In short:
What: Percentage based healing.
Why: To put an end to spike healing and make healing regulation easier by reducing the variables to 4 numbers.
More detailed explanation: See below
I know lots of people complain about healing vs damage and I know that you have to try to balance healing across multiple ship classes with varying resistance, health, etc capabilities and for this reason you included auxiliary power in multiple heals, I would suggest (and have explained in multiple threads) using percentages in all heals. (Formula for Aux2SIF shown below)
A= Max hull (1000)
B= Percentage of max hull (in this case 10%)
C= Aux mod (0.02)
D= Aux Power (25)
E= Base heal (100)
F= Aux bonus (50%)
G= End Heal (150)
So; E=A*B and F=C*D
Heal formula: G=E+(E*F)
This would take some tweaking I think in the base percentage and in the auxiliary power modifier to finalise the balancing of the heals themselves but it would make life a lot easier, you can apply the formula to shields heals as well as hull, you could repurpose the skill table repair skills to boost the percentages that dictate the base figures. Due to healboats this should use the caster's stats to calculate the heal rather than the target.
This has the power to make healing very easy to regulate and remove the spike healing that results in 10% to 100% HP
I know you could balance the numbers in your formula but with my current hull hit points and aux bonus AtSIF would be around 16k. that is without any skills points being used. Right now my AtSif III heals about 10k.
I don't know if it will help you or not but here is how I think the current math works behind AtSIF hull heal
=(600*(1+(ability lvl-1)/3))*(skill points in hull repair/200+1)*(ship tier*0.5+0.5)*(((aux power-50)*0.01)+1)
some of this could be fixed by removing the "move only to this direction" I have problems killing somebody because they fly above me, and I cannot aim above me, I have to circle up and then I can shoot, and then at that point he went more up and up and then they QQ about being in the end of the map. I hate to say this but one of the reasons is abusing the targetting system to avoid damage and therefore allowing more time for healing.
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One thing that seems to be a recurring theme whether people are proposing new power mechanics or crew mechanics or changes to cooldowns or whatever, is that we need to reduce how much people can do at once. This is also at the heart of the "escorts online" argument, since a Tac captain in an escort is able to maintain enough healing to keep himself alive while also maintaining the highest spike and DPS potential possible. This is a consequence of being able to use almost all of your active powers simultaneously, stacking both damage output as well as healing/resist.
What if we simply limit how many active powers you can run at once? Not a shared cooldown, because it doesn't affect CD. Just how many can be in active status at once. Let's just call the currency for this "action points" to keep it as generic as possible for now, and look at just Boff powers. Let's say captain Tac/Scort is coming in for an alpha and has 12 AP to work with, and he's got it broken down as such:
That's a pretty typical arrangement. He's got his constant buff cycle of two EPtX powers, and he's prebuffed BO3 going for the double tap. He's in good shape. As he swoops in to make this attack, he hits his CRF and APO to get them going, but he's been noticed by the other guy's team. He gets focused by the other guy's team mates who saw it coming. He goes for his RSP2 but... oh **** he's got no AP until something wears off. His BO fires, freeing 3 AP, so he hits RSP2. His AP is all in use again, locking out his second BO3 even though the CD is done. His double tap spike kill is ruined. He's also taking bleedthrough damage despite the RSP. Once his APO and CRF finish, he's freed 7 AP. He can either go for broke and use that AP to trigger some more tactical buffs and try to finish his target, or try to heal, but not both.
In this case, there would need to be some standard/minimum lockout on AP when you use the ability, otherwise "instant" abilities like Aux2SIF or BO become OP compared to abilities that last over time like HE or CRF. Enough to force people to make choices about what they want to use when, but not to feel like they aren't able to get max performance when they want it. Am I offensive or defensive right now? Can I keep this attack up, or do I need to pull away and heal? Right now, you can do all of that at once, maybe you shouldn't.
Now, take the pool of "action points", and imagine it's the maximum output of your warp/singularity core. You can't draw more power than you can generate at one time. This mechanic we already have, in ship's power levels. Make all Boff powers draw ship's power from the associated subsystem. Remove power drain from weapons and remove passive bonuses related to current power level. Power levels are only there to run your Boff abilities. 125 weapon power gives you a lot of flexibility to drop damage buff after damage buff, but if your Shield power is only 50 it's gonna be a tight squeeze trying to heal your shields consistently. Powers with multiple effects may drain multiple subsystems, like APO drawing part of its power from weapons and part from engines.
We'd also need a balance pass on how much power people are generating, because if you can push most of your systems up near 100 with passive boosts, leech, etc this won't be much hindrance to you.
Anyway, just kinda spitballing. Maybe ship's power isn't the best way to implement it, but some finite limitation on how many active powers you can pile up at once would go a long way to solving these problems. Captain and ship/console powers should probably be included in the system as well, not just Boffs. I was just trying to keep the example simple.
I have more simultaneous powers running on my engi cruiser than I do on my tac escort. I am cycling 2x EPtS/EPtW plus 2x Aux2ID, plus running BO and whatever else I have available, while my escort is just using APA/FOMM and one cannon and one torp ability.
The real missing limits in the game are (broadly) opportunity cost sinks. Not many abilities have a built-in penalty, so all of the negatives come in the form of taking an ability at the expense of not being able to take some other ability. EG, you take EPtS1, what is the penalty? There isnt one, except that you cannot take EPtW1 in the same slot.
BUT ... and this is the real problem ... the game has a whole bunch of different pools where they will give you another opportunity to do something. Captain abilities, BOFF abilities, skill points, species traits, rep passives, rep abilities, weapon modifiers, equipment modifiers, ship modifiers, set modifiers, normal console modifiers, lockbox console modifiers, ..., ..., ...., Too many damn opportunity pools have completely eliminated opportunity costs from the game, and now its just about min-maxing over who can get the most trees the highest. Oh and player X can even have more trees than player Y just as a reward for running through a mill. Hard limits on skill points and modifiers, that is how you fix it, only then will opportunity costs mean something.
This is also at the heart of the "escorts online" argument, since a Tac captain in an escort is able to maintain enough healing to keep himself alive while also maintaining the highest spike and DPS potential possible.
This is a fallacy.
Only people who never play on organized teams think this.
As for your suggestion I really think it cuts too far, and too deep and is too much of a revamp of the entire game and how it works.
Not that it's a bad idea, but we don't need to revolutionize the game.
What would be best is a solution that tones down the extremes while keeping the middle enjoyable and allow for variance in builds & tactics.
There were even times when I'd get decloak Alpha'd (followed by a second Alpha from a non-cloaking Escort) and he'd knock off a shield facing and like half my hull. And by the time I reacted with my own buffs, I was already nearly fully topped off due to the other Pandas throwing me a million and a half heals.
I guess what I'm trying to say that burst applies to both healing and damage. Maybe we ended up being so reliant on burst damage because of yo-yo healing. Maybe incoming heals should face diminishing returns just as stacking sources of damage buffs.
Yet another reason why I dislike the idea of "magic space heals" that can be used on someone else. I shouldn't be able to heal somebody else's hull or remove their debuffs at a distance and more or less instantaneously. That's why those ships have an engineering crew?
Remote heals, if at all, should be more like Boarding Party in reverse... sending repair teams that reduce your own crew (with appropriate ramifications) and aren't instant fix.
But that's the way the game works and it's not likely to change so now we need another way to deal with it. Diminishing returns for heals might be one way, but then burst damage would have to be toned down across the board to compensate.
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But that's the way the game works and it's not likely to change so now we need another way to deal with it. Diminishing returns for heals might be one way, but then burst damage would have to be toned down across the board to compensate.
Well to be honest this thread when adjudicatorhawk mentioned in another thread that he didn't like a particular mechanic.
I'm not 100% sure which mechanics he is going to take a look at, and I have a conflicted opinion on the mechanic in question.
However the important part not to be lost is that it is very much a two sided coin and that burst healing, passive healing, passive mitigation have all ballooned and increased at the same rate as burst damage.
So builds have evolved to the point to deal the most burst in the least amount of time possible to cut down on the opposing team's chance to save the target - which if they do could literally see the target go from 2% hull to full hull and shields in the space of seconds.
This was a tactic that was used with some success by some, and much less success by others - until Romulans and their battlecloaks came and made this available to all.
So we have quite a conundrum, and to be very clear a lot of it is due to at least 1 full year or more of pretty consistent power creep in items, consoles & ship designs.
We could find a way out of this, but toning down burst and burst a lone is not the solution to all of our woes.
Toning down "double tap" beam overload builds that work well on escorts without being guaranteed kills but then get a huge power boost when you can battle cloak to protect your alpha and add more damage bonus.
I can tell you that against any kind of real, coordinated opposition just using 4x DHCs is certainly not enough to have a high rate of success every APA+SNB cycle.
I can also say that while it's fun tactically at times, at other times having to multi-chain SNBs on targets gets tiring, and draws fights out longer than I think PvP matches really need to be.
The backlash against this is because this game has long coddled the player, lapping mitigation layer on top of mitigation layer. Healing has long been the dominant force in this game's PvP.
Now, that all players are faced with much quicker deaths, we're seeing complaints about spike damage.
Yet another reason why I dislike the idea of "magic space heals" that can be used on someone else.
About magic space heals.
Magic space heals are OK, imo.
It allows for the creation of ship roles, it allows for an interesting level of teamwork beyond "shoot that guy".
If we have a problem with magic space heals, then we have to have a problem with magic space control that summons Gravity Elementals and Rays of Tractor Beams.
If all we had was run around frag fests, I could save myself the endless nights of PvE grinding and just go play something like Borderlands 2.
i really wish that the PvP AND PvE was more to the pacing of star trek bridge commander, where you never had any of those magic instant heals or " GTFO of dodge" ability's and you made use with what you had and co-ordinated with your team to get the job done and had a great time doing it.
It allows for the creation of ship roles, it allows for an interesting level of teamwork beyond "shoot that guy".
If we have a problem with magic space heals, then we have to have a problem with magic space control that summons Gravity Elementals and Rays of Tractor Beams.
If all we had was run around frag fests, I could save myself the endless nights of PvE grinding and just go play something like Borderlands 2.
Tbh, I'd prefer a mechanic where shields have high regen and cap w/low bleed through, but modest resists, and shield transfers/extends would be effective based on the senders power, cap, and distance from the target.
On the other hand hull repairs would be much lower and longer, but hulls/plating can have much higher resists (I'd go as high as the 90s depending on the stacking). Remote hull repairs would also be much less effective. Tbh, I'm liking the crew costs for remote hull repairs, though an established transporter range would be better than shuttle transfers. It would give high crew ships extra value for remote repairs. Potential for remote re-enforcement of hull resists based on similar mechanics of shield reps.
While I'm at it, might as well add ship injuries both mandatory and chance based based on current damage taken w/TSSx type skills doing the chance based injuries.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
i really wish that the PvP AND PvE was more to the pacing of star trek bridge commander, where you never had any of those magic instant heals or " GTFO of dodge" ability's and you made use with what you had and co-ordinated with your team to get the job done and had a great time doing it.
To be fair gtfo of dodge was used a storyline mechanic and not just cloaking, warp outs weren't uncommon. Also, shield extending was used as a "magic" damage immunity.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
It allows for the creation of ship roles, it allows for an interesting level of teamwork beyond "shoot that guy".
If we have a problem with magic space heals, then we have to have a problem with magic space control that summons Gravity Elementals and Rays of Tractor Beams.
But there's the Sci-Fi Magic and there's the Fantasy Magic. It's a Sci-Fi game, thus one would expect Sci-Fi Magic to take place. It's not a Fantasy game, thus some are taken aback by the amount of Fantasy Magic in the game.
Teamwork could easily exist without all the Fantasy Magic in the game. I think the bigger issue for folks, imho, would be the change of pacing that removing the Magic Healing would entail. It would "upset" folks from multiple angles. Folks would lose out on their vapes. Folks would lose out on their bragging about being invincible. Folks would have to adapt on a larger scale, rather than trying to work-in the latest that Cryptic's added.
Not everybody wants epic space battles...some folks are fine with their Elves flying around in starship armor and pew pewing with their magic wands. To them, that is epic. To others, they might as well just be playing a FPS/TPS...why bother with all the PvE grind?
Only people who never play on organized teams think this.
As for your suggestion I really think it cuts too far, and too deep and is too much of a revamp of the entire game and how it works.
Not that it's a bad idea, but we don't need to revolutionize the game.
What would be best is a solution that tones down the extremes while keeping the middle enjoyable and allow for variance in builds & tactics.
Sounds easy, is not easy.
I realize an organized team can put down an escort, but it shouldn't require coordination. It should be possible to play 1v1 where between players of equal skill, somebody will ultimately prevail. Currently, regardless who you pit against each other 1v1, if the players are equally skilled it'll be a stalemate. I'm sort of notorious among my fleet for being able to tank any 3 of them when we do PvP. Granted they're mostly PvE players who aren't built for spike, but come on. That's ridiculous in itself.
I agree my suggestion probably goes too far, but this idea of having a finite resource to limit how much one can do has been a consistent theme. I don't know if we'd ever be able to implement it because the rage from the PvE crowd would be immense, as would be the need to rebalance existing content. Can you clear ISE within the time limit if you can't tank the gateway indefinitely? If you have to break off and recover? That would be a problem nomatter how we go about this. Gimp resists and healing and the minute the PvE crowd starts blowing up again they'll flip.
Only people who never play on organized teams think this.
As for your suggestion I really think it cuts too far, and too deep and is too much of a revamp of the entire game and how it works.
Not that it's a bad idea, but we don't need to revolutionize the game.
What would be best is a solution that tones down the extremes while keeping the middle enjoyable and allow for variance in builds & tactics.
Sounds easy, is not easy.
The fallacy is yours. The fact that in organized teams, tacs need support, doesn't mean that in the remaining 99.9% of the game they largely don't. support is the name of the game in organized pvp, so every team member requires it, even sci.
Not enough glass, too much cannon, still holds true, imv. The GDF nerf, unpleasant as it was, was a step in the right direction. However, that was quickly compensated by Rommie BOs and battle cloak so that tacs/birds require less healing. Compared to bops all warbird stats bring alot of cannon with very little glass.
At the end of the day the PvP metagame is gonna be what it is and frankly, whatever we say is not going to influence it in any major way.
So what is the aim of the game? Plain and simple, adapting to the latest trends to possibly dictate the metagame.Those who do it the quickest, remain on top of their game and die less. Those who don't become history and start to die a lot.
So what are the choices? Adapt and stay competitive or sadly get stuck in a rut and die a lot. At this point in time, your next level choice is to quit the game completely, take a leave and come back to the game with a fresh outlook or just keep blowing up.
Granted, there are fringe elements like a2b cooled emp bursts or the black hole of old. At this junction you choose to use it or not as there are no rules in queues but rule them out in pre arranged fights with both parties agreeing.
Tbh, I'd prefer a mechanic where shields have high regen and cap w/low bleed through, but modest resists, and shield transfers/extends would be effective based on the senders power, cap, and distance from the target.
On the other hand hull repairs would be much lower and longer, but hulls/plating can have much higher resists (I'd go as high as the 90s depending on the stacking). Remote hull repairs would also be much less effective. Tbh, I'm liking the crew costs for remote hull repairs, though an established transporter range would be better than shuttle transfers. It would give high crew ships extra value for remote repairs. Potential for remote re-enforcement of hull resists based on similar mechanics of shield reps.
While I'm at it, might as well add ship injuries both mandatory and chance based based on current damage taken w/TSSx type skills doing the chance based injuries.
But there's the Sci-Fi Magic and there's the Fantasy Magic. It's a Sci-Fi game, thus one would expect Sci-Fi Magic to take place. It's not a Fantasy game, thus some are taken aback by the amount of Fantasy Magic in the game.
Teamwork could easily exist without all the Fantasy Magic in the game. I think the bigger issue for folks, imho, would be the change of pacing that removing the Magic Healing would entail. It would "upset" folks from multiple angles. Folks would lose out on their vapes. Folks would lose out on their bragging about being invincible. Folks would have to adapt on a larger scale, rather than trying to work-in the latest that Cryptic's added.
Not everybody wants epic space battles...some folks are fine with their Elves flying around in starship armor and pew pewing with their magic wands. To them, that is epic. To others, they might as well just be playing a FPS/TPS...why bother with all the PvE grind?
I'm not saying the system is perfect, or that neither or your ideas (both of yours) lack merit.
They do, you guys often have a lot of great points and good ideas.
I'm a realist.
I believe that we will never, ever, (queue the annoying Taylor Swift) have the kind of grand, sweeping revisions to this game's combat mechanics like some of yours and other players (good, and interesting) concepts contain.
Cryptic would be shooting themselves in the foot, you don't mess that much with a good thing and risk crashing the Arc that's housing your gilded calves (did I mix enough metaphors?:o)
So I'm focusing on the right now, what's doable with what we have and what we are likely to get.
Not enough glass, too much cannon, still holds true, imv. The GDF nerf, unpleasant as it was, was a step in the right direction. However, that was quickly compensated by Rommie BOs and battle cloak so that tacs/birds require less healing. Compared to bops all warbird stats bring alot of cannon with very little glass.
I won't argue that we have seen a ton of power creep, but tbh I'm also tired of people ignoring the fact that Sci and Eng can also use warbirds, can also use battlecloaks, and have more +Crit% & CritD available to them than even Tac's had with APA right up until LoR launched - might just tempt me to finally repping out my Reman Sci and letting loose. :P
Have you faced any well built Engineers in the queues recently? They are idiotically hard to kill, and sometimes even coordinated efforts (like the one's that kill Tacs) are just a massive waste of time.
None of us really want the constant influx of powercreep pushing the extremes of mitigation and damage further out.
Most of it is here to stay, the best we can look forward are to tweaks.
When I've finally had enough of the game, and can no longer do anything but rant or be angry in basically every post I ever make - instead of doing that I'll just move on.
Until then, I'll make threads like these and try to get some positive outcomes, with a goal of lessening the extremes a bit (on both ends of the mitigation vs. damage conversation).
I believe that we will never, ever, (queue the annoying Taylor Swift) have the kind of grand, sweeping revisions to this game's combat mechanics...
I believe that too. I'm pretty sure that's what Hawk came out and told folks.
At the same time though, I do not believe that any little tweaks will fix anything - if anything, the little tweaks will just end up making things worse as we end up with a cascade of tweaks that need to be made - are slowly made - because something was overlooked with the little tweak...and that it would end up making things worse in the end.
Take the simplest change. Then consider everything that direct affects that. Then consider everything that indirectly affects that. Then consider everything it directly affects. Then consider everything that it indirectly affects. Then consider any future things that it may directly or indirectly be affected by and anything it may directly or indirectly affect. Then consider that some enterprising player is likely to use it to affect directly or indirectly affect something you did not consider - as well as the things that they may use directly or indirectly to affect it.
It's like playing Jenga with a plate of spaghetti...
...little changes aren't going to cut it, that meatball's going to roll off the plate - off the table - and drop down to the floor.
might just tempt me to finally repping out my Reman Sci and letting loose. :P
With the Reman being able to take Infiltrator, you don't have to trade in a Sup Op for the Inf...which means you can get a better Op from the BOFF than the OP you get from the Rom Captain - depending on what you're looking at doing with the overall build.
depending on what you're looking at doing with the overall build.
I'm thinking I'll stack as much Crit % chance as I can, find a ship/build that makes me hard to ignore and reasonably difficult to kill and then try to squeeze as much pain out of Conservation of Energy as the game mechanics will allow.
(He's Reman, mostly because I wanted one and because the +DEF would be better to fall back on if the above build doesn't work out as planned).
I believe that too. I'm pretty sure that's what Hawk came out and told folks.
At the same time though, I do not believe that any little tweaks will fix anything - if anything, the little tweaks will just end up making things worse as we end up with a cascade of tweaks that need to be made - are slowly made - because something was overlooked with the little tweak...and that it would end up making things worse in the end.
Take the simplest change. Then consider everything that direct affects that. Then consider everything that indirectly affects that. Then consider everything it directly affects. Then consider everything that it indirectly affects. Then consider any future things that it may directly or indirectly be affected by and anything it may directly or indirectly affect. Then consider that some enterprising player is likely to use it to affect directly or indirectly affect something you did not consider - as well as the things that they may use directly or indirectly to affect it.
It's like playing Jenga with a plate of spaghetti...
...little changes aren't going to cut it, that meatball's going to roll off the plate - off the table - and drop down to the floor.
Well, in some respects we do need a bit of a broader approach when it comes to PvP directly.
I just don't see the humongously complicated overhauls like the ones people often suggest, "multiply hull x4" for example or "only able to use a few BOFF powers at once".
Those are massive mechanics revisions that I don't think would ever happen.
Now, how about:
Diminishing returns on heal-stacking (who would actually notice this in PvE?)
or
Antonio's TT revision, which grants perma-shield rebalancing at 50% strength of current TT and TT would do...something else.
This are "tweaks" imo, but they would have fairly large effects in the change of the metagame.
Something like the above could be followed with some method of then toning down spike and at least start to mellow out the extremes a bit.
I believe that we will never, ever, (queue the annoying Taylor Swift) have the kind of grand, sweeping revisions to this game's combat mechanics like some of yours and other players (good, and interesting) concepts contain.
I dont agree with that at all, for several reasons. At a basic level, they already made grand sweeping changes before, which is evidence that they are willing to do it, so really it is a question of motivation.
Change is coming whether STO wants it or not. Right now, STO is the #2 space MMO behind Eve (way behind), especially for the hard-core comitted players (they still pay subs for their space ships). What will happen if/when Star Citizen comes out and draws the PVP monkeys out of this game? Cryptic has to choose now, are they going to invest to keep those players and attract more of them, or are they going to narrow the focus onto the core player community and write off PVP entirely. STO can handle being #2, can they handle being #3, especially when they are focused on churning? The Star Trek franchise will keep drawing people in but being #3 is tough, and puts the game closer to being a maintenance title.
The game combat systems need to be remade with PVP balance as the main design point. PVE combat can be scaled to PVP from there. Either that, or commit to a player base that likes the current single-player focus, and forget about PVP entirely. Either way is a radical change.
What if damage resistance was made to be inversely proportional to healing? So that someone who maintained high damage resist would have reduced heals, and if you wanted strong spike heals, you would have to sacrifice res, and maybe even defense?
Or maybe have a separate 'heal resistance' stat - which you could debuff so that heals and resistance would be less effective, or buff so that the opposite happened?
What if damage resistance was made to be inversely proportional to healing? So that someone who maintained high damage resist would have reduced heals, and if you wanted strong spike heals, you would have to sacrifice res, and maybe even defense?
Or maybe have a separate 'heal resistance' stat - which you could debuff so that heals and resistance would be less effective, or buff so that the opposite happened?
Just tossing ideas out.
You can't touch heals without looking at resistances and damage as well. They're not isolated...
We've seen increases in all three...imho, mostly in damage because of CrtH/CrtD. There are no Critical Heals, but Critical Damage is becoming all that much more common.
One thing that seems to be a recurring theme whether people are proposing new power mechanics or crew mechanics or changes to cooldowns or whatever, is that we need to reduce how much people can do at once. This is also at the heart of the "escorts online" argument, since a Tac captain in an escort is able to maintain enough healing to keep himself alive while also maintaining the highest spike and DPS potential possible. This is a consequence of being able to use almost all of your active powers simultaneously, stacking both damage output as well as healing/resist.
What if we simply limit how many active powers you can run at once? Not a shared cooldown, because it doesn't affect CD. Just how many can be in active status at once. Let's just call the currency for this "action points" to keep it as generic as possible for now, and look at just Boff powers. Let's say captain Tac/Scort is coming in for an alpha and has 12 AP to work with, and he's got it broken down as such:
That's a pretty typical arrangement. He's got his constant buff cycle of two EPtX powers, and he's prebuffed BO3 going for the double tap. He's in good shape. As he swoops in to make this attack, he hits his CRF and APO to get them going, but he's been noticed by the other guy's team. He gets focused by the other guy's team mates who saw it coming. He goes for his RSP2 but... oh **** he's got no AP until something wears off. His BO fires, freeing 3 AP, so he hits RSP2. His AP is all in use again, locking out his second BO3 even though the CD is done. His double tap spike kill is ruined. He's also taking bleedthrough damage despite the RSP. Once his APO and CRF finish, he's freed 7 AP. He can either go for broke and use that AP to trigger some more tactical buffs and try to finish his target, or try to heal, but not both.
In this case, there would need to be some standard/minimum lockout on AP when you use the ability, otherwise "instant" abilities like Aux2SIF or BO become OP compared to abilities that last over time like HE or CRF. Enough to force people to make choices about what they want to use when, but not to feel like they aren't able to get max performance when they want it. Am I offensive or defensive right now? Can I keep this attack up, or do I need to pull away and heal? Right now, you can do all of that at once, maybe you shouldn't.
Now, take the pool of "action points", and imagine it's the maximum output of your warp/singularity core. You can't draw more power than you can generate at one time. This mechanic we already have, in ship's power levels. Make all Boff powers draw ship's power from the associated subsystem. Remove power drain from weapons and remove passive bonuses related to current power level. Power levels are only there to run your Boff abilities. 125 weapon power gives you a lot of flexibility to drop damage buff after damage buff, but if your Shield power is only 50 it's gonna be a tight squeeze trying to heal your shields consistently. Powers with multiple effects may drain multiple subsystems, like APO drawing part of its power from weapons and part from engines.
We'd also need a balance pass on how much power people are generating, because if you can push most of your systems up near 100 with passive boosts, leech, etc this won't be much hindrance to you.
Anyway, just kinda spitballing. Maybe ship's power isn't the best way to implement it, but some finite limitation on how many active powers you can pile up at once would go a long way to solving these problems. Captain and ship/console powers should probably be included in the system as well, not just Boffs. I was just trying to keep the example simple.
I like this concept, some sort of a pool of ability power is a great idea.
Comments
I know you could balance the numbers in your formula but with my current hull hit points and aux bonus AtSIF would be around 16k. that is without any skills points being used. Right now my AtSif III heals about 10k.
I don't know if it will help you or not but here is how I think the current math works behind AtSIF hull heal
=(600*(1+(ability lvl-1)/3))*(skill points in hull repair/200+1)*(ship tier*0.5+0.5)*(((aux power-50)*0.01)+1)
CUUCUUMBEER! "-With slight partigen with it."
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What if we simply limit how many active powers you can run at once? Not a shared cooldown, because it doesn't affect CD. Just how many can be in active status at once. Let's just call the currency for this "action points" to keep it as generic as possible for now, and look at just Boff powers. Let's say captain Tac/Scort is coming in for an alpha and has 12 AP to work with, and he's got it broken down as such:
EPtE1 - 1AP
EPtS2 - 2AP
CRF1 - 2AP
BO3 - 3AP
APO3 - 4AP
That's a pretty typical arrangement. He's got his constant buff cycle of two EPtX powers, and he's prebuffed BO3 going for the double tap. He's in good shape. As he swoops in to make this attack, he hits his CRF and APO to get them going, but he's been noticed by the other guy's team. He gets focused by the other guy's team mates who saw it coming. He goes for his RSP2 but... oh **** he's got no AP until something wears off. His BO fires, freeing 3 AP, so he hits RSP2. His AP is all in use again, locking out his second BO3 even though the CD is done. His double tap spike kill is ruined. He's also taking bleedthrough damage despite the RSP. Once his APO and CRF finish, he's freed 7 AP. He can either go for broke and use that AP to trigger some more tactical buffs and try to finish his target, or try to heal, but not both.
In this case, there would need to be some standard/minimum lockout on AP when you use the ability, otherwise "instant" abilities like Aux2SIF or BO become OP compared to abilities that last over time like HE or CRF. Enough to force people to make choices about what they want to use when, but not to feel like they aren't able to get max performance when they want it. Am I offensive or defensive right now? Can I keep this attack up, or do I need to pull away and heal? Right now, you can do all of that at once, maybe you shouldn't.
Now, take the pool of "action points", and imagine it's the maximum output of your warp/singularity core. You can't draw more power than you can generate at one time. This mechanic we already have, in ship's power levels. Make all Boff powers draw ship's power from the associated subsystem. Remove power drain from weapons and remove passive bonuses related to current power level. Power levels are only there to run your Boff abilities. 125 weapon power gives you a lot of flexibility to drop damage buff after damage buff, but if your Shield power is only 50 it's gonna be a tight squeeze trying to heal your shields consistently. Powers with multiple effects may drain multiple subsystems, like APO drawing part of its power from weapons and part from engines.
We'd also need a balance pass on how much power people are generating, because if you can push most of your systems up near 100 with passive boosts, leech, etc this won't be much hindrance to you.
Anyway, just kinda spitballing. Maybe ship's power isn't the best way to implement it, but some finite limitation on how many active powers you can pile up at once would go a long way to solving these problems. Captain and ship/console powers should probably be included in the system as well, not just Boffs. I was just trying to keep the example simple.
The real missing limits in the game are (broadly) opportunity cost sinks. Not many abilities have a built-in penalty, so all of the negatives come in the form of taking an ability at the expense of not being able to take some other ability. EG, you take EPtS1, what is the penalty? There isnt one, except that you cannot take EPtW1 in the same slot.
BUT ... and this is the real problem ... the game has a whole bunch of different pools where they will give you another opportunity to do something. Captain abilities, BOFF abilities, skill points, species traits, rep passives, rep abilities, weapon modifiers, equipment modifiers, ship modifiers, set modifiers, normal console modifiers, lockbox console modifiers, ..., ..., ...., Too many damn opportunity pools have completely eliminated opportunity costs from the game, and now its just about min-maxing over who can get the most trees the highest. Oh and player X can even have more trees than player Y just as a reward for running through a mill. Hard limits on skill points and modifiers, that is how you fix it, only then will opportunity costs mean something.
This is a fallacy.
Only people who never play on organized teams think this.
As for your suggestion I really think it cuts too far, and too deep and is too much of a revamp of the entire game and how it works.
Not that it's a bad idea, but we don't need to revolutionize the game.
What would be best is a solution that tones down the extremes while keeping the middle enjoyable and allow for variance in builds & tactics.
Sounds easy, is not easy.
Yet another reason why I dislike the idea of "magic space heals" that can be used on someone else. I shouldn't be able to heal somebody else's hull or remove their debuffs at a distance and more or less instantaneously. That's why those ships have an engineering crew?
Remote heals, if at all, should be more like Boarding Party in reverse... sending repair teams that reduce your own crew (with appropriate ramifications) and aren't instant fix.
But that's the way the game works and it's not likely to change so now we need another way to deal with it. Diminishing returns for heals might be one way, but then burst damage would have to be toned down across the board to compensate.
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Well to be honest this thread when adjudicatorhawk mentioned in another thread that he didn't like a particular mechanic.
I'm not 100% sure which mechanics he is going to take a look at, and I have a conflicted opinion on the mechanic in question.
However the important part not to be lost is that it is very much a two sided coin and that burst healing, passive healing, passive mitigation have all ballooned and increased at the same rate as burst damage.
So builds have evolved to the point to deal the most burst in the least amount of time possible to cut down on the opposing team's chance to save the target - which if they do could literally see the target go from 2% hull to full hull and shields in the space of seconds.
This was a tactic that was used with some success by some, and much less success by others - until Romulans and their battlecloaks came and made this available to all.
So we have quite a conundrum, and to be very clear a lot of it is due to at least 1 full year or more of pretty consistent power creep in items, consoles & ship designs.
We could find a way out of this, but toning down burst and burst a lone is not the solution to all of our woes.
Toning down "double tap" beam overload builds that work well on escorts without being guaranteed kills but then get a huge power boost when you can battle cloak to protect your alpha and add more damage bonus.
I can tell you that against any kind of real, coordinated opposition just using 4x DHCs is certainly not enough to have a high rate of success every APA+SNB cycle.
I can also say that while it's fun tactically at times, at other times having to multi-chain SNBs on targets gets tiring, and draws fights out longer than I think PvP matches really need to be.
The backlash against this is because this game has long coddled the player, lapping mitigation layer on top of mitigation layer. Healing has long been the dominant force in this game's PvP.
Now, that all players are faced with much quicker deaths, we're seeing complaints about spike damage.
But, it is PvP. Someone has to die.
About magic space heals.
Magic space heals are OK, imo.
It allows for the creation of ship roles, it allows for an interesting level of teamwork beyond "shoot that guy".
If we have a problem with magic space heals, then we have to have a problem with magic space control that summons Gravity Elementals and Rays of Tractor Beams.
If all we had was run around frag fests, I could save myself the endless nights of PvE grinding and just go play something like Borderlands 2.
Tbh, I'd prefer a mechanic where shields have high regen and cap w/low bleed through, but modest resists, and shield transfers/extends would be effective based on the senders power, cap, and distance from the target.
On the other hand hull repairs would be much lower and longer, but hulls/plating can have much higher resists (I'd go as high as the 90s depending on the stacking). Remote hull repairs would also be much less effective. Tbh, I'm liking the crew costs for remote hull repairs, though an established transporter range would be better than shuttle transfers. It would give high crew ships extra value for remote repairs. Potential for remote re-enforcement of hull resists based on similar mechanics of shield reps.
While I'm at it, might as well add ship injuries both mandatory and chance based based on current damage taken w/TSSx type skills doing the chance based injuries.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
To be fair gtfo of dodge was used a storyline mechanic and not just cloaking, warp outs weren't uncommon. Also, shield extending was used as a "magic" damage immunity.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
But there's the Sci-Fi Magic and there's the Fantasy Magic. It's a Sci-Fi game, thus one would expect Sci-Fi Magic to take place. It's not a Fantasy game, thus some are taken aback by the amount of Fantasy Magic in the game.
Teamwork could easily exist without all the Fantasy Magic in the game. I think the bigger issue for folks, imho, would be the change of pacing that removing the Magic Healing would entail. It would "upset" folks from multiple angles. Folks would lose out on their vapes. Folks would lose out on their bragging about being invincible. Folks would have to adapt on a larger scale, rather than trying to work-in the latest that Cryptic's added.
Not everybody wants epic space battles...some folks are fine with their Elves flying around in starship armor and pew pewing with their magic wands. To them, that is epic. To others, they might as well just be playing a FPS/TPS...why bother with all the PvE grind?
I realize an organized team can put down an escort, but it shouldn't require coordination. It should be possible to play 1v1 where between players of equal skill, somebody will ultimately prevail. Currently, regardless who you pit against each other 1v1, if the players are equally skilled it'll be a stalemate. I'm sort of notorious among my fleet for being able to tank any 3 of them when we do PvP. Granted they're mostly PvE players who aren't built for spike, but come on. That's ridiculous in itself.
I agree my suggestion probably goes too far, but this idea of having a finite resource to limit how much one can do has been a consistent theme. I don't know if we'd ever be able to implement it because the rage from the PvE crowd would be immense, as would be the need to rebalance existing content. Can you clear ISE within the time limit if you can't tank the gateway indefinitely? If you have to break off and recover? That would be a problem nomatter how we go about this. Gimp resists and healing and the minute the PvE crowd starts blowing up again they'll flip.
The fallacy is yours. The fact that in organized teams, tacs need support, doesn't mean that in the remaining 99.9% of the game they largely don't. support is the name of the game in organized pvp, so every team member requires it, even sci.
Not enough glass, too much cannon, still holds true, imv. The GDF nerf, unpleasant as it was, was a step in the right direction. However, that was quickly compensated by Rommie BOs and battle cloak so that tacs/birds require less healing. Compared to bops all warbird stats bring alot of cannon with very little glass.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
So what is the aim of the game? Plain and simple, adapting to the latest trends to possibly dictate the metagame.Those who do it the quickest, remain on top of their game and die less. Those who don't become history and start to die a lot.
So what are the choices? Adapt and stay competitive or sadly get stuck in a rut and die a lot. At this point in time, your next level choice is to quit the game completely, take a leave and come back to the game with a fresh outlook or just keep blowing up.
Granted, there are fringe elements like a2b cooled emp bursts or the black hole of old. At this junction you choose to use it or not as there are no rules in queues but rule them out in pre arranged fights with both parties agreeing.
I'm not saying the system is perfect, or that neither or your ideas (both of yours) lack merit.
They do, you guys often have a lot of great points and good ideas.
I'm a realist.
I believe that we will never, ever, (queue the annoying Taylor Swift) have the kind of grand, sweeping revisions to this game's combat mechanics like some of yours and other players (good, and interesting) concepts contain.
Cryptic would be shooting themselves in the foot, you don't mess that much with a good thing and risk crashing the Arc that's housing your gilded calves (did I mix enough metaphors?:o)
So I'm focusing on the right now, what's doable with what we have and what we are likely to get.
I won't argue that we have seen a ton of power creep, but tbh I'm also tired of people ignoring the fact that Sci and Eng can also use warbirds, can also use battlecloaks, and have more +Crit% & CritD available to them than even Tac's had with APA right up until LoR launched - might just tempt me to finally repping out my Reman Sci and letting loose. :P
Have you faced any well built Engineers in the queues recently? They are idiotically hard to kill, and sometimes even coordinated efforts (like the one's that kill Tacs) are just a massive waste of time.
None of us really want the constant influx of powercreep pushing the extremes of mitigation and damage further out.
Most of it is here to stay, the best we can look forward are to tweaks.
When I've finally had enough of the game, and can no longer do anything but rant or be angry in basically every post I ever make - instead of doing that I'll just move on.
Until then, I'll make threads like these and try to get some positive outcomes, with a goal of lessening the extremes a bit (on both ends of the mitigation vs. damage conversation).
I believe that too. I'm pretty sure that's what Hawk came out and told folks.
At the same time though, I do not believe that any little tweaks will fix anything - if anything, the little tweaks will just end up making things worse as we end up with a cascade of tweaks that need to be made - are slowly made - because something was overlooked with the little tweak...and that it would end up making things worse in the end.
Take the simplest change. Then consider everything that direct affects that. Then consider everything that indirectly affects that. Then consider everything it directly affects. Then consider everything that it indirectly affects. Then consider any future things that it may directly or indirectly be affected by and anything it may directly or indirectly affect. Then consider that some enterprising player is likely to use it to affect directly or indirectly affect something you did not consider - as well as the things that they may use directly or indirectly to affect it.
It's like playing Jenga with a plate of spaghetti...
...little changes aren't going to cut it, that meatball's going to roll off the plate - off the table - and drop down to the floor.
With the Reman being able to take Infiltrator, you don't have to trade in a Sup Op for the Inf...which means you can get a better Op from the BOFF than the OP you get from the Rom Captain - depending on what you're looking at doing with the overall build.
I'm thinking I'll stack as much Crit % chance as I can, find a ship/build that makes me hard to ignore and reasonably difficult to kill and then try to squeeze as much pain out of Conservation of Energy as the game mechanics will allow.
(He's Reman, mostly because I wanted one and because the +DEF would be better to fall back on if the above build doesn't work out as planned).
Well, in some respects we do need a bit of a broader approach when it comes to PvP directly.
I just don't see the humongously complicated overhauls like the ones people often suggest, "multiply hull x4" for example or "only able to use a few BOFF powers at once".
Those are massive mechanics revisions that I don't think would ever happen.
Now, how about:
Diminishing returns on heal-stacking (who would actually notice this in PvE?)
or
Antonio's TT revision, which grants perma-shield rebalancing at 50% strength of current TT and TT would do...something else.
This are "tweaks" imo, but they would have fairly large effects in the change of the metagame.
Something like the above could be followed with some method of then toning down spike and at least start to mellow out the extremes a bit.
R'Mor are more better than Wells/Korath because of the BOFFs.
Change is coming whether STO wants it or not. Right now, STO is the #2 space MMO behind Eve (way behind), especially for the hard-core comitted players (they still pay subs for their space ships). What will happen if/when Star Citizen comes out and draws the PVP monkeys out of this game? Cryptic has to choose now, are they going to invest to keep those players and attract more of them, or are they going to narrow the focus onto the core player community and write off PVP entirely. STO can handle being #2, can they handle being #3, especially when they are focused on churning? The Star Trek franchise will keep drawing people in but being #3 is tough, and puts the game closer to being a maintenance title.
The game combat systems need to be remade with PVP balance as the main design point. PVE combat can be scaled to PVP from there. Either that, or commit to a player base that likes the current single-player focus, and forget about PVP entirely. Either way is a radical change.
What if damage resistance was made to be inversely proportional to healing? So that someone who maintained high damage resist would have reduced heals, and if you wanted strong spike heals, you would have to sacrifice res, and maybe even defense?
Or maybe have a separate 'heal resistance' stat - which you could debuff so that heals and resistance would be less effective, or buff so that the opposite happened?
Just tossing ideas out.
You can't touch heals without looking at resistances and damage as well. They're not isolated...
We've seen increases in all three...imho, mostly in damage because of CrtH/CrtD. There are no Critical Heals, but Critical Damage is becoming all that much more common.
I like this concept, some sort of a pool of ability power is a great idea.
Top 10 Best Sci-Fi MMORPG http://blog.games.com/2013/03/07/top-10-best-sci-fi-mmorpgs/
Lol, Scarlet TRIBBLE...
...and seriously, some of the games on that list are hardly Sci-Fi much less actual MMOs.
EVE and STO are not competitors. SC's not going to be a competitor for either game either.