, right? Let's use one of my guys pseudo buffed for example target #1...
Target#1 in a Chel Grett, MACO Mk XII shields, no hull damage resistance buffs, just EPtS1
Shield Health: 10332
Shield Damage Reduction: 52% (w/o 0.95)
Hull Health: 49665
Hull Damage Resistance: 24.6% / 27.0% (Kinetic/Energy)
Okay then, so let's him him with that 78547 BO3! Obviously, that's going to overwhelm the shields. Let's look at the EHP of the shields to see how much damage they remove. 21525 is eaten by the shields, leaving 57022 to hit the hull. After damage resist, that's 41626.1 done to the hull - leaving him 8038.9 hull. Doesn't matter what he's hit with next, the BO2/HY3/TS3 will pop him.
For Target#2, let's give him Elite Fleet Adaptive Res Shields...[Cap]x2[ResA/B][Adapt] and have it capped out. We'll toss him some support from a team, etc, etc, etc...giving us something like the following...
Target#2
Shield Health: 9500ish
Shield Damage Reduction: 75% (w/o 0.95)
Hull Health: 49665
Hull Damage Resistance: 65% to both (it's hard to hit that 75% all the time, 65% is not)
Let's hit him now with the 78547 BO3! Again, the damage is going to shred the shields. How much damage do the shields eat this time though? 38000 of the damage removed. 40547 remaining and after resists, 14191.5 done to the hull. 35473.5 remaining hull.
Against the resist, let's see what the following shot will do...
While none of them will pop him (unlike when he was Target#1), it's clear that the BO2 was the worst choice in this scenario. Depending on how he reacts, he's likely been killed by the CRF fire from DHCs mixed in with the BO3+whatever.
Let's do another target! Target#3...let's move him into a Wells with the Fleet Shields, eh?
Target#3
Shield Health: 13800ish
Shield Damage Reduction: 75% (w/o 0.95)
Hull Health: 41250ish
Hull Damage Resistance: 65% to both (it's hard to hit that 75% all the time, 65% is not)
Let's hit him once again with the 78547 BO3! Yep, shields are still going to pop. What's the EHP? 55200 or so, so 23347 gets passed along to the hull - reduced by the resistance - for 8171.5 damage. Leaves 33078.5 or so damage.
The rest basically follows Target#2...
Okay, so what have we seen so far? That there's been so much TRIBBLE that's been added to the game - that the single BO3 could pop folks...that a single BO3 and whatever could pop other folks...and that for many situations, the BO3+BO2 is the worst choice...
...so why are folks running the double tap? Cause with Target#2 and Target#3, it's not just about those buffed resistances...there's also going to be healing.
Let's take Target#3's shields and do another comparison. We already know what the BO3 could do...boom...gone. Let's look at what the HY3 would do against them, eh?
But wait...in addition to the Shield Damage Reduction listed there, there's an innate 75% kinetic resistance that shields have.
That HY3 doing 96131.4 damage...well...
96131.4 * 0.25 = 24032.85 * 0.25 = 6008 * 1.05 (res shields for kinetic, 5% doesn't go to the ether - it's absorbed by the shields) = 6308.6 damage...
From 96131.4 to 6308.6 damage.
Basically, if 6310 shield healing is done through some means between the BO3 hitting and the HY3 hitting...what was the best choice suddenly becomes the second worst choice. The TS3 (outside of having a 100% to-hit) would be the worst choice.
Tada...2x BO.
So what's the potential TLDR for all of this?
TLDR:
1) The change will not likely increase the TTD of the average player in Ker'rat or pugging the queues. If anything, it may actually reduce the TTD as folks move back to BO+HYorTS.
2) Premades are doing different things as is - so they'll continue to adapt.
3) It does nothing about the following:
A) Potential Damage Extremes Potential Damage Resistance Extremes
C) Potential Healing Extremes
D) Disparity that exists with those Extremes
i) Gearing
ii) Teamwork/Coordination
edit: In case it was missed, yeah - those Quants were without any Tac consoles - only specific energy Tac consoles. HY/TS w/o consoles hit hull harder than BO w/ consoles. It's the 75% kinetic resist from shields that neuters torps in general...unless that facing is dropped just as the torps hit.
This change will really turn well formed premade matches into extremely long sparring battles in which it may take hours to get to 15 kills.
It will also greatly improve the quality of pug matches I think. That is in the minds of the career puggers. From my understanding that's what puggers want. A longer back and forth and a chance to, as a beginner or someone with no support, actually make an impact.
Ah either way, the expert ship builders will find ways around the change to kill quickly.
Have fun kill bad guys
-thrusters on full-
Also, you have to wonder exactly why this change is being made. Was it the feedback from the pvp community that spawned it? And if so, why did the devs only take this feedback and really nothing else? I mean, Borg cubes don't post on the forums or write the devs complaining that they are being killed too quickly....
I totally agree with you about helping pug matches (well maybe, some pugs cant even use TT and EPtS), it will make most premade matches last forever again. This may be a good thing, at least for a little bit. Insta-vaping was a band-aide to too much healing. Hawk has been talking about ways to reduce healing and his ideas seem good, such that, they wont change pve and they'll help pvp. I think instead of complaining (as a pvp community) we should move on and start talking about other ways to help, like too much heals and resists.
Sounds like fighting talk. My dad is bigger than your dad.....lol
Challenge accepted with 2 conditions:
No vapers
No disruptors
BS3 rule rematch? Hello..... We literally threw the team together half hour before rematch. Still managed to win but didn't complain in public about our team. Had no vaper in that match.
Just find it funny when you mention not fair & broken. I remember you guys being caught red handed many a time using far worse things. Remember the boffs that super cooled attack pattern alpha to less than a minute? (You guys = HOBOS & not Nova Core)
Caught on camera. Tut tut tut......
Chalange accepted,i allways wanted a revenge after the match we lost 7-6, my team was not ready to fight ur thing but now we are 1000 % ready
by the way i never used broken stull in premade match ... only one time cryox used it in kerrat agaist the turks, and it did the tour of the world lol
[System] Link has been on active duty for 415 days, 23 hours, 9 minutes, 16 seconds.
[System] Zelda has been on active duty for 126 days, 11 hours, 51 minutes, 48 seconds.
Comments
When people die to premades, why do they always shout premades ruining games? The whole point of 5 v 5 is teamwork, so join a fleet and get the team love going:)
Back to topic....lol
Vapers aren't cheap. There is more than 1 way to vape. Trust me, it isn't as easy as people make it out to be or else you would have seen every escort in one.
Double tap may be considered cheap but definately not vaping. It requires skill, coordination, battlefield awareness and a knack for timing. How is that cheap?
When a full transphasic team was run, it was called cheap, 4 man faw boat + 1 tac scort was called cheap. Using 3 sci in a match was cheap but now it's an accepted norm.
I bet the next premade build team that comes out will be cheap.
There will always be something to complain about. Hopefully, it will be something petty in the future like skins on ships when Cryptic have balanced the game
its just giving feedback, agree to disagree we can about what should or shoulddnt be doable in game. when the devs come after ur precious aux to batt i predict rage
Let's do a 3 Tac + 2 Eng full Cruiser AP: Delta/DEM 3/Extend party
NAZ, the thing is , we have preamde able to kill ur preamde without the double tap, but if we use the preamde who is able to kill your, agais your with double tap, its like impossible its just BROKEN kill ppl in one sec when he is full bufed its broken, AND one thing about the double tap its make ur target complain and dont like you , Imagine u go in battle u choose a target and BOOM u got backstabed by somone else and die in one sec without get the time to react its not fun ... i made myself a double tap and its realy easy to make it and i saw how ppl react .. so more the double tap will be popular more this game will lost PVPer
[System] Zelda has been on active duty for 126 days, 11 hours, 51 minutes, 48 seconds.
French Canadian
I've also seen this philosophy described as comparing the amount of fun created to the amount of anti-fun, where good gameplay generates a net positive, bad gameplay a net negative. It's a very common motif in game deisgn. There is a minor, albeit important error in your philosophy though.
Your two axes are: Is this fun, and does it feel fair.
The correct axes are: Is this fun, and is this fair. Ergo, is this balanced.
Whether something feels fair or not is irrelevant, it's also highly subjective and varies from person to person and group to group. There will always be someone who proclaims, and proclaims loudly, that anything under the sun is unfair.
Balance is something that needs to be looked at objectively, and generally speaking the more balanced and fair a game is the less negative feelings are generated.
For myself and many other high end PvPers, we don't mind playing against vape builds. In fact, it can be rather exhilarating: You need to intuit when a vape is likely to come in and keep team resistances high, be lightning quick sending out cross heals, work on detecting and neutralizing the vaper or killing him after he delivers his strike, and there's something inherently interesting about playing 4v5 with a wildcard in the mix (or 4v4 with two wildcards). It might be presumptuous of me to speak for the community, but I think the general consensus of high end PvPers is that the tactic does need a nerf, but only a minor to moderate one.
As far as Pandas (and I'm sure many other PvP fleets) go, there's one player who uses double tap that we fear twice as much as any other, a handful that genuinely make us nervous, many more that we're indifferent to, and quite a few that are only good for a chuckle as they fail their attacks and die trying to disengage. Many of the players in the last two categories are by no means bad players, which is a testament to the degree of skill the tactic requires to use effectively.
You are entirely correct that to the low level player being vaped the situation seems entirely unfair -- The encounter generates a huge amount of unfun, he's going to blame the game mechanics in question, and there's a good chance you'll see rage threads on the forums.
There is a fatal flaw in your reasoning though, because you still need to think ahead one more step: What happens when you take away double tap beam overloads from the "bleeding-edge, very high-knowledge player" and put him back against the lowbie?
The answer is that the lowbie will again be quickly -- if not instantly -- annihilated, it will feel entirely unfair, he'll blame whatever mechanic he perceives the bleeding edge player is using, and you'll hear rage on the forums. Absolutely nothing has changed.
This is why it is futile to eliminate high skill tactics to protect low skill players. It just doesn't do anything. The only reason the low skilled player is raging in the first place is because he doesn't perceive himself that way and subconsciously needs to find an excuse for his performance.
If you want to protect low skill players, you have to fix low skill and cheap tactics. Doing so also makes PvP at the higher ends of the spectrum more enjoyable -- an improvement across the board. That's why it seems like you have your priorities backwards.
Another way to help low skill players is to give them better access to the tools that high tier players have. For example, automatic toggleable shield redistribution would vastly improve the viability of low tier players with no sacrifice in depth at the top end. Gradual buffs to underpowered skills would make it harder to create poor builds.
I understand the argument that double tap is somewhat inconsistent with the way other shared cooldowns work, but there are a lot of inconsistencies in this game: Look at hull vs. shield vs. control resistance, the science section of the skill tree, or how shared cooldowns work between EPtW/EPtS/EPtE/EPtA vs. TT/ET/ST. Inconsistency is something that is generally good to minimize, but sometimes exceptions need to exist in a game as complex and deep as STO. You'll never eliminate inconsistency altogether, nor should you try.
That being said, I disagree entirely that double-taping is inherently bad gameplay. In fact, I see a lot of inherit good in it. It's a skillshot... Relatively intuitive and easy to explain, yet difficult to pull off and even harder to master. To me, that sounds like depth.
STO does have it's share of bad and outright disgusting design though:
ResA/ResB is a prime example -- it reduces skill dependence and increases fluke, the rock-paper-scissors gameplay that results is the opposite of meaningful depth, it creates unfun for everyone who now needs to carry around multiple sets of weapons and shields, and there's the unintuitive factor that you can't see whether an enemy is using ResA or ResB, but need to gauge it by feel and react accordingly.
Another example of shocking design is that the difficulty curve of a large percentage of the game moves backwards. When you're just starting out, enemies in an exploration mission might be able to kill you if you're not careful, but those enemies dumbly scale up hitpoints and damage without gaining abilities and items like the player does -- an endgame character can sit still and endlessly tank those scaled up NPCs without activating powers, or if not that just balancing shields will suffice. Is it any wonder that the skill level of the playerbase is so darn low? Difficulty curves exist for a reason, and TRIBBLE up something this fundamental has dire consequences -- in this case, the average STO player lacks any sort of basic aptitude at the game.
That's very debatable. I'd say your PvE is in a terrible state -- it's a DPS race in which only one of the three classes excels, while NPCs have terrible AI and lackluster design. Outside of a small handful of outlier missions, PvE is so casual that it's basically impossible to lose. In fact, from a design perspective almost anything that you do that decreases player strength will make PvE more interesting. In it's current state, there is no such thing as balance with the exception of how quickly you can plow through the content. STO's PvE is designed for people who want to feel powerful, but not for players who want interesting or challenging gameplay. As a result you've been very successful in attracting the former type of player while pushing away less casual elements. As such, it came as no surprise to me when Voyager was overwhelmingly voted the most popular series by the STO population (and apologies in advance to any Voyager fans
Now, I understand that nobody likes to be nerfed and that it could be unwise to take away too many toys from the playerbase at once, but this has nothing to do with PvE game design and you know it. It would be nice if you had said "We don't want to make too many waves with nerfs" rather than the PvE balance argument -- no PvPer is ever going to buy that one.
Again, I want to thank you for the dialog and I hope you find some food for thought in my response!
thankfuly AtB does nothing that puts it on the same radar as double taps, and other design goal violations. if i thought it was as much of an exploit as double taps, i would not have embraced it, talked about, and subsequently made 2 AtB builds super popular. i would have been against it to, on principle.
im not against insta vapes. a combo of a whole bunch of things, executed absolutely perfectly, id congratulate the person pulling off such a difficult thing. except when it comes to those double taps. those arent hard to do, they just require a tiny bit of preparation and timming, and are a clear loophole exploit.
We all know having aux to bat... dem 3 x 2 faw 3 x 2... along with beta x 2... RSP x 2... and EPTx x 2 x 2
Is broken as hel* and much more unbalanced then the double tap.... well ok perhaps not more unbalanced but not any less.
We as players don't get to decide that.
Hawk, in this very thread, already stated he feels Purple Techs are probably too strong for what they do.
That means its an outlier, its also on his radar.
I'm not sure why Technicians are protected by the amount of time they have been in game "as is", considering Beam Overload & Torpedo Stacking has been in the game since, what? Beta?
Probably because Technicians and Aux to Batts are popular in PvE and no one in PvE will even notice Double Taps or Double Torps going away. Player investment is more widespread on one, and not the other.
So there you go, the mechanic you use is considered by a Dev to be an outlier.
He may change it at some point, or he may not because politically it would cause an uproar. I don't think I can hold him at fault, considering how popular it is now in PvE.
The moral of the story is don't be so comfortable in your stance that what you are using is not an outlier - the final judges are always the devs - and keep in mind that what you are using might in fact be overpowered but won't be touched because of player investment in it.
I think this post has made me quit STO. I think it's time to go!
Kirk's Protege.
I go to work and this thing just gets bigger and bigger, i wanted to reply to a dev post of yours earlier from twitter but this actually is even more interesting.
I like heal attacks, as well as the idea of damage reducing attacks or energy fields. I think more energy drains could be employed now that we have so many power level boosts. It would be great to tie an energy drain to beam arrays or something. Everyone talks about the speed being good, I might be one of a few that likes a longer drawn out conflict.
As far as Grav Pulse being changed, is it possible to modify the effect based on attacker's turn rate. It is one of the abilities that makes people shoot at my cruiser, I bought it to compel the enemy to deal with my tank. Everyone is concerned that fast turn rate ships can use it more effectively but I think some problems could be addressed by adding modifiers of base full or turn rate into the equation with the thought that bigger ships have more room for toys. Yeah the bigger ships have better power boosts to some systems, but it would be logical to assume that larger spaces would allow for more efficient systems than the same type of machine/weapon crammed in a smaller space.
I just feel hull is underutilized when the reality of what a much more massive ship can have in it, especially since crew is kinda wonky. Some of the issues in the affect calcs could be impacted by the unique numbers to big lumbering ships such as base hull and turn rates.
I am in a camp, possibly alone, or with a few other loons, that pve and pvp cannot be balanced in the same modifiers, at least till the AI can be balanced to a human.
My gut feeling is the resolution will involve a segregation of pve and pvp math, not some magic compromise. We woudl then need separate skill trees so we can have a pvp and pve set, with unique modifiers in each, and then balance on both sides can be obtained. I don't see skill tree duplication as that big an issue if you implement separate modifiers. I don't see it being that much harder to test with new content, you had to test both initially, now to tweak a new ability/console/wizzbang to pve, perfect. Lock that in place and move to pvp. No worries that optimizing pvp messes up all that work spend in pve land.
I don't pretend to say this is easy as a fix, but I don't see the balance between game play modes as obtainable and don't know where it has ever been obtained.
I don't think the lack of PvP will hurt them to cause a shuttering of the doors, but I think there is more money to be made if PvP were in top form along side PvE. I totally agree PvE will not be sacrificed. My fear is the repetitive PvE on top of weak pvp could develop to a problem. STO is a very much focused on appearance with graphics taking the center stage, and it is reviewed highly in that department but not in areas of substance and sustained play. Remakes of prior missions at lower tiers and new faction, both of which the reputation system inhibits full exploitation, and end game missions that success is not the main concern, but how fast optional tasks can be achieved. Really anyone that grinds ESTF chat channel expects to get the optional and you are good as dead to them if you are party to its failure. We are focusing on PvP, but I am flat out bored with PvE. At least I can make some good matches of PvP in the fleet for fun and excitement.
Furthermore, this was never a problem before BO Doffs, Marion, Elachi Weapons, rep passives that add a large amount of raw damage to every tac build, and the extent that mitigation and healing has reached to force people to pile all this stuff on a build. Add to that, placates that make your opponent dissapear every 2 seconds so they can zip around unharmed healing themselves. Why is a mechanic that has been around since day 1 being overhauled instead of re-examining all that which came afterward?
Respectfully Hawk, I pose this question to ponder: If I am forced to ditch BO because they become useless or less advantageous than having 4 DHC, what should I put in those BOff slots? AP DOffs make it so that I can keep APO3 at global so I don't need any more attack patterns and torps are all but useless except in sci and niche builds.
I also have an idea to allow teams to do a bit more damage and to allow regular (non-cloaking) escorts to do some damage (and have some fun while at it). It is often the case in organized matches that I have noticed my ability to be effective heavily hampered because my Alpha becomes a 'please nuke me' flag. As the visible escort in the match I'm more often a sponge for everyone's viral/scramble/SNB/etc. What if APA were to be given a 5 second immunity to subnuc and other debuffs? The idea is not to clear existing debuffs, but to 'grey out' the ability for any more to be applied for that 5 second window. The 30 second alpha ability is really laughable unless pugging against a team of all engies and tacs or doing PvE.
Sounds like fighting talk. My dad is bigger than your dad.....lol
Challenge accepted with 2 conditions:
No vapers
No disruptors
BS3 rule rematch? Hello..... We literally threw the team together half hour before rematch. Still managed to win but didn't complain in public about our team. Had no vaper in that match.
Just find it funny when you mention not fair & broken. I remember you guys being caught red handed many a time using far worse things. Remember the boffs that super cooled attack pattern alpha to less than a minute? (You guys = HOBOS & not Nova Core)
Caught on camera. Tut tut tut......
Cryptic, also please fix other broken pvp stuff in game.
How about this one?
Sure we have the undisputed top vaper, who ironically doesn't care too much about the nerf because he'll always come up with the most efficient way to kill targets anyway, but more importantly we also have (arguably) the top cross healing in the game -- and the best way to mitigate that just flew out the window.
Don't confuse civil discussion with reactionary disagreement, and don't fall into the delusion that top teams only do well because of the mechanics they use; even if the alternative hurts your ego.
So self healling zombie cruisers that will let their escorts die to ensure they stay alive even though they have no chance to actually kill anything is also considered bad game play then?
I don't think so, but I also don't like it either.
If upcoming changes in the game would detract from the players that wish to fly like that's ability to do so... Would we not hear push back against the changes?
Have fun kill bad guys
-thrusters on full-
healing zombies must be next thing to fix, yes, healing numbers are to strong
Yesterday I was cutting pretty deep in my 5 DHC Kumari in one pass. But that was over about 5 seconds I'd say.
My tac kumari can make pretty short work of a badguy in the 5-7 sec range, but they see me coming in 1v1. In a 5v5 match with such limited peripheral I can get lost in the mix easier, line up an alpha when no one is targeting me and then make a run once the team is ready. At least they have a chance to track me, if I were cloaked then it would be different I could attack when i chose.
I think a deck-building system would have been a great idea if it had been implemented that way. But you're right... a lot of people would be upset if it changed now and it would sour them on building Rep.
You'd also have to lower the bar somewhat on building Rep to make the grind worth the more limited reward, and let people change their "decks" as long as they aren't under Red Alert. If it was easier to build Rep and if I could change my deck as long as I wasn't in combat, I would welcome something like this.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
With the understanding that we're all just throwing around ideas and theories here, I'm all for anything that reasonably fixes the "magic space heal". I've always hated the idea that hull, especially, can be remotely fixed by "magic".
But if you did that, you'd have to deal with the fact that support builds would take a huge hit in effectiveness and it would be harder to shake the "Escorts Online" stigma.
My crazy idea would be to throw in a sort of "rock, paper, scissors" mechanic.
Rock - Hardened against healing reduction, but healing abilities less effective.
Paper - Healing abilities more effective, but healing reduction less effective.
Scissors - Healing reduction more effective, but healing abilities less effective.
At any given time, let the captain decide whether his ship should be "rock, paper, or scissors". He can change it, but not while in combat and there's a delay before it takes effect.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The proposed change doesn't just make beam overload to be used at minimal of 5 seconds in between, it will be too hard to pull of and time properly on. You would have to activate first BO, wait 28 seconds then fire it, pop the next one and wait 5 seconds.
1st problem would be to time something like that properly in the first place.
This change will really turn well formed premade matches into extremely long sparring battles in which it may take hours to get to 15 kills.
It will also greatly improve the quality of pug matches I think. That is in the minds of the career puggers. From my understanding that's what puggers want. A longer back and forth and a chance to, as a beginner or someone with no support, actually make an impact.
Ah either way, the expert ship builders will find ways around the change to kill quickly.
Have fun kill bad guys
-thrusters on full-
Also, you have to wonder exactly why this change is being made. Was it the feedback from the pvp community that spawned it? And if so, why did the devs only take this feedback and really nothing else? I mean, Borg cubes don't post on the forums or write the devs complaining that they are being killed too quickly....
BO3+BO2 vs BO3+HY3 vs BO3+TS3 vs BO3+HY2 vs BO3+TS2 vs BO2+HY3 vs BO2+TS3 vs BO2+HY2 vs BO2+TS2
First, let's set up the commonalities for the fictional player.
Weapon Training
Base: 99
+Omega Weapon Training: 30
+79 Aux - Aux Power Config-Offense: 15.8
= 144.8
Energy Weapons
Base: 99
+79 Aux - Aux Power Config-Offense: 15.8
+TT1: +18
= 132.8
Projectile Weapons
Base: 99
+79 Aux - Aux Power Config-Offense: 15.8
+TT1: +18
= 132.8
Energy Weapon Specialization: 99
Projectile Weapon Specialization: 99
Figure 125 Weapon Power and 4x VR Mk XII energy specific Tac consoles. Maximizing for that quick damage (since the complaint is quick damage), figure Rom Captain w/5x Rom BOFFs. Don't care about the CrtH (nor Acc/Def) - we'll assume the hits are crits and there's no Accuracy Overflow (weapons will have Acc mods - just to make the shots hit).
So let's look at the CrtD, eh?
Critical Severity
Base: 50%
+Weapon Specialization: 25%
+APA3: 50%
+Borg Module: 9.2%
+Tachyo: 7.6%
+Bioneural Infusion: 15.2%
+Rom Captain: 3.8%
+5x Rom BOFFs (Sup Op): 25%
= 185.8%
Hrmm, we'll slap in some [AMP] for some 4x 75+ to get +13.2%. Okay, then - feel like I'm forgetting something...hrmmm.
We'll go with Mk XII VR weapons, eh? Okay, let's look at "unbuffed" non-crit damage for our DBB and our Torp, eh?
Dual Beam Bank
Base: 130
+VR: 9.7
+Mk XII: 156.4
+Weapons Training: 94.1
+Energy Weapons: 86.3
+4x VR Mk XII Consoles: 156
+[AMP]: 17.2
= 649.7
@125 Weapon Power = 1624.3
Quantum Torpedo
Base: 1503
+VR: 113
+Mk XII: 1809
+Weapons Training: 1088
+Projectile Weapons: 998
+[AMP]: 200
= 5701
So let's take a look at what the BO2/BO3/HY3/HY2/TS3/TS2 do our damage - the new bases before other buffs and the crit, k?
BO3(~846%): 13741.6
BO2(~725%): 11776.2
HY3(~295%): 16817.9
HY2(~258%): 14708.6
TS3(~236%): 13454.4
TS2(~207%): 11801.1
Okay then, with those new base numbers in hand - let's buff them up and crit them, k?
BO3
Base: 13741.6
+APA3: 6870.8
+APO3: 3435.4
+Ambush: 3435.4
= 27483.2
CRIT! = 78547
BO2
Base: 11776.2
+APA3: 5888.1
+APO3: 2944.1
+Ambush: 2944.1
= 23552.5
CRIT! = 67313
HY3
Base: 16817.9
+APA3: 8409
+APO3: 4204.5
+Ambush: 4204.5
= 33635.9
CRIT! = 96131.4
HY2
Base: 14708.6
+APA3: 7354.3
+APO3: 3677.2
+Ambush: 3677.2
= 29417.3
CRIT! = 84074.6
TS3
Base: 13454.4
+APA3: 6727.2
+APO3: 3363.6
+Ambush: 3363.6
= 26908.8
CRIT! = 76905.4
TS2
Base: 11801.1
+APA3: 5900.6
+APO3: 2950.3
+Ambush: 2950.3
= 23602.3
CRIT! = 67455.4
Okay, so let's look at the combined damage for those things listed up at the top...
BO3+BO2: 145860
BO3+HY3: 174678.4
BO3+TS3: 155452.4
BO3+HY2: 162621.6
BO3+TS2: 151530
BO2+HY3: 163444.4
BO2+TS3: 144218.4
BO2+HY2: 151387.6
BO2+TS2: 134768.4
Perhaps a surprise to some - not a surprise to many, imho. It's somewhat meaningless for the point that I'm making...that's right, I'm not done yet. For the rest, I'm only going to bother with the BO3+BO2, BO3+HY3, and BO3+TS3...
Damage needs a target, right? Let's use one of my guys pseudo buffed for example target #1...
Target#1 in a Chel Grett, MACO Mk XII shields, no hull damage resistance buffs, just EPtS1
Shield Health: 10332
Shield Damage Reduction: 52% (w/o 0.95)
Hull Health: 49665
Hull Damage Resistance: 24.6% / 27.0% (Kinetic/Energy)
Okay then, so let's him him with that 78547 BO3! Obviously, that's going to overwhelm the shields. Let's look at the EHP of the shields to see how much damage they remove. 21525 is eaten by the shields, leaving 57022 to hit the hull. After damage resist, that's 41626.1 done to the hull - leaving him 8038.9 hull. Doesn't matter what he's hit with next, the BO2/HY3/TS3 will pop him.
For Target#2, let's give him Elite Fleet Adaptive Res Shields...[Cap]x2[ResA/B][Adapt] and have it capped out. We'll toss him some support from a team, etc, etc, etc...giving us something like the following...
Target#2
Shield Health: 9500ish
Shield Damage Reduction: 75% (w/o 0.95)
Hull Health: 49665
Hull Damage Resistance: 65% to both (it's hard to hit that 75% all the time, 65% is not)
Let's hit him now with the 78547 BO3! Again, the damage is going to shred the shields. How much damage do the shields eat this time though? 38000 of the damage removed. 40547 remaining and after resists, 14191.5 done to the hull. 35473.5 remaining hull.
Against the resist, let's see what the following shot will do...
BO2: 67313 * 0.35 = 23559.6
HY3: 96131.4 * 0.35 = 33646
TS3: 76905.4 * 0.35 = 26916.9
While none of them will pop him (unlike when he was Target#1), it's clear that the BO2 was the worst choice in this scenario. Depending on how he reacts, he's likely been killed by the CRF fire from DHCs mixed in with the BO3+whatever.
Let's do another target! Target#3...let's move him into a Wells with the Fleet Shields, eh?
Target#3
Shield Health: 13800ish
Shield Damage Reduction: 75% (w/o 0.95)
Hull Health: 41250ish
Hull Damage Resistance: 65% to both (it's hard to hit that 75% all the time, 65% is not)
Let's hit him once again with the 78547 BO3! Yep, shields are still going to pop. What's the EHP? 55200 or so, so 23347 gets passed along to the hull - reduced by the resistance - for 8171.5 damage. Leaves 33078.5 or so damage.
The rest basically follows Target#2...
Okay, so what have we seen so far? That there's been so much TRIBBLE that's been added to the game - that the single BO3 could pop folks...that a single BO3 and whatever could pop other folks...and that for many situations, the BO3+BO2 is the worst choice...
...so why are folks running the double tap? Cause with Target#2 and Target#3, it's not just about those buffed resistances...there's also going to be healing.
Let's take Target#3's shields and do another comparison. We already know what the BO3 could do...boom...gone. Let's look at what the HY3 would do against them, eh?
Target#3
Shield Health: 13800ish
Shield Damage Reduction: 75% (w/o 0.95)
But wait...in addition to the Shield Damage Reduction listed there, there's an innate 75% kinetic resistance that shields have.
That HY3 doing 96131.4 damage...well...
96131.4 * 0.25 = 24032.85 * 0.25 = 6008 * 1.05 (res shields for kinetic, 5% doesn't go to the ether - it's absorbed by the shields) = 6308.6 damage...
From 96131.4 to 6308.6 damage.
Basically, if 6310 shield healing is done through some means between the BO3 hitting and the HY3 hitting...what was the best choice suddenly becomes the second worst choice. The TS3 (outside of having a 100% to-hit) would be the worst choice.
Tada...2x BO.
So what's the potential TLDR for all of this?
TLDR:
1) The change will not likely increase the TTD of the average player in Ker'rat or pugging the queues. If anything, it may actually reduce the TTD as folks move back to BO+HYorTS.
2) Premades are doing different things as is - so they'll continue to adapt.
3) It does nothing about the following:
A) Potential Damage Extremes
C) Potential Healing Extremes
D) Disparity that exists with those Extremes
i) Gearing
ii) Teamwork/Coordination
edit: In case it was missed, yeah - those Quants were without any Tac consoles - only specific energy Tac consoles. HY/TS w/o consoles hit hull harder than BO w/ consoles. It's the 75% kinetic resist from shields that neuters torps in general...unless that facing is dropped just as the torps hit.
I totally agree with you about helping pug matches (well maybe, some pugs cant even use TT and EPtS), it will make most premade matches last forever again. This may be a good thing, at least for a little bit. Insta-vaping was a band-aide to too much healing. Hawk has been talking about ways to reduce healing and his ideas seem good, such that, they wont change pve and they'll help pvp. I think instead of complaining (as a pvp community) we should move on and start talking about other ways to help, like too much heals and resists.
Chalange accepted,i allways wanted a revenge after the match we lost 7-6, my team was not ready to fight ur thing but now we are 1000 % ready
by the way i never used broken stull in premade match ... only one time cryox used it in kerrat agaist the turks, and it did the tour of the world lol
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