Fool my once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Yet people in this game tend to blindly forget the past.
Talk to anyone outside the STO community about this game regarding to pvp and they will tell you many lawls, it sucks, etc. PvP died years ago. Even the developers admitted back 2012 that pvp is " fail ".
I stopped pvping on this game back in late 2011 due all these problems that I knew would happen years ago. It still amazing me that in all this time people are still blind to ignorance of the core problems at hand.
I have alot more self respect to try to pvp in this game with broken mechanics, power creep issues, the list goes on and on and on.
You guys deserve pvp in it's current condition. Most of the best players that means " us " not you, left for a good reason and we all knew why.
Yet I feel somewhat sorry that you are trying to hold a dead part of the game alive but I think a reality check is in order for most players. The game is for pvp is dead. Your not a profit for the company, nor a care to developers. This game is mainly a pve game now.
Accept the times as they are and move on. Another perfect example of Cryptic's problems is Champions online which pvp doesn't exist anymore. STO as of now is VERY close to that stage.
There are the 2 other decent MMO's that I play hardcore pvp in and have a blast with. They teach you how to really use teamwork, and actually " work " for your kills. I would love to tell you the name but I can't due to the forum rules. I can give ya a hint though. Hint #1. Britannia. Hint #2. Solo
My best advice is look into the past and try a different MMO if you want to pvp for a better experience. Most of us good players did and we never looked back.
I will not be checking back on this post, nor responding to it. I was just curious on the state of the game and after reading for a few days of what has gone wrong since I last played.
In my opinion its more logical that when shooting targets at will that you would have reduced hit chance. So what about -20 to acc, but leave the critH/D. This because, when a random selected shot hits, it can hit at just the right spot, doing critical damage to a ship. That makes more sense to me than just suggesting to leave out critH
it's a simplicity issue. FAW fires so much, that a crit becomes inevitable-unlike BO3 or CRF, or THY, and it covers such a large area with fire, and you don't have to target, be at the correct angle, etc. to use it. even with Scatter Volley, you have to at least be FACING the target to use it. with FAW you don't.
Personally, I'd say the solution to FAW's overuse is the same as solving Grav well's overuse.
that is, a percentage chance of 'friendly fire' that stacks-then you can have ALLL the crit you want off it, but it can and will eventually go after anyone in ten kilometers of you-including allies. one result of that, is that if you're going to use it as the cornerstone of your strategy, your formation has to open up, creating an opening for your opponents, which is fair if you're running two or more ships with FAW at the same time in a match, and won't even flicker on an STF or other PvE content.
But you arent blindfiring, you are basically just randomly shooting targets. There is a choice, and your Boff is making it.
If that was to come to pass i woould say CSV should hit Everything in its path also.
Dont ask for things unless you are willing to have cannon powers suffer the same fate.
Even better how about cannon shots fire into a locked path instead of the slight ability to track they have now. So at 10k you just constantly miss unless you shoot at the extreme edge of your 45 degree arc, but the shots miss if the target passes out of that berfore they hit.
Because for once beams where suprassing Cannons and people who use cannons cant hack that, they have to have all the damage and cruiser captains stuck using beams cannot have any damage.
Get over yourselves. That or i call cryptic to disable ALL Energy weapon Boff skills for a week, put us all on even ground concerning skills, then it is just weapon VS weapon.
OR maybe just maybe Escorts are SUPPOSED to use an array of weapons, Maybe you should try using a couple BA's, a DBB, a DHC and a turret or two.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
You really need to throttle back on the victimizatoin, you have no idea what I use or don't.
(incidentally, I use DBB/DHC/Torp front, and often use BA/Torp in the rear on builds).
The problem is Wide Area of Effect combined with a tendency to hit, combined with a high rate of fire and no damage drop-off.
FAW.
see?
Scatter Volley requires positioning, so does torpedo spread, but FAW will target **** you, the player, can't even SEE until it blows up (the whole spam-clearing thing).
there's no damage-drop at 10k with beams, there IS with Cannons.
Means it's a wide-area-of-effect power with a near 360 degree range of motion (or AT 360 if you're running beams on both ends.)
the rate of fire practically guarantees a crit-or did, before the change to the power disabled it. This is a lot HIGHER chance of crit than running, say, a dual-beam-bank and beam overload 3 with TT3 on APO3+APA.
The big difference being, you don't have to be facing the target to use FAW. You don't even have to SEE the target. I've had FAW engage stuff Behind me that was just barely peeping at the edge of the screen.
When you have cooldown reduction, overcapping, don't have to see the target because you're engaging EVERYTHING, and you're not worrying about power drop, that goes right into the realm of "all I need is a macro and a spacebar to PvP."
and that's no good. there's no tactical choice involved here, you're not sacrificing anything and there's little to no risk.
it becomes "The One, True, Build". That's not good for the game (or any game).
like I said, area of effect powers, if they're going to have criticals, should run a risk of some sort-the present structure, unlike, say, three seasons ago, before we had all these really powerful procs and passives from the Rep system along with fleet gear and the rest, before we got these nifty warp cores, before Marion became "The" duty officer to have, you ran a risk no matter WHAT build you were using-an Escort could get vaped or pressured out, even a hilbert-style Cannons-scort, and while people dumped on Cruisers, there were more than a few PvP'ers who could and did run very powerful damage-dealer Cruiser builds.
What's changed, is that with all the extra stuff we have now, including ships like the Scimitar, is that it's relatively easy to build a ship that can do both healing, and damage, simultaneously by using FAW/Auz2Batt/Marion/Technician.
"Easy button" builds are a bad thing.
which is probably the prime motivator for the developers delinking critical hits-now if you want to use that T4 Romulan placate, you need to use something else-which means the eight-beams to discoball with goes out the window-you have to mix in some single cannons and turrets, maybe even fill a tac power with CRF or CSV to get that crit-triggered placate, or you might just want to carry a science-boff placate power instead, so that you can carry all the tac powers you're going to use, including Tac TEam and an attack pattern.
Means you can't have an all-one-gun-type ship, and do everything off a single power.
Like I said before, I'd rather leave the crit, and force a tactical decision by making that ten kilometer zone dangerous to everyone on both sides-just as I'd rather Gravity Wells hit everyone regardless of side, or warp plasma catches everyone regardless of side.
of course, I'm also the guy who thinks the objects on the screen should do damage when you run into them, so there you are...
Im sorry i didnt mean to make you feel victimized.
But, FAW is MEANT to randomly select targets, your ream beams dont magically fire through your ship if there is only something in front of you.
As for forcing big ships that dont have many Tac slots at all to play with, reducing the effectiveness of beams reduces those ships. while throwing a single cannon on a cruiser is a swell idea, it makes no sense, cannons arent for cruisers.
Unless you want to give up the ability for escorts being the only DHC capable ships and Cruisers being able to mount them for extra punch on the flight in fine by me.
But dont play the victim, or pretend cannon users are being victimized, i wasnt directing my argument towards you but to the people who say cannons must be better than everything always.
So good that you use a variety of weapons. But saying the pwoers are bad is worse. Especailly again on those ships that dont have higher tiered Boff slots. If your ship only have 2 tac slots you cant mix and match easily.
Sure it would be really nice if FAW targeted LESS ships and it was more targetable, but that was supposed to be the drawback of the power not the advantage, so maybe they should redo FAW so it only targets 2-3 ships instead of 2 ships per beam.
So again sorry if you felt ostracized not targeting you, My Boff just targeted everything in the area......
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Im sorry i didnt mean to make you feel victimized.
But, FAW is MEANT to randomly select targets, your ream beams dont magically fire through your ship if there is only something in front of you.
As for forcing big ships that dont have many Tac slots at all to play with, reducing the effectiveness of beams reduces those ships. while throwing a single cannon on a cruiser is a swell idea, it makes no sense, cannons arent for cruisers.
Unless you want to give up the ability for escorts being the only DHC capable ships and Cruisers being able to mount them for extra punch on the flight in fine by me.
But dont play the victim, or pretend cannon users are being victimized, i wasnt directing my argument towards you but to the people who say cannons must be better than everything always.
So good that you use a variety of weapons. But saying the pwoers are bad is worse. Especailly again on those ships that dont have higher tiered Boff slots. If your ship only have 2 tac slots you cant mix and match easily.
Sure it would be really nice if FAW targeted LESS ships and it was more targetable, but that was supposed to be the drawback of the power not the advantage, so maybe they should redo FAW so it only targets 2-3 ships instead of 2 ships per beam.
So again sorry if you felt ostracized not targeting you, My Boff just targeted everything in the area......
Cannons and beams are not for specific ships if that was the case escorts would not be able to slot beams... cruisers would not be able to load cannons... and Battle Cruisers getting the ability to load dhc would sort of be silly seeing as they are not for that ship after all.
Faw is a stupid mechanic yes every one knows it... yes it is 100% a blind fire.
How do you test that... target NOTHING at all and hit your space bar and watch what happens. lol
Load Overload or Target Sub... or Cannons rapid fire or Scatter or torp spread ect ect target nothing (don't have the select a target when none are selected option clicked lol) and bang your spacse bar all day if you like you won't magicly target someone 9k behind you that you didn't even see. lol
FAW is the worse mechanic to ever exist in any Game I have ever played... because it is stupid.
As far as cannons getting the same mechanics... sure sounds good why do you think we would argue... I'm fine with scatter hitting frinedly targets... because when I use scatter... I you know have to aim it... it would really not effect me all that much even when I do use scatter... which I will admit isn't often... I keep 1 low level on a boff to swap over for PvE to make it a little less annoying. On my ships where I do load beams I refuse to use faw because its 1) stupid and 2) boring... seriously makes me want to go to sleep... not like I have to really do much other then watch my hull and shield and refresh tac team and use my hazards when its off cool down... I mean don't really need to worry about position or targeting any one specific.
The Best fix for faw frankly is to simply delete it... and Copy scatter volley over completely as the new FAW. Let Beam Fire and Will and Scatter volley operate with the exact same mechanics.
Cannons and beams are not for specific ships if that was the case escorts would not be able to slot beams... cruisers would not be able to load cannons... and Battle Cruisers getting the ability to load dhc would sort of be silly seeing as they are not for that ship after all.
Faw is a stupid mechanic yes every one knows it... yes it is 100% a blind fire.
How do you test that... target NOTHING at all and hit your space bar and watch what happens. lol
Load Overload or Target Sub... or Cannons rapid fire or Scatter or torp spread ect ect target nothing (don't have the select a target when none are selected option clicked lol) and bang your spacse bar all day if you like you won't magicly target someone 9k behind you that you didn't even see. lol
FAW is the worse mechanic to ever exist in any Game I have ever played... because it is stupid.
As far as cannons getting the same mechanics... sure sounds good why do you think we would argue... I'm fine with scatter hitting frinedly targets... because when I use scatter... I you know have to aim it... it would really not effect me all that much even when I do use scatter... which I will admit isn't often... I keep 1 low level on a boff to swap over for PvE to make it a little less annoying. On my ships where I do load beams I refuse to use faw because its 1) stupid and 2) boring... seriously makes me want to go to sleep... not like I have to really do much other then watch my hull and shield and refresh tac team and use my hazards when its off cool down... I mean don't really need to worry about position or targeting any one specific.
The Best fix for faw frankly is to simply delete it... and Copy scatter volley over completely as the new FAW. Let Beam Fire and Will and Scatter volley operate with the exact same mechanics.
Really? Tell me again how you can slot DHC's on any ship you want to *insert condescending wonka here* (just hitting the obvious here)
And as for FAW beams users want an aimable FAW, at least as far as i am concerned, you think i want to hit everything and its mother, and its mothers mother? I said it before if it only selcted 2-3 targets that would be great, instead of 2 targets per beam as it currently is.
FAW users want Beam Rapid Fire, Overload is a nice spike sure, but best when it crits, and again as for FAW i would rather fire that series of shots at one guy, with an increased critical chance ( but half severity) than hit everything within 10km...
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
PvE and PvP in no way can be balenced so both are fun to play
BO has been gimped to balence pvp which is now about right However its a useless skill in PvE now
BFaW is now Gimped because it was out of control on PvP because of DEM Marion and battery Doffs combo's which ripped thru the PvP ques like hot butter
Those in PvE wont buy this stuff so it wasnt a problem but gimping BFaW is a problem because it lowers beams dps too low compared to Cannons without the 50 milion EC Doffs ect
Seperate PvP from PvE is the answer stop ruining the PvE gasme which is what is happening to everyone who likes to use star trek weapons on there ships like Beams
On a side note cut all weapons all types of weapons damage by 75% across the board
Cut cross healing by 75%
Cut healing by 75%
Cut all defense buffs including speed by 50%
The power creep is totally out of hand
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
And as for FAW beams users want an aimable FAW, at least as far as i am concerned, you think i want to hit everything and its mother, and its mothers mother? I said it before if it only selcted 2-3 targets that would be great, instead of 2 targets per beam as it currently is.
So we agree then we both want FAW to operate like Scatter volley... it should target up to 4 targets in a 180 degree cone based off your target.
It already does act like scatter volley. Scatter is a 45 degree AoE, BFAW is a 250 dergree AoE.
I want essentialy a 2 target CRF but with beams, doesnt matter if there is 50 ships in front of you, it will only hit 2.
There ya go we found common ground then.
Your wrong though faw doesn't work that way right now there is no arc limit on FAW. FAW is a 360 degree aoe. Its how you can hit ships to the left of you, ships to the right of you, and you can volley and thunder and all. lol
Your wrong though faw doesn't work that way right now there is no arc limit on FAW. FAW is a 360 degree aoe. Its how you can hit ships to the left of you, ships to the right of you, and you can volley and thunder and all. lol
Well i am unsure of you, but i still use FAW often, and if there isnt any ships within the rear weapons arc, they dont fire.
If your weapons are in arc they will all fire randomly about, the exception i have noticed to this is a fore DBB, it seem to fire at the arc of a BA when in FAW mode.
But thats just my two cents and what i have observed in activatin a FAW coming in and starting it before i get into a mess of ships.
I have to ask if you have used FAW recently, if not give it a shot going stright on to a single target without any other enemy in range, you should* see only the fore weapons actually shooting.
*should being a view i have seen but my be inaccurate.
Side note: I share coomon ground with no man. *pushes antonio off of the common ground*
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1) there IS a Cruiser-as in, patterned like a Federation Cruiser (lots of hull, no turn) that can mount DHC's. Two of them-one is even a FED cruiser.
Yeah...that doesn't work very well. there's even a thread recently here in the pvp section about someone wishing to build a Bort with Cannons for PvP.
You'll laugh, cry, hurl...
i.e. 'Not a good idea.' Ask the legion of Failaxy-X owners about it on the Fed side.
2)I'm not feeling victimized-are you? I use cannons, I use beams, I use torpedoes. I try to run with a balanced load-out because the most common duty officers I get tend to be less than optimal for cannons-only builds, and I'm too much of a cheap TRIBBLE to buy them on the exchange, or dump FC's and Dilithium to buy them from Fleet sources.
See, I don't have a problem with missed shots hitting friendlies-I think that's a good idea on ALL the weapons-but I really LIKE the idea of friendly fire for Area-of-Effect/Blind-Fire weapons-because tactics should have risks, there should be no 'Safe way to win every time".
so, y'know, "Whoops, you got in front of my guns while I was shooting" doesn't bother me a bit.
What bothers me, is "hey, I can cover the entire engagement zone constantly at zero risk to myself or my team, and I get to exploit the law of averages to have a really high crit rate while I text my BFF's on my phone instead of flying the match!"
which is what the present condition of FAW does-at least they de-linked criticals so it's just standard damage.
see, I don't have a real problem with area-of-effect powers critting-as long as they crit EVERYBODY in a ten kilometer area. I also don't have a problem with tightening the engagement envelope for FAW as an alternative-say, might even suggest making it a selectable choice.
Click this button, and it fires 5 beams at 1 target, with normal drain mechanics and normal counters.
Click THAT button, and it sprays everything-friend or foe, in ten kilometers and fires until it's hit every single target in range at least once-including friendlies, your mines, your pets, everything-at max crit chance.
you know, a choice between sniper rifle, or grenade.
third option: what Antonio suggested-give it the same, exact, arc as CSV, and five shots-but change CSV and FAW so that in that cone of fire, anything and everything is a valid target-it's controllable then, but still poses a fundamental risk and still requires positioning to work properly.
as it stands right NOW, you have a 250 degree arc on each end, with an overlap, ten kilometer range, (assuming single-beam boat), eight beams, and five rounds per beam for every two targets. 360 degrees of coverage in both x and y axes, at a rate of fire that almost guarantees a series of critical hits with the present game engine-unless Crits are disabled for the power.
By way of comparison, CSV has a forty-five degree arc of coverage with DHC's, requiring you to position, or 180 degrees with single cannons, which still requires you to position, or 360 degrees with turrets-but at a significantly reduced damage and resulting critical hits multiplier.
and of course, the 90 degrees you get with torp spreads, but those have longer cooldowns and tend to have much less power on the recieving end than anything bigger than a turret unless the other guy's shields are compromised.
there's also the range issue...
Beams: full effect out to 10K.
Cannons: Damage Drop off over 5K.
Hmmmm....
means you can 'crit' with DHC's, but you're not going to crit as high over 5K, and you have to be facing your target to use them, which means you have to be flying your ship.
BFAW-you don't. You can set it to turn, say, "Left" constantly and BFAW in a circle, it doesn't matter, the beams will find their targets regardless.
It actually requires work to get into an angle where only your fore or aft beams are effective-the overlap's wide between them.
thus forcing a choice between loading Tac Team, or another Beam power if FAW doesn't crit-thre is this thing, where you tap the arrow keys to redistribute shields? So, y'know, you CAN load BFAW1 and, say, BO2 on the two tac spaces of your cruiser...(I don't recall if there are any with that few, but there might be...) and handle redistributing shields using your spacebar keybind script from the Hilbert guide, with, say, using the arrow keys to do it manually if you're getting a lot of flak from one facing or another.
It's not like, using your BFAW based cruiser build, you're actually USING a whole lot of keys for flying your ship...you OUGHT to be able to handle manual shield distro.
I mean, I've done it on a Mirror Vor'cha before, so it can't be that big a burden.
Flat upshot beiing, the Devs delinked critical hits from BFAW-it's not the end of the game, end of the world, or even end of Cruisers-you have other options you can explore to get your over-20K DPS builds for PvE. In the meantime, what they've done is the simplest solution they could find to dealing with the unintended consequence of creating a 'one true build' situation.
Ok. Now im only going to go on with one and only one point as the rest of it seems to just be circling, i dont agree with all of it, i do agree with some.
The fact that devs delinked crit from FAW is not fair, unless they delink it from every weapon power buff. Im sure we can at least see eye to eye on that part.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Have to disagree with you there. FAW is the only Zero Risk weapons buff. fundamentally what it does, is create a "Disco ball of death" that covers a 20 kilometer diameter (10K Radius) sphere.
CRF, Beam Overload, Torpedo High Yeild, Cannon Scatter Volley, even Torpedo spread require you to at least position yourself to make the shot. FAW doesn't.
there's neither timing, nor tactics involved in using it-you keybind the buff, and circle in your Fedball or park, and it does all the targeting for you, you don't even need to move.
even laying mines requires some use of tactics, but FAW doesn't require that much.
everything gets a drawback-CSV and CRF pretty much require you to be pointed at the target, THY and Torp spread-same thing, you have to AT LEAST be pointed at the target, approaching it, or following it, or whatever, a manueverable opponent can get into a side arc at a given range and they're pretty much safe, while Beam Overload drains your juice unless you're overbuilt, and has accuracy issues-and only applies to one weapon at a time.
(i.e. you have eight beams, you use BO2, you get ONE beam that's in 'overload'-the rest are firing normally, or juice drops so low they don't fire at all.)
cSV's area gets wider at the far end of the cone-but you have damage-drop-off to deal with-which beams don't have, and it's a cone, your opfor can move into an area where the hits are lighter, and less frequent. Not so with FAW.
BFAW doesn't have arc restrictions and it doesn't have damage drop-off, so the trade ends up being it doesn't crit. It's a TRADE OFF.
BEam fire at will has the same fire density at 10 kilometers, that it has at 5 kilometers, which is the same as it is at 0 kilometers. does the same amount of damage at all ranges within it's engagement envelope. it's a wide-area, long-range form of attack, therefore, it needs to have a trade-off to be balanced.
The route the developers took with this, which doesn't severely impact the 'tactics' of the fedball in any significant way, was to decouple critical hits from the power. Thus, you can choose to equip an AOE power that works for spam clearance, OR you can equip a point target power that applies critical hits, see how that works?
this means you can't run a team of BFAW boats and just sit there being immune to return fire while you cross heal and chat on the phone-you have to choose whether you're going to apply high amounts of damage and criticals, OR apply wide area coverage that doesn't require positioning.
either/or, it's what they term a 'Tactical Dilemna', instead of a 'Magical Cure'.
I understand your point of view about BFAW boats, but ... as far as I know, as of now, BFAW doesn't crit at all, like 0 crits ... there's no point in using it at all then if you are a Romulan.
First off, after I bought the Scimitar, I wanted, as a personal challenge of mine, to use it as the special cruiser-escort ship that it is and exploit at least a few of its unique features, even if that might hurt my DPS a little : I explored the possibilities of using it as a cannons boat but I've decided that its turn rate is not fast enough to make that worth it, so, instead of going the easy BFAW all beam arrays road, I have decided to use DBBs, with a 90? arc, which is not 250? like beams, but better than cannons' 45?, so ... I don't really chat on the phone when I am in space : I still need to position myself in order to use those DBBs.
Now, Beam Overload is most suited for alpha strike DPS-spike attacks on fast ships like a Kumari or a Defiant, so what's left? BFAW ... unless you want to make a torp boat.
Again, I wanted to exploit the unique traits of my Romulan character ( I even use it as a melee toon on ground ) which are Subterfuge and the superior romulan operative ( as well as I do with other races ), that is innate crit chance and crit severity ... and these traits count 0 during BFAW.
Therefore, I respecced my Rom toon to boost as most as possible this innate traits of him and his team's innate traits too and his critical chance/severity potential ( I was also buying AP weapons , unaware of this bug shame on me! ) ... I might as well specialize him on the science side in the thalaron pulse then.
Now, the Scimitar is still a good ship and I still do nice damage with it , but it pisses me a little off not being able to capitalize on my Rom toon's traits and what this ship may offer and feel like I am hitting NPCs with a blunt sword when I hit BFAW.
Moreover, I guess there's a drop-off with BFAW : your energy drops down a little, not so much as with BO of course, but still ...
In conclusion, I might as well have saved my Zen for a fast romulan escort ( is there one? ) and use CSV/CRF or fly a Kumari with a human since I don't recall a bug in his Leadership trait so far ...
The only reason to use FAW in PvP is to clear spam. And the only time you would use it otherwise before it stopped critting was if you were alone with a target.
Other than those 2 situations FAW doesn't really help in PvP. It's all timing and situational awareness.
How quickly people forget all the spammers in the Q's a year ago . And there still are some. If your Team goes against these builds you'd be grateful someone on your team can clear most of it up in 10 seconds and allow you to do your thing.
Don't let this game go back to Spam Trek Online.
you and Geko have equal knowledge about how the game works.
you and Geko have equal knowledge about how the game works.
No his point is valid. The time frame he mentioned SS was broken and made targeting jump... so there where cheese teams running 4-5 copies of SS with 3-4 science ships.
It may not be bugged anymore, still the best counter to a team with to much faw... SS and SS and some more SS. Throw in some GW to pull all those fawing a2b cruisers into a nice tight ball... drop the scrambles... and watch them either not use there buffs and die... or faw each other to death.
There are counters to faw heavy teams and they are annoying in general... which is what He is talking about... adjust faw to a reasonable level... and the annoying sci team counter has less reason to exist.
In my mind, it is not logical for a series of beams fired at random to have a critical hit. A focused attack, sure. I think as it is now, without crits, is the way it should stay. I'd say the same should go for cannon scatter volley and torp spread.
No his point is valid. The time frame he mentioned SS was broken and made targeting jump... so there where cheese teams running 4-5 copies of SS with 3-4 science ships.
It may not be bugged anymore, still the best counter to a team with to much faw... SS and SS and some more SS. Throw in some GW to pull all those fawing a2b cruisers into a nice tight ball... drop the scrambles... and watch them either not use there buffs and die... or faw each other to death.
There are counters to faw heavy teams and they are annoying in general... which is what He is talking about... adjust faw to a reasonable level... and the annoying sci team counter has less reason to exist.
so being able to destroy 2 healers at the same time with 1 scimitar is ok.Good for you now go join that boot camp.
so being able to destroy 2 healers at the same time with 1 scimitar is ok.Good for you now go join that boot camp.
Where did I say that ?
I think I said faw needs to be toned down... which would make it less likely that premades would go Full Scitard. Is that not the point you where trying to make ?
Its chicken egg isn't it... All the sci spam, its annoying and most of us choose to stop running it... after the last overpowered version of faw was changed. Seeing as its back... well best defense vs to much faw... is to present a ton of targets and be annoying.
Have to disagree with you there. FAW is the only Zero Risk weapons buff. fundamentally what it does, is create a "Disco ball of death" that covers a 20 kilometer diameter (10K Radius) sphere.
CRF, Beam Overload, Torpedo High Yeild, Cannon Scatter Volley, even Torpedo spread require you to at least position yourself to make the shot. FAW doesn't.
there's neither timing, nor tactics involved in using it-you keybind the buff, and circle in your Fedball or park, and it does all the targeting for you, you don't even need to move.
even laying mines requires some use of tactics, but FAW doesn't require that much.
everything gets a drawback-CSV and CRF pretty much require you to be pointed at the target, THY and Torp spread-same thing, you have to AT LEAST be pointed at the target, approaching it, or following it, or whatever, a manueverable opponent can get into a side arc at a given range and they're pretty much safe, while Beam Overload drains your juice unless you're overbuilt, and has accuracy issues-and only applies to one weapon at a time.
(i.e. you have eight beams, you use BO2, you get ONE beam that's in 'overload'-the rest are firing normally, or juice drops so low they don't fire at all.)
cSV's area gets wider at the far end of the cone-but you have damage-drop-off to deal with-which beams don't have, and it's a cone, your opfor can move into an area where the hits are lighter, and less frequent. Not so with FAW.
BFAW doesn't have arc restrictions and it doesn't have damage drop-off, so the trade ends up being it doesn't crit. It's a TRADE OFF.
BEam fire at will has the same fire density at 10 kilometers, that it has at 5 kilometers, which is the same as it is at 0 kilometers. does the same amount of damage at all ranges within it's engagement envelope. it's a wide-area, long-range form of attack, therefore, it needs to have a trade-off to be balanced.
The route the developers took with this, which doesn't severely impact the 'tactics' of the fedball in any significant way, was to decouple critical hits from the power. Thus, you can choose to equip an AOE power that works for spam clearance, OR you can equip a point target power that applies critical hits, see how that works?
this means you can't run a team of BFAW boats and just sit there being immune to return fire while you cross heal and chat on the phone-you have to choose whether you're going to apply high amounts of damage and criticals, OR apply wide area coverage that doesn't require positioning.
either/or, it's what they term a 'Tactical Dilemna', instead of a 'Magical Cure'.
So still you think only FAW should not recieve criticals. Thats BS, somepoeple use it strategically and i have tried to say this to you, and we would prefer a skill that was more directible and and less everywhere. You jsut ignore it, so my converstaion as far as you are concerened is done, you are anti-FAW and will never change.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If you spray bullets at someone you have a chance to hit them in a critical place, like the head.
Why would FAW be no different? You all complain but the problem is overstacking all that Crit. Romulans have too high of Crit, and to balance that they gave it to Embassy Boffs so everyone can have it. Cirt overstacking is the problem not just one single power.
If you dont want to use the counters for FAW thats your choice, but dont push FAW out because you dont want to run GW and scramble sensors.
I have said it before and ill say it again, give us a Doff that changes FAW to a single target skill, or REDUCE the crits chance on FAW to 50%, so it halves your crit chance when you use it. You can still Crit but it is less likely.
For everryone who says FAW should remain with no Crits, fine, then remove all Crits from All energy weapons and see how you enjoy it.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
You miss a bit of there point. Faw with no crits as it is right now is pretty balanced. The dmg is sitll > then pretty much everything else... with out it being beyond stupid. (which it was as it is now with crits)... its funny but as it is right now with no crits it still provides higher dps then pretty much anything else.
FAW has been changed honestly what 30 times now. (no exaggeration) Even Cryptic has no idea what this skill should be doing... other then obviously someone with some control there has said NO NO we need a skill that the RPers can yell at the screen... FIRE EVERYTHING. lol
As a mechanic yes many people hate it... frankly its just a bad mechanic. Take the core of FAW with its uptime and drop it into any other MMO game in existence and any one would say WTF? because it is just that stupid. Seriously think of any other game you have ever played and imagine a skill that could hit anything at once in a 360 degree circle around you, out to the max range of your weapons... that hit each target harder then other buffs... and you could keep it up 50% of the time. Would that be a balanced mechanic ? Would you end up finding that game your thinking about boring in about 10 min ?
You miss a bit of there point. Faw with no crits as it is right now is pretty balanced. The dmg is sitll > then pretty much everything else... with out it being beyond stupid. (which it was as it is now with crits)... its funny but as it is right now with no crits it still provides higher dps then pretty much anything else.
FAW has been changed honestly what 30 times now. (no exaggeration) Even Cryptic has no idea what this skill should be doing... other then obviously someone with some control there has said NO NO we need a skill that the RPers can yell at the screen... FIRE EVERYTHING. lol
As a mechanic yes many people hate it... frankly its just a bad mechanic. Take the core of FAW with its uptime and drop it into any other MMO game in existence and any one would say WTF? because it is just that stupid. Seriously think of any other game you have ever played and imagine a skill that could hit anything at once in a 360 degree circle around you, out to the max range of your weapons... that hit each target harder then other buffs... and you could keep it up 50% of the time. Would that be a balanced mechanic ? Would you end up finding that game your thinking about boring in about 10 min ?
So FAW is fine? Sure unless you have antiprotons. Its currently only use is clearing pet spam. That is utterly useless, and not balanced.
Noone says gee halving the Crit is actually a good and fairl balanced idea, its just nope. No. No FAW ccrits ever again, only cannon powers are allowed to crit and the overload that kills your power levels.
You are all just anti FAW.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Comments
Fool my once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Yet people in this game tend to blindly forget the past.
Talk to anyone outside the STO community about this game regarding to pvp and they will tell you many lawls, it sucks, etc. PvP died years ago. Even the developers admitted back 2012 that pvp is " fail ".
I stopped pvping on this game back in late 2011 due all these problems that I knew would happen years ago. It still amazing me that in all this time people are still blind to ignorance of the core problems at hand.
I have alot more self respect to try to pvp in this game with broken mechanics, power creep issues, the list goes on and on and on.
You guys deserve pvp in it's current condition. Most of the best players that means " us " not you, left for a good reason and we all knew why.
Yet I feel somewhat sorry that you are trying to hold a dead part of the game alive but I think a reality check is in order for most players. The game is for pvp is dead. Your not a profit for the company, nor a care to developers. This game is mainly a pve game now.
Accept the times as they are and move on. Another perfect example of Cryptic's problems is Champions online which pvp doesn't exist anymore. STO as of now is VERY close to that stage.
There are the 2 other decent MMO's that I play hardcore pvp in and have a blast with. They teach you how to really use teamwork, and actually " work " for your kills. I would love to tell you the name but I can't due to the forum rules. I can give ya a hint though. Hint #1. Britannia. Hint #2. Solo
My best advice is look into the past and try a different MMO if you want to pvp for a better experience. Most of us good players did and we never looked back.
I will not be checking back on this post, nor responding to it. I was just curious on the state of the game and after reading for a few days of what has gone wrong since I last played.
Good luck to those who wake up.
@rudiefix Feds: Rudiefix / Thron / Opa
@rudiefix KDFs: Lill / Xifeidur / Dehr / Ugly
@rudiefix Roms (KDF alligned): Chicita
But you arent blindfiring, you are basically just randomly shooting targets. There is a choice, and your Boff is making it.
If that was to come to pass i woould say CSV should hit Everything in its path also.
Dont ask for things unless you are willing to have cannon powers suffer the same fate.
Even better how about cannon shots fire into a locked path instead of the slight ability to track they have now. So at 10k you just constantly miss unless you shoot at the extreme edge of your 45 degree arc, but the shots miss if the target passes out of that berfore they hit.
Because for once beams where suprassing Cannons and people who use cannons cant hack that, they have to have all the damage and cruiser captains stuck using beams cannot have any damage.
Get over yourselves. That or i call cryptic to disable ALL Energy weapon Boff skills for a week, put us all on even ground concerning skills, then it is just weapon VS weapon.
OR maybe just maybe Escorts are SUPPOSED to use an array of weapons, Maybe you should try using a couple BA's, a DBB, a DHC and a turret or two.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Im sorry i didnt mean to make you feel victimized.
But, FAW is MEANT to randomly select targets, your ream beams dont magically fire through your ship if there is only something in front of you.
As for forcing big ships that dont have many Tac slots at all to play with, reducing the effectiveness of beams reduces those ships. while throwing a single cannon on a cruiser is a swell idea, it makes no sense, cannons arent for cruisers.
Unless you want to give up the ability for escorts being the only DHC capable ships and Cruisers being able to mount them for extra punch on the flight in fine by me.
But dont play the victim, or pretend cannon users are being victimized, i wasnt directing my argument towards you but to the people who say cannons must be better than everything always.
So good that you use a variety of weapons. But saying the pwoers are bad is worse. Especailly again on those ships that dont have higher tiered Boff slots. If your ship only have 2 tac slots you cant mix and match easily.
Sure it would be really nice if FAW targeted LESS ships and it was more targetable, but that was supposed to be the drawback of the power not the advantage, so maybe they should redo FAW so it only targets 2-3 ships instead of 2 ships per beam.
So again sorry if you felt ostracized not targeting you, My Boff just targeted everything in the area......
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Cannons and beams are not for specific ships if that was the case escorts would not be able to slot beams... cruisers would not be able to load cannons... and Battle Cruisers getting the ability to load dhc would sort of be silly seeing as they are not for that ship after all.
Faw is a stupid mechanic yes every one knows it... yes it is 100% a blind fire.
How do you test that... target NOTHING at all and hit your space bar and watch what happens. lol
Load Overload or Target Sub... or Cannons rapid fire or Scatter or torp spread ect ect target nothing (don't have the select a target when none are selected option clicked lol) and bang your spacse bar all day if you like you won't magicly target someone 9k behind you that you didn't even see. lol
FAW is the worse mechanic to ever exist in any Game I have ever played... because it is stupid.
As far as cannons getting the same mechanics... sure sounds good why do you think we would argue... I'm fine with scatter hitting frinedly targets... because when I use scatter... I you know have to aim it... it would really not effect me all that much even when I do use scatter... which I will admit isn't often... I keep 1 low level on a boff to swap over for PvE to make it a little less annoying. On my ships where I do load beams I refuse to use faw because its 1) stupid and 2) boring... seriously makes me want to go to sleep... not like I have to really do much other then watch my hull and shield and refresh tac team and use my hazards when its off cool down... I mean don't really need to worry about position or targeting any one specific.
The Best fix for faw frankly is to simply delete it... and Copy scatter volley over completely as the new FAW. Let Beam Fire and Will and Scatter volley operate with the exact same mechanics.
+1
You activate an ability for +x, not +x^LOLWUT!?!?!?
Crit already rules this game, it needs to be limited somewhere.
Its time to separate the rules of PVE and PVP they should not have the same rules.
This stuff will keep happening until they do.
The are already have queues and different instances for PVP.
They need to go the full mile and let it be separated.
They would have better control over PVP if they did.
This way every time a new DOFF or console comes out it doesn't break PVP or vice versa.
Really? Tell me again how you can slot DHC's on any ship you want to *insert condescending wonka here* (just hitting the obvious here)
And as for FAW beams users want an aimable FAW, at least as far as i am concerned, you think i want to hit everything and its mother, and its mothers mother? I said it before if it only selcted 2-3 targets that would be great, instead of 2 targets per beam as it currently is.
FAW users want Beam Rapid Fire, Overload is a nice spike sure, but best when it crits, and again as for FAW i would rather fire that series of shots at one guy, with an increased critical chance ( but half severity) than hit everything within 10km...
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
BO has been gimped to balence pvp which is now about right However its a useless skill in PvE now
BFaW is now Gimped because it was out of control on PvP because of DEM Marion and battery Doffs combo's which ripped thru the PvP ques like hot butter
Those in PvE wont buy this stuff so it wasnt a problem but gimping BFaW is a problem because it lowers beams dps too low compared to Cannons without the 50 milion EC Doffs ect
Seperate PvP from PvE is the answer stop ruining the PvE gasme which is what is happening to everyone who likes to use star trek weapons on there ships like Beams
On a side note cut all weapons all types of weapons damage by 75% across the board
Cut cross healing by 75%
Cut healing by 75%
Cut all defense buffs including speed by 50%
The power creep is totally out of hand
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
So we agree then we both want FAW to operate like Scatter volley... it should target up to 4 targets in a 180 degree cone based off your target.
It already does act like scatter volley. Scatter is a 45 degree AoE, BFAW is a 250 dergree AoE.
I want essentialy a 2 target CRF but with beams, doesnt matter if there is 50 ships in front of you, it will only hit 2.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
There ya go we found common ground then.
Your wrong though faw doesn't work that way right now there is no arc limit on FAW. FAW is a 360 degree aoe. Its how you can hit ships to the left of you, ships to the right of you, and you can volley and thunder and all. lol
Well i am unsure of you, but i still use FAW often, and if there isnt any ships within the rear weapons arc, they dont fire.
If your weapons are in arc they will all fire randomly about, the exception i have noticed to this is a fore DBB, it seem to fire at the arc of a BA when in FAW mode.
But thats just my two cents and what i have observed in activatin a FAW coming in and starting it before i get into a mess of ships.
I have to ask if you have used FAW recently, if not give it a shot going stright on to a single target without any other enemy in range, you should* see only the fore weapons actually shooting.
*should being a view i have seen but my be inaccurate.
Side note: I share coomon ground with no man. *pushes antonio off of the common ground*
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Ok. Now im only going to go on with one and only one point as the rest of it seems to just be circling, i dont agree with all of it, i do agree with some.
The fact that devs delinked crit from FAW is not fair, unless they delink it from every weapon power buff. Im sure we can at least see eye to eye on that part.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
make something so broken that everyone uses .When everyone has the same broken shet = balanced.
I understand your point of view about BFAW boats, but ... as far as I know, as of now, BFAW doesn't crit at all, like 0 crits ... there's no point in using it at all then if you are a Romulan.
First off, after I bought the Scimitar, I wanted, as a personal challenge of mine, to use it as the special cruiser-escort ship that it is and exploit at least a few of its unique features, even if that might hurt my DPS a little : I explored the possibilities of using it as a cannons boat but I've decided that its turn rate is not fast enough to make that worth it, so, instead of going the easy BFAW all beam arrays road, I have decided to use DBBs, with a 90? arc, which is not 250? like beams, but better than cannons' 45?, so ... I don't really chat on the phone when I am in space : I still need to position myself in order to use those DBBs.
Now, Beam Overload is most suited for alpha strike DPS-spike attacks on fast ships like a Kumari or a Defiant, so what's left? BFAW ... unless you want to make a torp boat.
Again, I wanted to exploit the unique traits of my Romulan character ( I even use it as a melee toon on ground ) which are Subterfuge and the superior romulan operative ( as well as I do with other races ), that is innate crit chance and crit severity ... and these traits count 0 during BFAW.
Therefore, I respecced my Rom toon to boost as most as possible this innate traits of him and his team's innate traits too and his critical chance/severity potential ( I was also buying AP weapons , unaware of this bug shame on me! ) ... I might as well specialize him on the science side in the thalaron pulse then.
Now, the Scimitar is still a good ship and I still do nice damage with it , but it pisses me a little off not being able to capitalize on my Rom toon's traits and what this ship may offer and feel like I am hitting NPCs with a blunt sword when I hit BFAW.
Moreover, I guess there's a drop-off with BFAW : your energy drops down a little, not so much as with BO of course, but still ...
In conclusion, I might as well have saved my Zen for a fast romulan escort ( is there one? ) and use CSV/CRF or fly a Kumari with a human since I don't recall a bug in his Leadership trait so far ...
you and Geko have equal knowledge about how the game works.
No his point is valid. The time frame he mentioned SS was broken and made targeting jump... so there where cheese teams running 4-5 copies of SS with 3-4 science ships.
It may not be bugged anymore, still the best counter to a team with to much faw... SS and SS and some more SS. Throw in some GW to pull all those fawing a2b cruisers into a nice tight ball... drop the scrambles... and watch them either not use there buffs and die... or faw each other to death.
There are counters to faw heavy teams and they are annoying in general... which is what He is talking about... adjust faw to a reasonable level... and the annoying sci team counter has less reason to exist.
so being able to destroy 2 healers at the same time with 1 scimitar is ok.Good for you now go join that boot camp.
Where did I say that ?
I think I said faw needs to be toned down... which would make it less likely that premades would go Full Scitard. Is that not the point you where trying to make ?
Its chicken egg isn't it... All the sci spam, its annoying and most of us choose to stop running it... after the last overpowered version of faw was changed. Seeing as its back... well best defense vs to much faw... is to present a ton of targets and be annoying.
So still you think only FAW should not recieve criticals. Thats BS, somepoeple use it strategically and i have tried to say this to you, and we would prefer a skill that was more directible and and less everywhere. You jsut ignore it, so my converstaion as far as you are concerened is done, you are anti-FAW and will never change.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If you spray bullets at someone you have a chance to hit them in a critical place, like the head.
Why would FAW be no different? You all complain but the problem is overstacking all that Crit. Romulans have too high of Crit, and to balance that they gave it to Embassy Boffs so everyone can have it. Cirt overstacking is the problem not just one single power.
If you dont want to use the counters for FAW thats your choice, but dont push FAW out because you dont want to run GW and scramble sensors.
I have said it before and ill say it again, give us a Doff that changes FAW to a single target skill, or REDUCE the crits chance on FAW to 50%, so it halves your crit chance when you use it. You can still Crit but it is less likely.
For everryone who says FAW should remain with no Crits, fine, then remove all Crits from All energy weapons and see how you enjoy it.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
FAW has been changed honestly what 30 times now. (no exaggeration) Even Cryptic has no idea what this skill should be doing... other then obviously someone with some control there has said NO NO we need a skill that the RPers can yell at the screen... FIRE EVERYTHING. lol
As a mechanic yes many people hate it... frankly its just a bad mechanic. Take the core of FAW with its uptime and drop it into any other MMO game in existence and any one would say WTF? because it is just that stupid. Seriously think of any other game you have ever played and imagine a skill that could hit anything at once in a 360 degree circle around you, out to the max range of your weapons... that hit each target harder then other buffs... and you could keep it up 50% of the time. Would that be a balanced mechanic ? Would you end up finding that game your thinking about boring in about 10 min ?
So FAW is fine? Sure unless you have antiprotons. Its currently only use is clearing pet spam. That is utterly useless, and not balanced.
Noone says gee halving the Crit is actually a good and fairl balanced idea, its just nope. No. No FAW ccrits ever again, only cannon powers are allowed to crit and the overload that kills your power levels.
You are all just anti FAW.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]