test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Unhappy with the trend of making sci ships into dps via gimmick consoles/built in dps
cmdrskyfaller
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
It is sad to see Cryptic unable and unwilling to fix science abilities (Boff abilities) and instead focusing on making science ships as escort-like as possible to bring them into the dps rat race.
It begins with the Vesta. After years of not giving a toss about science in general they release a set of ships with absolutely absurd console abilities and heavy cannons based on aux power. Those console abilities are -NOT- 'science' , they are consoles.
Now comes the Dyson destroyer. Essentially a Fleet Nova or Prometheus class escort with consoles and science-built in abilities (sensor analysis, subsystem attacks) which can, at the flip of a switch and on a short timer, become an escort. The very gameplay balance and concept of such a ship is absurd bordering the idiotic.
Science captains are ending up giving up on science and just going for DPS with 'science aid' of gravity well (basically that and heals is all that science has become).
The upcoming secondary deflector literally will do nothing for science as the very boff abilities and stats they are based upon are broken at the core level. More graviton and particle stats? It doesn't do SQUAT ... have they not bothered to test a sci ship with full sci consoles on each stats plus using the rep ability that grants +100 to all sci skills to compare? I have...and the result is extremely disappointing. There is negligible increase in performance of any science abiity past 80 points in the skill.
With four purple +30 particle consoles, dyson deflector (+26) and the +100 all sci skills ability boost (and 9 points in captain particle skill that sums up to 99)..the total is 345.
Gravity well at 125 aux with 345 particle skill does only 200 damage more per tick than just 6 points in particle skill and no consoles or deflectors running at 125 aux.
The same goes with graviton stat. at 345 it does not pull any harder or longer in grav well nor does it increase damage or effect in graviton-based skills. They function just the same with just 6 points in the skill.
The sci stats are broken. The resists to sci stats are so one sided it takes just 1 point in a skill (ergo, power insulators) to completely counter the bonus of 6 points in another (ergo flow caps + 125 aux) It has been this way since the F2P patch.
This trend only indicates that science in general is not even in the priority list of gameplay issues. Never has been apparently.
It begins with the Vesta. After years of not giving a toss about science in general they release a set of ships with absolutely absurd console abilities and heavy cannons based on aux power. Those console abilities are -NOT- 'science' , they are consoles.
Now comes the Dyson destroyer. Essentially a Fleet Nova or Prometheus class escort with consoles and science-built in abilities (sensor analysis, subsystem attacks) which can, at the flip of a switch and on a short timer, become an escort. The very gameplay balance and concept of such a ship is absurd bordering the idiotic.
Science captains are ending up giving up on science and just going for DPS with 'science aid' of gravity well (basically that and heals is all that science has become).
The upcoming secondary deflector literally will do nothing for science as the very boff abilities and stats they are based upon are broken at the core level. More graviton and particle stats? It doesn't do SQUAT ... have they not bothered to test a sci ship with full sci consoles on each stats plus using the rep ability that grants +100 to all sci skills to compare? I have...and the result is extremely disappointing. There is negligible increase in performance of any science abiity past 80 points in the skill.
With four purple +30 particle consoles, dyson deflector (+26) and the +100 all sci skills ability boost (and 9 points in captain particle skill that sums up to 99)..the total is 345.
Gravity well at 125 aux with 345 particle skill does only 200 damage more per tick than just 6 points in particle skill and no consoles or deflectors running at 125 aux.
The same goes with graviton stat. at 345 it does not pull any harder or longer in grav well nor does it increase damage or effect in graviton-based skills. They function just the same with just 6 points in the skill.
The sci stats are broken. The resists to sci stats are so one sided it takes just 1 point in a skill (ergo, power insulators) to completely counter the bonus of 6 points in another (ergo flow caps + 125 aux) It has been this way since the F2P patch.
This trend only indicates that science in general is not even in the priority list of gameplay issues. Never has been apparently.
![http://media.tumblr.com/160cacdb395f8340dac90864182ebe16/tumblr_inline_mx9yxhItkb1qg9pkt.jpg[/SIGPIC]](http://media.tumblr.com/160cacdb395f8340dac90864182ebe16/tumblr_inline_mx9yxhItkb1qg9pkt.jpg[/SIGPIC]){kind=link}
Post edited by cmdrskyfaller on
0
Comments
the only sci abilities that are worth it only really help out in pve, as anything used in pvp is easily countered.
I have been longing for cryptic to further separate the roles, and make each one a completely different experience from the other.. I run sci, tac, and eng. (I favor engineers), but honestly, besides for a few differences in class abilities, I find myself building all my ships the same, and completely ignoring the sci part of my builds.. usually just putting a few heals in..
ill say that sub nuke and sensor scan are pretty good abilities.. but the boff abilities are junk.. gravity well is really the only one that is worth it..
this game needs to be more than dps online.. we need more (and I mean a lot more) of mechanics like say the ce, where you need sci abilities to debuff it, so its not one shotting the whole group..
cryptic really needs to sit down and flesh out the three classes, and really strive to make them different.. even more, it would be nice to see faction specific abilities and what not in each class. giving this game what it sorely needs, differences between the three factions.. (I hate that each faction is just a cookie cutter of the others.. sure, rommies get a special cloak and sing. cores.. klinks get all universal slots on their bops.. and each faction has a few consoles that are all to themselves.. but I want to see the separation further, in the classes..
I think everyone can agree that federation science officers would probably be a lot different from a klink sci officer..
moral of the story, flesh out the classes, and start looking at more than just dps...
On a separate note, the 2nd deflector gives a nice although extremely marginal (crappy) bonus to drain abilities, but I don't think the Destroyer is the best ship for it.
The problem isn't Sci abilities, the problem is that PvE is designed to be a shooting gallery.
It is designed to be a shooting gallery, because that allows any randomly composed team to complete it and it allows for below average players to also have success.
That's the simple truth of it.
So there are Science ships and Cruiser benefits being added that directly allow those ships to play the PvE game more like damage dealers.
I'm not happy about it, I think it's an awful direction, but that's the reality of a free to play game like this that does not focus on PvP and instead focuses on easy-grind PvE.
Most Sci BOFF powers are in a good place in PvP right now, it's just in PvE where you can TRIBBLE on enemies and watch them explode that they don't serve any purpose because the game is designed to be completed by just shooting things.
It's like the Avenger and Mogh - fixing the 'problem' of cruisers by offering harder hitting alternatives.
It's certainly not going to fix the problems inherent in the design of the game. For example giving tacticals the ability to buff everyone's damage output. If science is supposed to be the buff/debuffer of the design out of all of the classes then make us such. We have a terrible set of choices for science skills very few of them work well and the two you guys focused on just before season 8 are great but really it's pretty much exactly what we're saying when we're stuck using cookie cutter builds in this game.
Everyone using anomolies isn't the solution either. The other skills are all kinetic damage rather than exotic which means we get 0 of the benefits of the traits or new consoles on them and there's 0 chance of them getting past shields. The problem still remains where someone could use all of the Doffs they have to enhance photonic shockwave for example but 1 hitpoint of a shield facing still makes it useless and do hardly any damage.
And then there's FBP and Viral Matrix which are completely useless outside of the new ship (VM now actually gives us a brief heal and sometimes shutsdown enemy ships aux/eng but rather unreliably).
Why can't a team over there actually sit down and spend some time hashing out what's wrong with the science skills and actually fix them? I mean this IS supposed to be their "Science" moment with Voyager lore in the picture.
(I do have to thank them for something I've been asking for for quite some time now, secondary deflector arrays! Here's to hoping they expand upon those!)
I'm hoping we'll also have a look at different tricorders for ground slot for different purposes.
Oh and to the replier above, it's not just two ships it's 1 ship per faction, 1 veteran ship per faction and 3 federation ships that have these skills and then there's the plethora of skills that come from consoles only that should have been science skills to begin with because they were things done by science officers in the series and not some device that engineers thru together at the last minute.
Are you new here?
this and just for the info this game has always been about DPS any one think other need that cap from old timey schools
system Lord Baal is dead
Anti-science skills only cancel each other to a maximum 50% reduction. Effects reduced based on auxiliary level. Engines for graviton effects.
Make all bonus damage based on base damage like consoles so they all stack additively.
Skill increases 15/15/15/10/10/10/5/5/15 to have motive to get maxed out.
Make power increase science skills to only affect based on auxiliary power level.
A2B doffs only work once on any boff ability
Did I miss anything?
The Dyson for me is gimmicky but with great potential with specific builds and captains... I just personally can't get past the look.
I want to see what other secondary deflectors are released when the system goes live- who knows I might put my FED Tac in a Fleet Nova just for fun...
So, because Grav Well serves its utility to bunch everything up for your non-Science ability attack (Grav Torpedoes), Science is in a good place?
"Wonderful" logic and a lack of awareness of Science abilities.
Science abilities are easily resisted. Doesn't help that the skill to defend against most of them is a T2 skill and easily raised with huge benefits against Sci. And the Science abilities designed for dmg are miniscule in their effects.
200 ticks of dmg... LOL, whatever Cryptic.
All while Attack Patterns, TAC skills like CRF/CSV/BFAW/BO/TS/HYT synergize very well, very easily and are damn effective in what they do.
My tykens rift 3 hits for a consistent 800 or over 1000 with a 3 stack with out pg consoles. But I agree with you. Easily countered, reduced, and with a cooldown too long to make up the gap in dps races.
Tbh the game needs a serious look at game content. When a game becomes dps over everything (timed play or resource races - STFs and enrage timers on everything) dynamic gameplay suffers. The skill tree is in serious need of specialization and an actual reason to max skills instead of getting 84% in every skill.
return sci to beta ability. with the existing power creep, it will make sci viable, not OP like it was
it USE to be specialized. it looked like the old school wow trees. they got simplified shortly before F2P IIRC
Let's dissemble that.
Changes in gravity well: The tractor pull bunches ships in place. Damage however, is TRIBBLE since the well releases the ship and the damage drops exponentially per meter distance from the well's center.
Here's a fun fact: The 'damage' you see the gravity well 'do' isn't from the well. Its ship explosion damage. Do you know why the ships are exploding? Because of insanely boosted tac-capt-in-escort aoe attacks.
Therefore, your 'science' is really nothing more than an escort's tool. Oh hey, want to know why grav well 1 has the same tractor pull as grav well 3? So that ESCORTS can use it. Without putting a SINGLE POINT IN GRAVITON or even bothering with aux power.
Tyken: There has been no change to this ability. Even at Tyken III with full flow caps plus consoles and +100 to all sci skills reputation bonus it just doesn't suck anyone dry. Oh wait, the npcs that don't shoot back do (borg drones in estf)... but those that do, don't.
There are no new science ships. The Vesta and Dyson are gimmicky tac-based ships with a dash of sci and a ton of console garbage to make it look like science. BOFF ABILITIES are what make a science ship a science ship, not consoles.
Hint: Boff abilities and sci stats are borked.
Gravimetric torpedo is... oh.. a weapon. Guess what capt class has the boff abilities that buff weapons? Therefore, it has nothing to do with science.
Yeah it was right at F2P when they simplified it. You used to have to skill into specific energy and projectile types and even into specific ships!
Joined January 2009
There's no need to specialize or complicate the sci trees. They're basically untouched to what they were pre-f2p.
What needs to happen is to re-vamp the way sci stats affect sci abilities.
Currently aux power does nearly 80% of all the 'oomph' in sci abilities. Skill points mean little. At 125 aux no particle skill the gravity well 1 will do the same damage as a 9 point particle skill 25 aux power ship. Graviton doesnt even affect grav well ...0 or 9 points in it..it will still pull ships in just the same.
So, first step is to make sci capt skill points modify the bonus that each aux power point gives and have the basic damage of the sci ability be extremely weak. That way you guarantee that if the player has no points in the stat then the ability he uses is mostly harmless.
(Ironic twist: Just like Tactical abilities work now. If you dont spec points into energy weapons or just weapons in general and go fire a beam overload with 125 wep power you'll do about the same damage a 25 wep power full weapon spec ship would do).
Second step is to fine tune the effects of science abilities to match the science ship role (debuff/crowd control/support/aux. healer).
Tachyon beam for example, once the first step is done it should drain a good amount of shield power....but the problem remains that as an ability it is still useless since ships can regain all that hp with one instant heal plus balance their shields. The way to do this is to make tachyon beam drain just ONE shield facing PLUS prevent shield balancing for the duration of the beam. This would make the ability able to remove or almost completely wipe out on shield facing and create a weak spot for others in team or the sci ship itself to exploit.
Siphon can be made to drain not from the power pool of the ship, but rather it consume the power bonuses that the target ship's captain abilities and equipment grant it. Basically drain it down to non-boosted power levels. That would debuff ANY ship without it being a shut-me-down ability.
Tyken can drain from the top as it currently does... mix it with siphon and you see how they work together nicely to be a shut-down combo.
...basically EVERY science ability needs a fine tuning in effect.
Third step is to balance out the resists vs science abilities. Its absurd that you need to spend just 1 point in power insulators to negate 9 points in flow capacitors. Its absurd that Viral Matrix 3 is cleaned out by science team 1.
Resists vs attacking stat should always be on a 1:1 ratio. Tier abilities should only cancel each other out if the equivalent tier ability is used to cleanse it. Using a lower tier ability should only lower the timer on which the offensive ability affects the target.
The final step is the most difficult. It does not involve science but rather the true source of the massive imbalance in this game: Tactical abilities.
Specifically, tactical team, attack omega and cannon spread.
Tactical team should not autobalance shields. It should instead give a small crit hit chance bonus.
Attack Omega should NOT have defensive bonuses. Its IDIOTIC that it has the equivalent of emg to engines, aux to dampeners, polarize hull and a huge damage boost on top. Its IDIOTIC that the damage boost in attack omega also boosts non-weapon damage types like gravity well. Omega should only grant a speed boost (=+def & mobility) and a damage boost. No turn rate boost. No immunity to holds/etc.
This ability alone is the #1 cause of the imbalance between ship classes. Escorts dont need cruisers to tank or sci ships to debuff because their own massive dps while under this 'god mode' makes the roles of the other ships irrelevant. It allows escorts to dedicate all of their sci and engineering stations to healing.
Cannon spread hits ALL targets inside a cone for the same damage. Its... just unbelievably dumb. Cannon spread should be no different than beam fire at will..each cannon pulse should hit ONE target inside the cone at random, not all ships be hit at once by the same 1 pulse.
Fixing science and removing those things from tactical abilities brings the game to balance. Very similar to how things were pre-f2p.
I wasn't trying to confuse things with the science tree. I was only saying that science skills should be tied to auxiliary levels. With lower auxiliary you should have less gain from the skill while increasing exponentially with higher auxiliary. I was also trying to point out that every one can excel with only a small amount of skill points invested in every ability to be an almost master of all. It kills specialization and homogenizes builds enough that only ship load outs really matter.
They are. That's the problem. The sci stat skill (aka particle generators,flow capacitor,etc) provide a minimal boost compared to aux power. A tac captain in an escort that has a lt cmdr sci station (Adv. Escort Prometheus for example) does not need to waste a single point in particle skill or graviton generators..all he needs to do is pump the AUX to 125 for a brief moment, fire the grav well and return to his usual power setting.
Thats right..and wrong.
Tactical: Yes. Their skill trees were dumbed down to one size fit all and they have to spend less than half the skill points sci and engineers have to spend on their class boxes to be good at their role. Tactical skill trees however are CRITICALLY linked to the points spent. There is a very noticeable difference in damage if you only spec weapons or atk patterns to 6 points not 9 for example.
Engineers: Their skill boxes also provide a noticeable boost per point spent. Their skill boxes for the most part are focused on power levels and you can see a big difference between 3, 6 and 9 points in a box.
Science: Only the healing boxes have noticeable performance differences per point spent. Offensive, crowd control and utility skill boxes show little to no benefit in application. To make things worse, their already weak effects are countered at a very uneven ratio against them by other skill boxes (most non-sci). This is all because the non-healing abilities gain the majority of their performance from just aux power setting. Healing also gets a major boost from AUX but if you don't have at least 6 points in healing boxes then you'll have to keep your aux on max the entire time just to get a decent heal.
Ship loadouts matter ...true. and if you look at it, its only the ships with the lt cmdr tactical that 'matter'. Atk Omega is just that ridiculous a boost.
The only thing that separate captains are the career traits, ground skills, and captain abilities. Space skills are exactly the same. Tac captains are popular because they get a 60% boost to damage that no one else can get ( too high tbh).
I mentioned tying resistance skills and power increasing skills to relevant subsystem power level so that if some one running 15 aux gets hit by a scramble sensors they recieve closer to the full duration. It would also make efficiency and potential skills more valuable.
fits of all I completely agree whit you
I really like playing science ships and using science abilities. I don't need them to be overpowered, I just need them to matter. sure I'd like to finish off enemies whit science abilities alone but that would be OP.
denying my opponent from ever having shields so that i finish them of just as fast as a escort while having only half of the escorts DPS is just as viable.
then the Idea starts to become visible. an escort tries to kill before it's killed(DPS). a science vessel denies it's opponent any way to protect itself or fight back (CC) or heal team mates. a cruiser can buff itself to either do damage to compare to an escort (Ax2B + FaW) to outlast is opponent (tank).
the captains skill tree's should be designed so that they are a shoe in for their respective vessel. however a they should not be so hyer specialized that they can't fly anything but their respective ship type. for example tactical captain should sill be able to fly a cruiser or science vessel but due to how his class work use them differently.
a tactical captain is not gonna tank in a cruiser hes gonna do a a buff up and DPS thing. a science vessel has better shield but less hull so a engineering captain planing to tank will adjust accordingly.
then we still have the different sides. the federation is into fundamental research(research for the sake of knowledge) so their strengths are engineering and science. the romulans are into weapons development their strengths are tactical ans science (if it can't be used as a weapon in some way its not worth developing). the klingons are into weaponstech their strengths are engineering ans tactical (scientist are not valued in their society they rather steel and reverse engineer than research). the classes (and ships) should reflect that. a Klingon science officer will have more focus on engineering and weapons and therefore be more tailored to flying a carrier than a pure science vessel. romulans are designed very well their racial traits and ships support a clever warfare using stealth and singularity abilities, however the classes should be resigned to be more of e a shoe in for this. the way classes work is only relevant to the federation and even for them id change it up a bit.
the conclusion is that the klingon side is underdeveloped (nothing new here) and could become more popular after this change.
classes must be changed to become more exiting not just flat increases to stats but unlocking new abilities or enhancing existing abilities (not statistically improve them but making them do something new) by choosing on how you build your character instead automatically gaining them on level up.
each class should get unique skill trees that reflect their role and faction.
EDIT: there should be separate skill trees for space and ground! forcing us to spend points in ground skills was not the way to go! players need progress though both trees from level 1 to 50 and have exiting choices in both trees at each level. the grounds tree is ridiculously small. because of that ground game remains underdeveloped and therefore boring and annoying. also all I've been saying about the space skill trees applies to ground skill trees as well. they need to have depth and be different depending on class and faction.
First of all it's not even a crafting system! It's just a dumb game system that's nothing more than a glorified slots machine.
second the "special items" you hope will be the saving the saving grace are messed up to.
'Absolutely absurd console abilities' on a Vesta? I'd like to see those! :P I own 3 Vestas, but in practice never really use their consoles. Like most of those type of ship-specific consoles, they're mainly just gimmicks: you use em for a few days, then shelve em again.
A very astute observation.
Why Science is not allowed to 'destroy 5 NPC freighters,' whereas Tacts are constantly pumped with even moar pwnage, is beyond me, however. Every time Science gets even remotely good, Cryptic has the nerve to nerf it... badly.
Your solution makes no sense and would cripple what little usefulness you can squeeze out of science.
Energy siphon and Tyken's rift are fine as they are now. I use them on a regular basis and they are good. The difficulty in draining ships to zero comes from power insulators combined with warp cores. Why are insulators so powerful? Because most captains can't be bothered to use nadion inversion which is a pretty powerful counter to drains. That combined with HE and Sci Team clearing debuffs.
Why would that be? If you are required to have decent aux to use and defend against science abilities then the obvious answer would be to have less power in other subsystems to protect yourself. This way eps becomes even more useful as you are using the subsystems more. Auxiliary power becomes absolutely necessary.
I also stated that multipliers shouldn't multiply each other to close the dps gap between the careers while still leaving a lead for tac officers. It would also keep things from blowing up too quickly with 30k dps.
I agree. It's not so much that science or engineering need a boost, it's that tactical needs a nerf.
Then engineers would be welcome to soak up damage as they chip away, and science would be able to do some debuff/control work.
I know it'll never happen, but perhaps once the creep gets too big to ignore something will happen.
It isn't too big yet?