test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Thoughts about Tanks and Healers
ltdata96
Member Posts: 15 Arc User
As many of you are aware of, STO lacks of a real role for Tanks and Healers (aside from Starbase Defend PvEs and No Win Scenario maybe), and fighting the voth with their repair ships (annoying little thingies) i had an interesting idea making tanking and healing viable.
Why not make a commander-rank Boff ability (for science and engineering boffs) that makes it actually possible to "revive" disabled ally ships (of course i need to add, that for this purpouse, all ships that go to 0 hp, will be disabled for 10 secs or something before they blow up), just like you can revive fallen allies in ground combat.
As i see it, that would make a tanking role (and tanky ships) a much more appealing option.
Also, there's a much more common problem i have: the lack of low-level engineering powers, so why not add some additional Boff abilities like ... idk, an ability that boosts lets say, the "shield emitter" or "graviton gens" skill by 100 for XX seconds (just as an idea...)
But as i said, those are just ideas, dunno how it would really affect the gameplay.
What do you guys think?
I'd like to hear some of your ideas and thoughts
Why not make a commander-rank Boff ability (for science and engineering boffs) that makes it actually possible to "revive" disabled ally ships (of course i need to add, that for this purpouse, all ships that go to 0 hp, will be disabled for 10 secs or something before they blow up), just like you can revive fallen allies in ground combat.
As i see it, that would make a tanking role (and tanky ships) a much more appealing option.
Also, there's a much more common problem i have: the lack of low-level engineering powers, so why not add some additional Boff abilities like ... idk, an ability that boosts lets say, the "shield emitter" or "graviton gens" skill by 100 for XX seconds (just as an idea...)
But as i said, those are just ideas, dunno how it would really affect the gameplay.
What do you guys think?
I'd like to hear some of your ideas and thoughts
Post edited by ltdata96 on
0
Comments
When this game came out, there was a synergy and balance between all the ships and ship types. There were no Escorts with LtCdr ENG or SCI. There were no Cruisers with LtCdr TAC or SCI. Same thing with Science Vessels. Even none of the KDF Battlecruisers had more than a Lt TAC.
Birds of Prey were the sole exception, but they paid for it with much weaker hull and shielding.
The first ship to truly break that synergy outright was the C-Store Akira. LtCdr ENG to Cmdr TAC was a huge thing for the game because nothing else had that added flexibility and survivability among Escorts, not to mention a Hangar Bay.
After that, the Hybrids kept on coming. This game is built now on Hybrids. The majority of older, original ships are left behind, except for the KDF Vo'Quv and all-TAC Escorts.
There was a time that regular Cruisers with their Lt / Ens TAC stations performed well enough. There was a time that a pure Sci Vessel reigned terror... I vividly remember the days as a KDF BOP driver that the appearance of a player Intrepid was a cause for major concern.
But all that balance and synergy was thrown out the window when an aspect of play got nerfed (Science) and hybrid ships, esp. with more Universal BOFF stations, started coming out.
There is no Tank & Healer role in STO anymore, because they're not needed. Hybrids can do enough for themselves to get by. An Escort these days has all the tools it needs to take care of anything it faces and survive it (unless you're a Kumari). Between other team members, an all Escort team for instance, has enough basic heals between each other to support whoever is in deep trouble.
Dedicated Tank & Healer is rendered obsolete. You can be a Tank, but then you're really not doing enough damage to make the mission quicker. You can be a Healer, and people will appreciate that, but dang, you're really not doing as much damage to make the mission any quicker. Hell, try doing Starbase 24 as a Tank or Healer and see how often you go 1st place compared to a pure DPS or TAC hybrid.
I don't think today's STO playerbase with its demand for all abilities, moar powah, "make the game easy for me" can tolerate the original game balance. They simply wouldn't know what to do.
Edit to add: If you're talking about buffing low tier abilities like low level ENG abilities, you are by far buffing non-ENG ships far more. Because Escorts, for instance, typically have ENG BOFF space to cover basic ENG abilities, so Escorts will be impowered that much more.
That's unfortunately very true, the thing is, something needs to be done with highly engineering focuced ships like the Gal-R, there are just too less Engineering abilities (in comparison to sci or tac) to choose from, some (not over-powered) alternatives would be nice, and that's what i wanted to cover with my 2nd suggestion.
To the other things you mentioned: I totally agree with you, i stopped playing pure tanks well, ages ago, and nowadays, i prefer combined crowd control (Odyssey) or DPS (Avenger/Fleet Sovvy).
In my opinion it's a shame, that this has made real tanks (like again the Gal-R) absolutely obsolete. I really like to play the tank, but i can't do it, since there is absolutely no use for my team (and that's why i came to the "revive" idea).
I'd like that mechanic, but inherent for anyone, just engineers would be better at it (restoring to 75% health instead of 25%, maybe at a tractor beam to them to pull the ship out of danger) and science would be superior medics on ground (same mechanic, ability to beam downed comrades to a safe location)
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I have also come to believe that the real limits here are in the lack of game types. Almost all of the queued actions and event missions are very much "kill everything" missions, and there is no alternative available. They dont even let you accomplish objective without killing everything, and most maps require you to kill everything as part of progresion (eg, KASE requires you to kill all probes as the only way to prevent them from entering the gate). I made a thread about alternative gametypes that would emphasize the non-DPS roles a bit more, doesnt seem to have drawn much attention.
Also, I actually think science is mostly alright, given the wide variety of roles you can do with them, everything from sci-heavy attack ships (Wells and Fleet Nova), offensive support (crowd control), all the way up to tank healers. The problem, as usual, there is no need for the tanks except in PVP.
They also have to do something about passive weapon/shield/armor consoles. They are suppose to help but by T5 some ships can have a permanent attack pattern alpha on top of an attack pattern alpha...on top of another...
And then there's the Hull vs. shields vs. flight/turn/defense balance thing...
I am sure there's more...
Actually, the rare times I do it, on my FedEng, whether in my Assault Cruiser, Refit Excelsior, or Fleet Excelsior, I almost always grab first, against the "dps build" escorts.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
Perhaps what he meant to say is that ship roles were more clearly defined.
If they don't like it, they need to go play a single-player game.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
Yes there was.
Firstly, you didn't have Hybrid ships taking the best of 2 out of the 3 game aspects. You didn't have TAC/ENG, TAC/SCI, ENG/TAC, or whatever combination. You did not have Escorts flying around with better than Lt ENG stations. You didn't have Cruisers flying around with TAC stations. The only ones that broke that mold were the KDF BOPs, but they paid for that price with the flimsiest hulls and shields, as they do now.
Escorts back then did not have near-Cruiser level shield mods that they do now. Escorts back then did not have the nifty Bonus Defense from Speed that they do now. You did not have Cruisers flying around with TAC or Even SCI stations to supplement their Cmdr ENG. It was very clear in what the ships between Escorts, Cruisers, and Science Vessels were good at. The moment hybrids started showing up, it broke that synergy. The Akira was the first to really shatter that, as I mentioned earlier.
Back then, Cruisers were definite top dogs in taking punishment. Damage was okay in sustained fire, but Escorts brought the real damage, esp. in spiking. Back then, Escorts were indeed *GASP* Glass Cannons. Escorts did not last long without support. Back then, Science was doing fine and were something to be highly respected until Cryptic started nerfing Science skills (when was the last time you feared a non-Cheese-Box/Lockbox Science Ship?). Back then, power drain from weapons was a serious issue that though DHCs back then were indeed as powerful as they are now, weapons drain recovered *slowly* and not near-instantaneously like they do now. If you opted for DHCs, you had enough good power for 1 good run before breaking off and recharging... EPS Flow Regulators were highly sought after to help in the recharge... were you even around for those days?... Back then, Beam Overload had a chance to kill your beam array... Were you around for that, too?
To say that there was no synergy in those early days shows that you're talking out of the wrong TRIBBLE. Or just were not around for those days. Or both.
TBH, everyone should be able to play whatever the class/style they want to in an mmo. The class system is a totally a time waster because of the time that is wasted to form a group in order to play an instance.
As it stands now, I run a galaxy retrofit (non-fleet) built almost purely on keeping myself alive, to the point that I can take a shockwave hit from the crystalline entity (on elite) and survive with about 50 percent of my hull intact, and consistantly manage bewtween first and third place each time.
And yet I still find myself using extend shields, hazard emitters, and eng team to help a teammate in trouble. We do still have a role in this game, even if it is small and rarely needed. But instead of keeping our escorts alive, we now focus on keeping carriers alive. I mostly find myself helping out obelisk pilots, and the occasional caitian
I don't see tank/healers ever taking a backseat to anyone. We'll always have a place on any team, even if its just to be a target for some escort looking for an easy target that can't fight back. Just keep looking for that one moment when you mean the difference between victory and defeat. Not all victories are won by having more dps. Sometimes not being that final kill, or keeping an ally alive long enough to make their own kill, is just as effective.
Look at it this way. An escort maxxed out for dps with a tank/healer backing it up is always going to take down an escort with a divided setup between eng and tac. This is because the tac escort is packing more of a punch than the eng/tac escort, since it isn't held back by eng abilities (for instance, eptw3 is slotted instead of epts3). If there's no reason for escorts to rely on healing from other players, then most ships in this game become useless. Why use something that requires you to drop dps when you can do everything for yourself that that ship used to help you do (for instance, why fly a cruiser with less tac consoles and bo stations when you can fly an escort with more consoles/bo stations AND have the same rank eng stations?) I disagree with this. I don't think that something should be scrapped because someone didn't want to do the work of really playing the game. I don't think its fair that cruisers get the shaft because someone decided they wanted to do a ton of damage AND stay alive while doing it. The way I see it, if you want to do damage, you have to lose tanking ability, if you want to stay alive, you have to give up dps to do so, and if you want to annoy your opponent with debuffs and aoe abilities, then you have to rely on others to do the damage that you can't do.