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Breaking the Cycle: The Dichotomy of Damage and Healing
sgtstarfall
Member Posts: 205 Arc User
I've been watching and reading the forums for quite awhile now (and may I add, in great amusement) and there seems to be a recurring theme between every single update on STO - Two camps of people complaining either that "ermahgawd Tact damage is now going to be OP" or "ermahgawd their resistance and/or defense rating of that ship is over 9000!"
However, I find the irony of all of this is that: at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much Cryptic/PWE buffs damage or healing - People will get blown up and cry for more resistances and more heals. The same can be said about those who can't blow up others - they will inevitably cry for more damage one way or another.
This is exactly what has been happening for the course of the 2 years that I've been playing and now we've come to a where we have to ask: has Cryptic/PWE actually solved anything in regards to the balance and power between the three classes by releasing new ships, gears, and mechanics? The answer is sadly, no.
But few people have come to question exactly: why is this? Why is there never enough damage or healing/tanking? The answer is simple, but also a bit hard to explain, so I'll answer in two parts; the first with a tale (Directly taken from one of my previous posts):
Part 1:
When I first started STO, space combat was amazing and in a very good sense, balanced:
Every phaser and torpedo fired went with anticipation. Shield facings were a concern and when a torpedo/cannons hit your hulls, it was devastating. This was the time when every shot counted and damage actually stuck and meant something. Hull damage was not simply brushed aside with abilities and nobody had insane amounts of damage burst. People could not fight forever, but at the same time, did not blow up instantly.
Part 2:
With part 1 aside, I must also address the "imbalance" and "usefulness" of each career (Tac, Engi, Sci). The problem does not lie in the fact that one class does more damage than the other. The problem is that there is only one way to destroy a ship/object, which means that every class is vying for #1 in the same department - Damage. The cycle between raising damage and then raising resistances/healing WILL NEVER END.
So how do we fix all of this? I have but only several proposals - this does not mean that it's 100% flawless and it means there could be other ways of achieving the same thing:
1. Proportionally reduce the damage of burst skills like Beam Overload (and perhaps lower energy drain of BO) AND reduce the effectiveness of cross healing, such as hazard emitters, Transfer shield strength, EPtShields, etc.
2. Add more defeat conditions, such as 0 crew = non-functional ship/ prone to boarding party takeovers. Or add a condition where if a ship is completely drained of power to start to lose life support and be considered "defeated". Anything besides blowing up the ship with more damages.
And this is now where I will entrust the forum members of STO to let loose their geniuses for the devs to (hopefully) see. But just in case, I shall also retreat to my anti-flame bunker. :P
P.S. sorry for the wall of text. I hope someone actually takes time to read it though xD
However, I find the irony of all of this is that: at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much Cryptic/PWE buffs damage or healing - People will get blown up and cry for more resistances and more heals. The same can be said about those who can't blow up others - they will inevitably cry for more damage one way or another.
This is exactly what has been happening for the course of the 2 years that I've been playing and now we've come to a where we have to ask: has Cryptic/PWE actually solved anything in regards to the balance and power between the three classes by releasing new ships, gears, and mechanics? The answer is sadly, no.
But few people have come to question exactly: why is this? Why is there never enough damage or healing/tanking? The answer is simple, but also a bit hard to explain, so I'll answer in two parts; the first with a tale (Directly taken from one of my previous posts):
Part 1:
When I first started STO, space combat was amazing and in a very good sense, balanced:
Every phaser and torpedo fired went with anticipation. Shield facings were a concern and when a torpedo/cannons hit your hulls, it was devastating. This was the time when every shot counted and damage actually stuck and meant something. Hull damage was not simply brushed aside with abilities and nobody had insane amounts of damage burst. People could not fight forever, but at the same time, did not blow up instantly.
Part 2:
With part 1 aside, I must also address the "imbalance" and "usefulness" of each career (Tac, Engi, Sci). The problem does not lie in the fact that one class does more damage than the other. The problem is that there is only one way to destroy a ship/object, which means that every class is vying for #1 in the same department - Damage. The cycle between raising damage and then raising resistances/healing WILL NEVER END.
So how do we fix all of this? I have but only several proposals - this does not mean that it's 100% flawless and it means there could be other ways of achieving the same thing:
1. Proportionally reduce the damage of burst skills like Beam Overload (and perhaps lower energy drain of BO) AND reduce the effectiveness of cross healing, such as hazard emitters, Transfer shield strength, EPtShields, etc.
2. Add more defeat conditions, such as 0 crew = non-functional ship/ prone to boarding party takeovers. Or add a condition where if a ship is completely drained of power to start to lose life support and be considered "defeated". Anything besides blowing up the ship with more damages.
And this is now where I will entrust the forum members of STO to let loose their geniuses for the devs to (hopefully) see. But just in case, I shall also retreat to my anti-flame bunker. :P
P.S. sorry for the wall of text. I hope someone actually takes time to read it though xD
__________________________________________________
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All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
Post edited by sgtstarfall on
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Comments
Draining power means TR gets nerfed back to stone age again.
DPS is the only way to kill stuff, simply because anything else breaks the game.
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That's fine if Theta Radiation gets nerfed a bit. Of course, everything that deals with crew death and power drainage will have to be rebalanced. I am by no means saying "keep everything the way it is and introduce new defeat conditions".
However, creating more defeat conditions will let other classes shine in different areas yet still be effective in combat.
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Your post was well thought out and reasonable.
However, you overlook a crucial element. People are insane. We are an inherently irrational species. Regardless of the system, their will be greed, envy, and paranoia. There will always be "ermahgawd". It's who we are.
A moot point though, as no one spends zen for balance, PWE has no incentive to provide it.
Cryptic's made it pretty clear that they want almost any level of player to have fun - that's where they've aimed for balance. The more "ability" a player has, the more likely you're to see imbalance appear, no? Cryptic can't balance for player skill - Cryptic can't make money if they restrict fun based on player skill...
STO doesn't have the typical carrot on a stick progression. Those gear check games, in their own way, are no different than what's seen in STO - just with the gear check removed. Imagine one of those games where you might run a standard dungeon to get gear to run a harder dungeon to get gear to run an even harder dungeon so you could run a starter raid to get gear to run a normal raid to get gear to run a harder raid so you might get gear to run yet another raid...etc, etc, etc...
...then picture STO with the "one" dungeon but the same increase in stats over and over and over with regard to gear.
Many folks with that carrot on a stick progression never see a problem with it unless they PvP on a new toon and have to face that higher end gear on a new toon...then they see the amount of powercreep that's taken place in the game.
In STO, some folks have taken for granted how overgeared they are for the content. In STO, some folks have taken for granted how undergeared compared to their fellows they might be.
There's balance in STO...just like the carrot on a stick games...but folks don't look at it.
Though I will say this, when levelling up a new character I always go for common gear, not the best but meh and don't bother with doffs till end game either. It is much easier and quicker to go for the full damage dps is best option a lot of the time, certainly at commander and captain level.
I would love it if there were other ways to effectively "neutralise" a target or targets, maybe that would sort a few balance issues out.
One other thing that appears in an early almost tutorial mission is a timer that says last this long against this powerful undine ship. I dare say some STFs and other content could do with that sort of thing, especially if they were beefy ships that required some form of either tanking or aggro keeping.
Either way more diversity in mission completion would help a lot.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
As a newbie though, I have to say the more they could simplify it the better. I already get frustrated at times when something goes right through my shields and blows up my ship. Its taking me a while to get used to weapons that can bypass my shields. I think it would take even more adjustment to start keeping track of my crew. I'd gotten so used to shield based tactics of wheeling my ship around after attacking to get my fully charged rear shields up that I'm having trouble dealing with attacks that don't care about your facing and don't care about your shields. It goes against what I learned in first 30 levels of the game and it very counter intuitive to me now. If enemies could ignore my shield and kill off my crew to defeat me I think it would be a similar and somewhat frustrating experience. I really don't like any mechanic that ignores my shields because that vastly reduces my tactical options since facing, maneuverability, power transfers etc. become irrelevant and it all becomes just about DPS vs Resistance/Healing.
If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, it might be better to not make it a strait up defeat option but a path to existing victory, like if your crew is wiped out your ship becomes much, much more vulnerable to holds and similar effects due to not having enough people to operate the ship properly. I think that way it would be easier to pick up on and go less against the shield focused game play of the early game. You lost because your ship blew up, your ship blew up because it was held and couldn't fight back, it got held because your resistance was low, your resistance was low due to your crew was wiped out.
Just a newbies insight for whatever it is worth.
Right now a mirror patrol escort is a lulzy little annoying gnat. Give it 4 advanced fleet dual heavies with rapid fire 1 and 2 on cycle and an elite fleet shields resistances and you might find that little gnat just grew 10 times in size.
The funny thing is that most things are balanced vs little ships like that when they make them. It is only the highest tier of gear that seems to be the exception to the rule.
Use the standard layout the game gives you on a ship once (mkx white at tier 5, and a mix of weapon and damage types)... just once really try it. the game on elite gets pretty fricken hard actually without the one stack to rule them all.
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They have a little more health/hull and hit a little bit harder. The AI is still TRIBBLE and they dont have better gear or powers loadouts that ive ever been able to see. They still try to phaser/photon you to death with a single beam array and 1 torp launcher.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
In reponse to roxbad's comment: how I see it, PWE would implement whatever makes them money. People have been crying for buffs to engineers/ships and sci/ships for a long time. Instead of fueling the cycle of more damage and more damage resistances, they could implement new places for the different ships to shine. Cruisers are generally resilient in crew count. Sci vessels should be good at crowd controlling and draining power. Granting new defeat conditions does not invalidate the standard guns-blazing tactics we all love. It merely provides adequate alternatives to the guns-blazing tactic.
But back on the money topic, if PWE implemented such mechanics, there would be just as many people jumping back onto cruisers and sci vessels, thus generating more revenue from releasing new sci ships and cruisers. Heck, they would even make more money from selling old cruisers like the Gal-R (saucer sep for a highly mobile boarding party vessel).
Summarizing VD's response, there's concern for balance issues and fun. And I agree there is going to be some fixing to drain builds and crew deaths. However, I firmly believe that balance topics regarding these new mechanics would be more fruitful than balancing damage and resistances/healing back and forth. As for the "carrot on a stick" analogy and the powercreep in the game - It happens in every game. The only question is where that powercreep is happening (in regards to which mechanic)? For example, if you take a typical end-game ship build, you'll see that most are geared for damage and damage mitigation (both directly and indirectly). You don't see people equipping Emergency Forcefields, because nobody cares about the crew.
In response to bpharma: I miss the "survive the undine ship" mission feel. Overall, endgame content needs more diversity than just the standard "destroy everything". If new mechanics went through, I could see more diversity in end-game missions, including actual "capture the station" or "disable this ship without destroying". Heck, I could even see a revamp of PvP's capture and hold map where people could specialize in capturing stations.
In response to krisknives concern for game simplicity: Don't worry. I am by no means suggesting that "damages should be obsolete". If you still love to go in a mission guns blazing, by all means you should be able to. I am simply offering optional alternatives to the guns blazing method.
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Makes me wonder what if certain weapon slots were restricted to a certain weapon type (aside from the rear weapon restrictions).
Guess PWE would make money by releasing ships with "universal" weapon slots/types. :eek:
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Well I'm not so concerned about simplicity so much as intuitiveness. If the game teaches you the key to combat is managing your shields, maneuvering and energy management and then suddenly have a new mechanic that ignores all that it runs counter to what you've taught your players up until now which always causes confusion. As such I'm saying using crew as a effectively secondary life bar should tie into existing mechanics and compliment them rather then oppose them.
Additionally you would need to make a secondary strategy as dynamic as the traditional guns blazing assault. Such an approach works in games like Faster Than Light because you manage your ship much more personally dispatching security and engineers. Which is easy since you don't pilot your ship in FTL. I feel, in my personal opinion of subjectivity, you would need to find a way to manage your crew that wasn't too obtrusive to make this work as a completely separate way to take a ship down from the normal gun and run approach.
1. During battle, the innate ship health regeneration is very small - too small to make a difference at end game.
2. Crew death means very little to the functionality of the ship. Overall, it just means too little to consider protecting in almost every space battle.
I'm not sure I would consider it a "new mechanic", but overall, if they made it more relevant, I'd be just as happy. Only the defeat condition would be new.
Or...did you not know there was a crew counter... o.o
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Okay part of it happened. Shield facings were a concern. This was pre TT though. And I think that was actually before you started playing. It was also pre ACC. Also I think before you started playing.
At this point in time there were two ways for a Tac to muster enough burst damage to do the job. The opponent could willing sit still OR an Engineer or Science could destroy the targets defense and solve that half of the equation for the Scort.
Part 2, raising damage and raising resistances has been so well beaten into the dirt that I can't bring myself to do it again. Not today anyway.
Regardless, Scorts no longer need an Engineer or a Science, because they added ACC, and to a lesser extent, hybrid ships into the game.
Saying 'does more damage' isn't very accurate. Damage output hasn't changed all that much.
The ability of an escort to land that damage on target unaided sure has.
Resistances are weak. Weak. Weak weak weak.
Defense is strong. Strong strong strong. Acc is strong too.
You know, the issue with Boff defense passives isn't that it is so high, it's that you can't rob it in any fashion. So it doesn't really need to be very high does it? As long as it's there at all it prevents the most stunning attacks in the game.
The day the wild variances between Acc and Def within an encounter vanish is the day all this goes away, because THAT system is what allows for the type of damage that was done at launch, yesterday, today and on a hunch, tomorrow as well.
Not resistances. Not repairs. Not output.
Cheers happy flying.
No no. What I meant was whenever devs decide to implement more power creep that gives either more damage or more damage mitigation. And don't get me wrong - I don't want any of that either.
Not entirely what you meant here. Assuming "ACC" being the accuracy mod on weapons and the hybrid ships were brought up, I'm guessing that you meant Scorts originally needed Engis and Scis to crowd control, but the Accuracy of weapons today are so high that you don't need crowd control anymore?
The point is: no class should be dependent on another class in the first place...
So you're saying that every class and ship does the same amount of damage?
In any case, the main point of the thread was never to change the damage output of any class. I know my first suggestion was to nerf burst damage, but I think that one as the less viable solution. I also think you're underestimating cross-healing. Also, when i say resistances, it's a very broad term that refers to healing, shield damage mitigation, etc.
However, I do understand what you're saying about escorts landing damage unaided. Every missed shot is a loss in DPS and the fact that Acc modifiers are on weapons increases DPS in this regard.
Absolutely. I've made several comments in other posts regarding this issue. However, this thread isn't about balancing Crowd Control and its counters. That topic is for another thread.
As a final note, it would be interesting to see Acc and Def (Accuracy vs. Speed tanking) get balanced in those regards (perhaps crowd control along with it). However, talking about damage/healing/resistances/defense is all within the category of "The Dichotomy of Damage and Healing".
Again, everything mentioned here is about Damage (damage and accuracy) and Damage Mitigation, whether by tanking or evasion (def). And at the end of the day, it's all about who can do enough damage to kill one another and there's no way around it. That is the real problem.
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You nailed one of my if-only thoughts trailing around my head when doing FFA. They kind of have that going with the unimatrix but it's not very epic. It just sits there and pew-pews.. I'd want something that subspace jumps a limited distance away or something you have to stop. Like a giant probe headed for earth, armed to the teeth and you have to stop and destroy it before it reaches the planet. Something epic.
Yes I am aware of the crew counter and I agree the crew, at current, is not worth concerning yourself about. Your officer powers are far more relevant.
However if you fundamentally the way something works and add in new functionality in its place, it is a new mechanic. Using the crew as a secondary health bar you have to managed and defend independent of your haul would be drastic change in its functionality and introducing a whole radically new element to combat. At least if I'm reading your ideas correctly anyway.
You are reading my ideas correctly.
I will concede that a completely new defeat condition based on crew death is on the radical end of the spectrum for change. But if there's a compromise in between where crew matters more, as long as it doesn't directly fuel the damage/damage mitigation cycle, I'd be more than happy to hear it too.
The reason why I suggested adding new defeat conditions in the first place, is so that each careers could possibly specialize in different ways of defeating an enemy. It would thus lead to a greater diversity in builds and open up new strategies in both PvE and PvP.
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
In most game you have core classes and then various level of hybrid specialization classes. I think part of the problem might be that because of this certain level of hybridization in muddles a lot of things and reduces the impact of classes made even more complicated by strong faction bias.
For example I play a Romulan Engineer but I'm not seeing a huge difference between myself and tactical officers in terms of survivability and DPS unless you completely ignore one of the other. And with Romulin tech all being geared towards hit and run you pretty much have to somewhat go down the road of a strong alpha strike. Again, still a noob so I might be way off the mark but that is my experience so far.
If you want more specialization I think you need more clear rolls people can go down and it probably too later to put that genie back in the bottle. There isn't really enough mechanical focus it seems to allow that.
Usually you have a lead roll and various sub-rolls in the game which help define and round out the class and their is where your build diversity come in. Being say a Minion heavy class with strong team support to boost all your little allies vs being a strong buff/debuff or control heavy build.
In my mind there should be clear combinations of ship and captain if you want build diversification like that. Each one should have strong clear traits that make different combinations depending on how you combine them.
Tactical - Tactical: Striker
Engineer - Engineer: Support
Science - Science: Control
Tactical - Science: Debuff (Attacks debuff enemies with the need for special abilites)
Tactical - Engineer: Shadow Knight (Debuffs enemy to buff self)
Science - Tactical: Ranged Glass Cannon (longest range and high damage but no defense)
Science - Engineer: Paladin (Tanky team buffer who gets into the action)
Engineer - Tactical: Melee class (Tanky ships but must get in very close to deal damage due to a specialization in short range weapons or weapons which need to be close to be effective)
Engineer - Science: Minion Master (weak offense but strong buffs/support and lots of minions to benefit from them)
And that is just a high level break down. You could further divide up traits like tactical being the speedy class or tactical/tactical ships would be the fastest while science/engineer combos the slowest or Science vessels getting extra large firing arcs while tactical had the narrowest so Science/Tactical vessels would have wide high damage ranges. This would let them focus on developing each combination as its own viable identity and give each ship a more clear roll to play in a group and thusly at least three builds should be viable for each class.
Does that sound like what you are really after or am I way off base in what you are seeking?
1. Who needs a dedicated tank or healer when an Escort can do all of that by itself?
2. Low damage? Instantly a hindrance in ESTFs.
3. Game mechanics don't appreciate the support role, even if/when it is important.
4. There's no such thing as control in PvP. This also ties to the fact that - who needs control when you can blow everything up?
5. And even when you can't blow everything up, anti-crowd control measures are out of control in this game and too easily accessible.
In another MMO's analogy, it's like having a single class that does heavy ranged damage, refuses to be stunned/controlled, tanks, and is highly mobile. Best at all of them and all at once.
I know at this point, I'm ranting - mainly because this has been what I've seen over the years.
In summation, the only thing still relevant at endgame is not support, not tanking, not healing. It's all about who is most effective at killing stuff - and the only way to do that is with Damage output. This is where I get my point that - Every class (Tact, Engi, Sci) are competing to do the absolute same thing. It doesn't matter who achieves #1 in these terms - it will always be unbalanced as long as there's only one way to achieve that goal.
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
It seems that the simplest, though perhaps not easiest approach, would be to make the Tank/Heal viable to off set that. If you can't alpha strike everything to death that in turn increased the importance of control to neutralize strong support and neutralizing strong control in turn keeps the alpha strikers important.
I don't know how you could really make engineer or science important is DPS is the only important factor to combat.
It's as if some of the STO devs they had hired in the past had more experience playing tetris and kept stacking different ways to kill stuff. Just like tetris you tend to leave something vacant and unfulfilled while you're busy stacking changes and with enough of said stacking sometimes you just hit that proverbial ceiling.
I just wish STO had more of a mind to instill rewards for team effort. While in PVE or PVP players should be able to rank #1 based off of:
1 Most effective support captain (Team debuffs/buffs)
2 Most effective science captain (Exotic powers which helped take down the enemy)
3 Most effective damage dealt (Status quo and already exists)
Make THOSE the #1 categories for #1 item drops or bragging rights and let THAT cascade down to the top 3 so everybody can be properly rewarded for their efforts based off of that.
Then we could check out the rabbit hole on how awesome that could transcend into the rest of the game as well.
Interesting thought. I hadn't considered reworking not only mechanics but also switching up peripheral emphasis like that, but what you say is very insightful. I think you are right and that would help massively with a move away from everything being about alpha strikes.
I believe they did try something similar to this back when they first re-introduced Crystalline Entity. Your "place" was determined by not only your total damage, but also how much you healed other players. However, there's no way at the time to gauge your support buffs for other players.
Even so, because of how much the game is focused already in killing targets, I believe that was the more practical solution is to add alternative and relevant defeat conditions (does not have to be what I suggested).
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IIRC they never stopped that, it's just much harder for us to judge. I've gotten 1st in a low DPS science ship because I'd built my BOFF layout with a bunch of debuffs to lay on the CE and strip it of the Recrystallization buffs it gets when small fragments return to it.
This is why in another post I asked someone to explain the purpose of the crew for me. Because in my JHDC, I can have 200 crew members and 4% hull then heal myself back up to 76% hull and I only gain 200-400 more crew? In my Vesta I've done STF's with literally 100 or fewer crew members and 10% or so shields.
I also would like to add having other ways to defeat ships would help Science ships and Engineering ships feel more important in and out of a fight. For example, in my science/Tactical hybrid we all know as the vesta, if I can disable...completely a NPC ships engine (meaning the NPC ship won't heal itself) this would add to the appeal of Science ships (and allow Foundry mission makers to add another level of "win conditions" to a mission). Even in a PVP match, that disabling engine ability will make the Science ship the most dangerous ship on the battlefield.
Cap all powers at a maximum point to a certain degree. Lets say you have 4 variables
1st: dmg outpout 100 of max possible
2nd: hull/shields 75 of max possible
3rd: sci powers/heals/30 of max possible
4th: eng heals/buffs 50 of max possible
lets assume 100 is the highest in each category
so out of max 400 points you use 255
that leaves a gap of 145 wich could go into another 2 categories
1st diplomatic reasoning -> allows for a certain chance for the target to surrender completly or gets a certain ammount of crew to mutiny against the captain so that systems dont work properly and either cease to function or increase cooldowntimes. with a chance to render the vessel harmless.
2nd: Shutting down the enemy: works similar but works on a technical level, meaning energy output can drop or shutdown systems completly, lowering defenses or maki the ship self destruct or manouver irraticly
Also involves boarding parties and thereby has the chance to capture the enemy vessel, npcs become npc allies, pvp players switch team while retaining their own scoreboard but add to the other team.
Enemyships defeated either way should count in points as their hull and shieldpoints combined.
Partly disabled ships should give the player points much like a dmg overtime effect.
This would allow to level the playing field a bit.
Maybe the 4 categories can still provide benefits when someone goes over the cap but it would mean lower probability for capturing or shutting down the enemy especialy when the dmg category it massivly overcapped.
I have literally finished missions on my JHEC with 1 or 0 crew. The entire thing is gray and I seriously don't see a difference in how my ship runs. Definitely a system that devs should consider changing.
I personally think that the current Beam Target Subsystems idea is good. However, I have always wondered what if they made more power levels - like Life Support or perhaps even Warp Core Stability power that can be drained. Either of which if left unattended would result in a loss no matter how sturdy your shields/hulls are.
I will address the issue of "permanent" disables below though...
To some extent, I agree with extending subsystem repair times, but not permanent disables. The devs would have to balance scaling on Starship Repairs - they can't be useless right? Aside from this point though, most subsystem disables are hard-countered by the Emergency Power to X systems. I'd also throw in the fact that shockwave stuns and the likes are almost entirely negated by the fact that we have 3 commonly used skills that render every ship immune to it (Attack Pattern Omega, Aux2Damp, Polarize Hull). Most people bypass Starship repairs and the likes entirely due to these mechanics.
They would have to fix the above before thinking about extending disables.
I'm not sure I understand this part
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