The Voth are zero parts copy/paste. Their AIs are custom, their mechanics are custom - they were designed from the ground up to pose problems that damage alone could not solve, and in some cases problems that damage made harder (reflective hard shields). Any similarities they have to the behavior of other critter groups are purely coincidental.
Honestly, I find that I shred through Voth faster than I do, say, Klingons, on my dual heavy phaser cannon using Fleet Advanced Escort. To be fair, I'm using the Omega set's shield stripping bonus, and a lot of Rapid Fire, so I'm kind of built to rip apart shields, and my ship does really solid DPS. But outside of the shield reflection thing and the decoy's EMP shutting down my engines, really anything short of a dreadnought gets torn up pretty fast.
I think the problem is what you said. Simply killing the hell out of the enemy is a more efficent method than debuffing or control, when Science ships and characters should feel more like Space Wizards. I think that part of the issue is that Science, more than Engineering and Tactical, is much more dependent on it's powers. I think maybe the Romulans had the right track with their Singularity Powers, giving them a whole bag of tricks on top of their normal stuff to throw at people.
To give some ideas:
Charged Particle Burst: Helps against cloak (and that should work on all NPC cloaks) and shields that are buffed by damage reduction, could also help against powers that grant temporary immunities or even reflections.
Tachyon Beam: Similar to CPB good against shield protection.
Gravity Well: AoE abilities are always optimal against groups, so enemies that intentionally split up, use heavy projectiles or mines are interesting. It also creates a pull effect, but unfortunately, the ones that are most likely to be hurt by being stuck in the center are the ones msot likely to escape. Maybe the damage of GW should be higher on the edges. (It's space magic, it can do it!)
Tyken's Rift: AoE is good. Not sure if the energy drain is that great against NPCs - maybe some NPCs should have deliberate energy level weaknesses?
Energy Siphon: Similar to TR, but no AOE.
TBR: Great AoE and good damage if you can force a target to take the damage. Could be particularly itneresting if there would be more enemies that have powerful attacks that they telegraph and work only within 5km or less.
Tractor Beam: There aren't enough enemies in the game that are worth tractoring. maybe raise the damage of TR with the speed of the target (it might escape eventually, but it will hurt)
Science Team: I think the lt. and lt.cmdr versions are not interesting enough, the cleanse is great, but is the skill bonus and shield heal worth the Lt or Lt.Cmdr slots? Unless things changed a lot, I don't think so. Maybe the bonus should be higher? Maybe the cleanse effect could last onger with rank?
What about Tractor Beam applying a bigger -Def debuff? That's a big deal because not only are they standing still and easier to hit, but players get an increased crit rate and effectiveness. Maybe multiple tractors decrease enemy accuracy or something.
Similarly, Tachyon Beam isn't just a shield drain - which is basically just damage - but weakens their Shield Hardness, or increases Shield Penetration for a time against that ship.
And then powers like Transfer Shield Strength and Science Team and Polarize Hull and whatnot act as counters to this. Make putting together a science ship like building a deck of Magic cards. Do you want to focus on debuffs and offense, or on countering the science powers of the other side?
Damage is just one tool in any given ship's toolkit, but it's important to all ships - no content in the game is beaten by solely by healing NPCs, for instance, or solely by controlling them, but a large swath of our content can be beaten solely by damaging NPCs.
And THAT is EXACTLY the problem. That is exactly what makes this game's group PvE experience feel lacking when compared to many other MMOs. Exactly this. Although you try to increase the advantages of science vessels and cruisers, Cryptic, so far, has done very little to tackle the issue itself: The lack of ANY real incentive to have a science or cruiser ship in your group.
I am a fan of the holy trinity, but I understand that many people are not. STO, however, could use a tiny bit more ROLE-utilization in group missions. Right now it's just: DMG DMG DMG DMG
It is dull, but the engine could enable so much more, the Devs just have to invest WAY more in encounter scripting etc.
So far I saw almost NO content that really rewards you for having a group that is not made up of 5 escorts - and Cryptic keeps protracting the problem, with only some tweaks that do not really change the situation. BUT the Devs are super-afraid of making escorts as fragile as they should be, to really give an incentive for a dedicated tank, for instance. Somehow you guys have to find a way...
I agree, Sci builds are for minor DPS and major energy draining to 1 vessel. As far as having any multiple target effect, of course GW3 is the best team based effect. Bringing several enemy into one area for mass destruction by chain reaction DPS from destroyed vessels. I would enjoy a doff that would increase Energy Drain to multiple targets and not completely be diluted in the process. again this is not DPS exactly but the outcome would be very effective. Using energy drain greatly increases your power lvls as we all know. Helping to increase your DPS sufficiently.
In regards to the OP's premise, I understand where you're coming from. Damage is just one tool in any given ship's toolkit, but it's important to all ships - no content in the game is beaten by solely by healing NPCs, for instance, or solely by controlling them, but a large swath of our content can be beaten solely by damaging NPCs.
The most interesting content poses multiple "questions" to players, requiring them to "answer" each one in turn. If we throw an AoE shield DoT whose magnitude increases every tick at you, that's a question for which the best answer is a dispel, while the second-best answer is killing the source of it before the DoT kills you.
Science Bridge Officer Skills in general answer all of the questions that aren't just "How much damage can you do?" Power Drain, Repel, Holds, and other Crowd Control effects are all available from Science abilities, along with support powers like dispels and heals. These abilities' power levels scale inversely with the the power of damage in the game - as encounter times become shorter and shorter due to refined strategies and gear resulting in higher player damage, less damage and fewer mechanics need to be mitigated by control and support abilities.
I would actually posit that the Science Bridge Officer abilities are all pretty darn satisfying to use and do their function quite well, but that in PvE content, our NPCs just aren't tough enough to "require" control/support roles, and thus Science abilites can end up feeling extraneous. Many many players enjoy flying Science boats, however, and my own AoE control build I find extremely fun to play (anecdotally), even if it's not the most efficient in terms of rewards per minute.
There's no real conclusion here - I'm just musing in public. TLDR; Science is still fun; it's okay if Science ships get a little better at dealing damage; it's also fun when NPCs pose problems that aren't solved just by shooting them a lot.
Really glad you wrote this. As a sci captain since beta, I definitely appreciate you taking the time to post this.
I think my main issue isn't adding more damage to sci ships, it's the method of which that damage is added. Sci ships should, in my opinion, have their damage dealt mainly through their science skills and techniques. Instead, what we have right now is just slapping some cannons and maybe a hangar bay on them and calling it a day.
I hate to draw comparisons to fantasy games, but as far as game mechanics are concerned, I feel that there's somewhat of a parallel. In STO, science is essentially "space magic." We're comparable to white/black mages in fantasy games. The thing that STO is doing that bugs me is that instead of giving my black mage some killer new spells, we're just getting the ability to wield a great sword. For an actual game example, see Dark Knights in FFXI. We had black magic skills but could wield Great Scythes and Great Swords.
Eventually, the black magic fell to the wayside and was largely unused by the playerbase save for a few choice skills (Stun magic). The end result was a heavy weapons user that only used 1 magic skill out of their entire spell book. That's kind of how I see science going right now in PVE. We're just becoming escorts/destroyers that can use GW3. That's the exact opposite of how I believe it should be.
However, instead of simply retooling existing science skills to be more damage oriented, I feel that we should start moving into the introduction of new boff skills. A whole new set of skills from Ensign to Commander. Even though we've had new ships with new layouts and new mechanics, we've pretty much been stuck with the same skills since launch. Having a new set of skills like that can allow people to build their ships on how they see fit. Want to be a "black mage" ship? No problem, the damage skills you want are there. Want to continue being a "white mage" support/heal ship? That's fine too, all the old skills are still there for you.
To go one step further, I also feel that Engineering and Tactical could use some all new skills as well. I kind of feel that build diversity is starting to falter since we've been using the same ones for so long. That's a different issue separate from science, but it's somewhat related I think. Since I realize that would be a massive undertaking, maybe tuck that idea away for a future expansion.
In short, I feel that the current trend of adding more tactical ability to science ships through cannons and hangar bays is just a band-aid to the core issue. So while I do agree with you that it's okay for science ships to be able to deal more damage, I disagree with how that damage is currently being added to them.
Science Bridge Officer Skills in general answer all of the questions that aren't just "How much damage can you do?" Power Drain, Repel, Holds, and other Crowd Control effects are all available from Science abilities, along with support powers like dispels and heals. These abilities' power levels scale inversely with the the power of damage in the game - as encounter times become shorter and shorter due to refined strategies and gear resulting in higher player damage, less damage and fewer mechanics need to be mitigated by control and support abilities.
I would actually posit that the Science Bridge Officer abilities are all pretty darn satisfying to use and do their function quite well, but that in PvE content, our NPCs just aren't tough enough to "require" control/support roles, and thus Science abilites can end up feeling extraneous. Many many players enjoy flying Science boats, however, and my own AoE control build I find extremely fun to play (anecdotally), even if it's not the most efficient in terms of rewards per minute.
There's no real conclusion here - I'm just musing in public. TLDR; Science is still fun; it's okay if Science ships get a little better at dealing damage; it's also fun when NPCs pose problems that aren't solved just by shooting them a lot.
Two problems. First, the AI of all NPCs needs to be brought up to Both standards and maybe give them higher tier specced skills.
The second problem is that science is the only class where you have to over specialize at the expense of damage in order for the boff abilities to be effective and it's only some of them. The worst problem was fixing GW and making it more effective for classes other than sci and penalizing overspecializing to try and maximize its damage.
Follow up question, what's up with hyping up 2nd deflectors so much and then coming up with such a weak one, including that horrible drain gimmick that does practically nothing?
I INCREASINGLY find myself obsolete with my Sci in my Fleet Nova- because no matter how 'clever' you make Sci ships/abilities it doesn't change the fact that if you wind up in an STF that has a Scimitar or two, or something like a Scimitar/Mogh, those abilities are absolutely useless. Why? Because:
- Everything is dead before you can do anything
- Healing other players not necessary; everything exploded before it could do much
- Debuff? No point - what are you debuffing? It was never really a threat.
- Crowd control? No point - by the time Gravity Well takes effect all that it does is pull in a bunch of exploding ships.
The new Secondary Deflector will change NONE of the above. DPS and hopelessly OP ships (like the Scimitar) are all that matter anymore.
One could disable ltcmdr slots depending on the ship. Escorts get commander and ltcmdr slots with lt and ensign slots for engineering and science abilities giving utility yet leaving most cc, tanking, and healing abilities to the ships dedicated to it. You could also have hybrid ships that don't have a commander slot, but could have multiple ltcmdr boff slots giving a more balanced approach.
To be frank, it is easy to think of ways to fix a problem. The hard part is finding the time and possibly the manpower to fix them.
I don't really see a problem with the current console and aux2bat cool down, could you maybe tell me what you think is wrong with them?
The consoles change was an idea to leave more room for universal consoles and now see that a console limit plus damage multipliers only stacking additively might be over kill.
Secondly nothing is wrong with A2B cooldown. Only the stacking cooldown reduction basically meaning you only need one version of any ability which means on any ship damage output can be maximized almost 100% of the time and have a variety of abilities to choose from. All it costs is one boff slot and temporary mediocre auxiliary abilities.
One could disable ltcmdr slots depending on the ship. Escorts get commander and ltcmdr slots with lt and ensign slots for engineering and science abilities giving utility yet leaving most cc, tanking, and healing abilities to the ships dedicated to it. You could also have hybrid ships that don't have a commander slot, but could have multiple ltcmdr boff slots giving a more balanced approach.
To be frank, it is easy to think of ways to fix a problem. The hard part is finding the time and possibly the manpower to fix them.
The consoles change was an idea to leave more room for universal consoles and now see that a console limit plus damage multipliers only stacking additively might be over kill.
Secondly nothing is wrong with A2B cooldown. Only the stacking cooldown reduction basically meaning you only need one version of any ability which means on any ship damage output can be maximized almost 100% of the time and have a variety of abilities to choose from. All it costs is one boff slot and temporary mediocre auxiliary abilities.
A2B cycling requires 2+ LT+ eng boff power slots and 3 VR Doffs to function as you claim and even then it is not anywhere near as efficient as multiple-copies of short CD/GCD powers. And without the doffs it is useless.
As for uptime, 1-2 EPTn can give you close to actual 100% uptime. It's basically like using the EPTn cooldown doffs. Anything you can run two of back-to-back (accounting for GCD) will "100% uptime" that way though some powers (e.g. beam powers) work better if you have two because of the GCD being slightly too long.
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).
Science powers, allegedly, are "support powers" with some being really strange (hazard emitters - I can cleanse your ship of radiation with radiation, sure!) and others being reallllly strange (viral matrix - In the 24th century trojan radiation viruses your ship!).
They tried to drive that "support" concept home with the "Support Cruiser" but I'm not sure it worked.
I agree, Sci builds are for minor DPS and major energy draining to 1 vessel. As far as having any multiple target effect, of course GW3 is the best team based effect. Bringing several enemy into one area for mass destruction by chain reaction DPS from destroyed vessels
Clearly, what Science needs is an ability that causes destroyed enemies afflicted to blow up more even more spectacularly, like an AOE Penga.
Because let's face it: We're in DPS Online now. For something to be useful, it has to cause or facilitate DPS. It's either that, or trying to design content that can be finished better by 5x 5K DPS boats than by 5x 50K Scimitars. Can anyone think of a hypothetical mission design where having 5 5K boats that do something OTHER than DPS can somehow outperform an all-Super-Scimitar team...and yet still be challenging, and not Azure, which we all know is properly performed with no shots fired?
A2B cycling requires 2+ LT+ eng boff power slots and 3 VR Doffs to function as you claim and even then it is not anywhere near as efficient as multiple-copies of short CD/GCD powers. And without the doffs it is useless.
As for uptime, 1-2 EPTn can give you close to actual 100% uptime. It's basically like using the EPTn cooldown doffs. Anything you can run two of back-to-back (accounting for GCD) will "100% uptime" that way though some powers (e.g. beam powers) work better if you have two because of the GCD being slightly too long.
And some abilities have duplicate cooldowns longer than global which means ways to reduce that further can help too. Example: gravity well has a 30 duplicate and a 15 sec global using a2b I can use it every 20 sec. As for the ep2x doffs, they only have a chance to proc at most once every 15 sec. And there are times where I don't get procs many times in a row leading to drop offs and loss of uptime. A2B doffs replace at least 10 separate doffs. Every one of those other doffs are chance based. Not only that it makes a certain science boff ability feel very lack luster with its low uptime in comparison. I just don't know how a thing like that is really defendable with balancing as the goal.
And some abilities have duplicate cooldowns longer than global which means ways to reduce that further can help too. Example: gravity well has a 30 duplicate and a 15 sec global using a2b I can use it every 20 sec. As for the ep2x doffs, they only have a chance to proc at most once every 15 sec. And there are times where I don't get procs many times in a row leading to drop offs and loss of uptime. A2B doffs replace at least 10 separate doffs. Every one of those other doffs are chance based. Not only that it makes a certain science boff ability feel very lack luster with its low uptime in comparison. I just don't know how a thing like that is really defendable with balancing as the goal.
So you've never used A2B and your knowledge of Gravity Well and EPtN seem equally disingenuous. Thanks for the clarification.
Clearly, what Science needs is an ability that causes destroyed enemies afflicted to blow up more even more spectacularly, like an AOE Penga.
Because let's face it: We're in DPS Online now. For something to be useful, it has to cause or facilitate DPS. It's either that, or trying to design content that can be finished better by 5x 5K DPS boats than by 5x 50K Scimitars. Can anyone think of a hypothetical mission design where having 5 5K boats that do something OTHER than DPS can somehow outperform an all-Super-Scimitar team...and yet still be challenging, and not Azure, which we all know is properly performed with no shots fired?
I'm salivating at your suggestion of a "when stuff blows up, make it blow up more" skill... there's nothing better than staying cloaked until you get 5.0km away from a cluster of baddies, load up scatter volley and torp spread 3, then hit everything with a grav well and unload. Bonus points if you take away their resistances and smack them with proton barrage. So many 'splosions....
I also feel that a suggestion made earlier in this thread to change all science abilities to deal exotic particles instead of kinetic, that'd go a long way to improving our situation. On that note, I also feel like Proton damage should be linked the Particle Generators as well, since the weapon seems the most science-ey out of all of them.
Sardak (Science Officer): Captain of a 23k DPS R'Mor Temporal Science Vessel, R.R.W. Vathos Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
So far I saw almost NO content that really rewards you for having a group that is not made up of 5 escorts - and Cryptic keeps protracting the problem, with only some tweaks that do not really change the situation. BUT the Devs are super-afraid of making escorts as fragile as they should be, to really give an incentive for a dedicated tank, for instance. Somehow you guys have to find a way...
What ppl fail to understand, is that STO, despite being called an MMO, really isn't one. It's essentially a single-player game (in an MMO environment, if that makes sense). Simply put: ppl want to come home from work, do a few casual missions, and be done with it. As soon as they have to really rely on others -- either for survival or for completion of the mission -- they walk, as it's too much of a hassle getting organized with folks you don't know, and too much trouble for the casual gamer to get to know ppl and build reliable teams with.
Cryptic knows all this, of course. Hence, they will *always* make it so, that you -- whatever profession you are -- will essentially be completely self-reliant. And this, in turn, highly favors the Tact Captain, as this game is about DPS, and he doesn't need anyone else for reasons outlined above.
What ppl fail to understand, is that STO, despite being called an MMO, really isn't one. It's essentially a single-player game (in an MMO environment, if that makes sense). Simply put: ppl want to come home from work, do a few casual missions, and be done with it. As soon as they have to really rely on others -- either for survival or for completion of the mission -- they walk, as it's too much of a hassle getting organized with folks you don't know, and too much trouble for the casual gamer to get to know ppl and build reliable teams with.
Cryptic knows all this, of course. Hence, they will *always* make it so, that you -- whatever profession you are -- will essentially be completely self-reliant. And this, in turn, highly favors the Tact Captain, as this game is about DPS, and he doesn't need anyone else for reasons outlined above.
I'd almost say that this really favors the Engineer more... with Aux2Bat the way it is, they can easily dish out the pain and have an emergency heal available.
Sardak (Science Officer): Captain of a 23k DPS R'Mor Temporal Science Vessel, R.R.W. Vathos Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
I'd almost say that this really favors the Engineer more... with Aux2Bat the way it is, they can easily dish out the pain and have an emergency heal available.
Except that the best defense... is offense. DPS-tanking (= 'tanking' by simply killing everything fast) is still the best way to go. My CEO has a NWS build with only 1 EPtS1 (and no DCE's); he's somewhat of a NWS legend. He gets by with so little tankability, simply because, as a Tact, he has insane DPS: nothing really gets to shoot at him long enough for it to become an issue.
So you've never used A2B and your knowledge of Gravity Well and EPtN seem equally disingenuous. Thanks for the clarification.
I was wrong and I will recognize that. However I am clearly missing how I was wrong with the ep2x ability cooldown reduction doffs and how even with 3 it is never a 100% chance to activate unlike a2b.
In regards to the OP's premise, I understand where you're coming from. Damage is just one tool in any given ship's toolkit, but it's important to all ships - no content in the game is beaten by solely by healing NPCs, for instance, or solely by controlling them, but a large swath of our content can be beaten solely by damaging NPCs.
The most interesting content poses multiple "questions" to players, requiring them to "answer" each one in turn. If we throw an AoE shield DoT whose magnitude increases every tick at you, that's a question for which the best answer is a dispel, while the second-best answer is killing the source of it before the DoT kills you.
Science Bridge Officer Skills in general answer all of the questions that aren't just "How much damage can you do?" Power Drain, Repel, Holds, and other Crowd Control effects are all available from Science abilities, along with support powers like dispels and heals. These abilities' power levels scale inversely with the the power of damage in the game - as encounter times become shorter and shorter due to refined strategies and gear resulting in higher player damage, less damage and fewer mechanics need to be mitigated by control and support abilities.
I would actually posit that the Science Bridge Officer abilities are all pretty darn satisfying to use and do their function quite well, but that in PvE content, our NPCs just aren't tough enough to "require" control/support roles, and thus Science abilites can end up feeling extraneous. Many many players enjoy flying Science boats, however, and my own AoE control build I find extremely fun to play (anecdotally), even if it's not the most efficient in terms of rewards per minute.
There's no real conclusion here - I'm just musing in public. TLDR; Science is still fun; it's okay if Science ships get a little better at dealing damage; it's also fun when NPCs pose problems that aren't solved just by shooting them a lot.
A few things I disagree with you:
1- It is not 'ok' to have science do more dps. It is not the science ship's role and this mentality that 'its ok' is, in my opinion, 'the easy way out' of a problem. And the problem is quite, quite big. You don't make a class viable by prostituting it to the role of another class simply because it takes less work.
2- NPCs are certainly 'tough' enough for the most part. You're again taking the easy road here when it comes to identifying the source of the problem.
Ask yourself this: How is it that players can deploy such high DPS numbers? Its not because you have increased the damage in guns or the damage bonus of weapon power settings nor that people have figured out new combos of boff abilities to increase the dps.
Its not even the damage bonuses that come from 2-piece or 3 or 4-piece gear sets. Its not that NPCs are not tough enough.
The reason DPS output is so high is simply because player ships, particularly escorts, can stay with their noses pointed at targets for very long periods of time firing nonstop using double-cycled abilities (atk omega+cannon spread for example.. 2 copies of each). That DPS adds up incredibly fast.
Why can escorts stay such long periods of time firing? Its quite simple: Attack Omega's defense bonuses significantly reduces the damage they receive (the def bonus alone makes most shots miss the escort) and Tactical Team's shield balancing (also 2 copies of it).
You need to realize that to match attack omega's defensive bonuses alone a ship would need to have:
Lt Engineer: Emg to Engines 1 and Aux to Dampeners (for flight speed, turn bonus, immunities and resists).
AND
Ensign Science: Polarize hull (for immunity to holds)
For a non-escort ship it is not an option to use the LT tactical station to slot two tac teams just to gain constant shield autobalancing hence these ships do not receive the benefit of all 4 shields = 1 shield because once the only tac team they can afford to slot is on timer downtime, they become VERY vulnerable. They don't have attack omega to significantly reduce their incoming damage (def bonus and resists) nor its 'get me out of their weapons range fast' speed boost.
Now add to this the fact that in the captain skill boxes, the boxes that determine hull and shield HP (Structural Integrity and Shield Systems) are in the cheapest boxes (Lt and Lt Cmdr). You will also notice the boxes that increase the strength of heals are also in the same tiers (Hull Repair, Shield Emitters).
I bring this up to show you that an escort can afford to put 9 points into all of those boxes to max out its hull and shield HP and to gain = healing power to cruisers and sci ships. This is because the difference in performance between tier 2 and 3 shields is hardly noticeable when they are healing ships with the least shield and hull HP. In simple terms, an ensign or lt level heal is enough to almost fully heal the escort with one click. All this while still being able to literally max out all the tactical damage and defense skill boxes plus put at least 6 in most engineering power bonus and resist skill boxes.
Before getting derailed here... just take into account that ALL OF THIS is what allows the escort to add up its dps to monstrous levels. You cannot and will not ever balance this game until you address this.
I'd dare you to for just one week remove the defensive buffs on attack omega..let it keep only its speed boost and damage boost... and remove shield autobalancing from tactical team. You will see overall dps plummet without having changed a single damage related value or made changes to NPCs.
I made a post about the changes that could be made to the game to address all the above plus bring back science into the game:
1- It is not 'ok' to have science do more dps. It is not the science ship's role and this mentality that 'its ok' is, in my opinion, 'the easy way out' of a problem. And the problem is quite, quite big. You don't make a class viable by prostituting it to the role of another class simply because it takes less work.
2- NPCs are certainly 'tough' enough for the most part. You're again taking the easy road here when it comes to identifying the source of the problem.
Ask yourself this: How is it that players can deploy such high DPS numbers?
No. Escorts with cannons don't pump out the highest DPS anymore, friend. I hate to alarm you and shatter your argument, but BEAM ARRAYS currently hold the record for DPS. The culprit behind the current crazy DPS numbers is Aux2Bat (20%+ Crit Hit and Antiproton weaponry is also an issue).
Secondly, why isn't it alright for science to do decent DPS? In most MMOs, every class has a DPS spec. All I'm getting from your post is "STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!!!"
Sardak (Science Officer): Captain of a 23k DPS R'Mor Temporal Science Vessel, R.R.W. Vathos Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
To the statements that there's really no purpose for science ships, I absolutely agree. We have magic special abilities that are performed by the other two types of careers one of which has no explanation and might as well be considered a wizard for all it's worth.
Shield healing on science is a joke compared to an engineer, healing on the ground is a joke on science and yes I have all of the percentages maxed with every kind of medical ground Doff there is and I'm a chief medical officer. Played this toon from day one and there's still something wrong when science captains can't outheal a medical generator on HoT's.
The shipside we're supposed to be explorers right yet we get none of the benefits thereof without doing exactly the same things other players do like getting Doffs that give more Particle Traces, nor do we have access to more options for Explorations (which is also due big time for a huge upgrade), we don't have access to more options in missions both standard and Foundry, we don't have bonuses to commendations for being science based (which I think they should do for all three careers based on the career itself and improve the Commendation rewards accordingly)
They broke the command system for minis in carriers, and then made it so that minis will die 100% of the time against all AI enemies which means all ships with heal minis are now useless because they die before they can reach anyone and that's IF they actually fly to the target we command them to fly to AT ALL.
Everyone's basically in DPS, ALL cannons if possible, ALL fast ships with engine focus, all burst or shield bypass as much as possible and the whole point of the series wasn't to just fly around and blow things up. So how do they fix this innate problem then? Why is it that science is not anywhere near a focus for STO why has the federation become a fleet bent on conquest rather than an exploratory and protective armada?
Just thought of another flaw in science ship design. The Tier 5 or 5.5 ships fleet ships don't come with a higher level of Target Subsystem which is completely useless and yes I have maxed out all skills that affect this ability it's terrible and needs to be replaced. When you get a high level ship the skills on that ship should reflect that it's high level. Making these abilities Tier III for example won't make them OP because in PVP most people choose the defensive skills to prevent these skills from lasting a long time or from affecting them at all, but in PVE it's very necessary to have the higher skills. What's sad however is it's easier to go with cannons on this game for everything. I found it much easier to go with 1 beam in the front and 3 turrets in the back and 2 fore kinetic damage devices on regular non-store bought, non-fleet, non-event science ships with nothing but cannon skills than any beam skill because of the inherent design flaws of combat in this game that are not science/beam friendly and I'm not talking about DPS I'm talking about making beams functional.
No. Escorts with cannons don't pump out the highest DPS anymore, friend. I hate to alarm you and shatter your argument, but BEAM ARRAYS currently hold the record for DPS. The culprit behind the current crazy DPS numbers is Aux2Bat (20%+ Crit Hit and Antiproton weaponry is also an issue).
Aux2Bat builds and antiproton have been around forever, it is not the reason dps is so high.
I have yet to see a beam boat no matter its build wipe the floor clean of an entire group of 6+ ISE spheres in one pass.
Sure, FAW boats can end up with a higher total dps..but that's just an illusion. hitting random ships with the weakest beam weapon using weakly buffed damage only adds up when said 'plinking' damage is delivered nonstop. Is it effective? Not unless multiple ships are doing it. Is it AS effective as multiple aoe cannon ships? No.
You can end up with the highest dps in a map and yet not have made a difference in defeating the enemy.
In contrast you can have low dps ships do more then FAW max dps boats. A torpedo boat can literally one-shot a group of 6 spheres or the ISE transformer and end up with lower dps than the FAW boat that spent a couple of minutes spamming the damage to the same.
Why? Ships rotate. FAW ends up with taking out every hitpoint on every shield before taking the hull down. Cannon boats punch their damage in so fast they barely have to strip one or two shield facings before the hull is one.
Think about what DPS meters are feeding you and think how it is achieved. Beam array boats are not the highest damage dealers. Cannons are.
Secondly, why isn't it alright for science to do decent DPS? In most MMOs, every class has a DPS spec. All I'm getting from your post is "STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!!!"
It isn't alright because the issues with SCIENCE are not being addressed BECAUSE the ships are being given dps to compensate. Why would I fly a science ship whose sci abilities don't work and DPS is what I need rather than flying a lt-cdmr sci capable escort who literally will end up doing the same job current sci ships are limited to but much better (grav well tossing, healing and dps)?
If you had been here pre-f2p when science ships actually had working abilities you would understand what I mean.
The DPS problem stems from attack omega and tac team shield autobalance. It comes from escorts having access to full healing abilities with just lt level abilities. It comes from NPC's having so much resists to science abilities and so little to weapons that sci ships have no job to perform. Not to mention many sci abilities on their own are simply broken since F2P patch.
Comments
Honestly, I find that I shred through Voth faster than I do, say, Klingons, on my dual heavy phaser cannon using Fleet Advanced Escort. To be fair, I'm using the Omega set's shield stripping bonus, and a lot of Rapid Fire, so I'm kind of built to rip apart shields, and my ship does really solid DPS. But outside of the shield reflection thing and the decoy's EMP shutting down my engines, really anything short of a dreadnought gets torn up pretty fast.
I think the problem is what you said. Simply killing the hell out of the enemy is a more efficent method than debuffing or control, when Science ships and characters should feel more like Space Wizards. I think that part of the issue is that Science, more than Engineering and Tactical, is much more dependent on it's powers. I think maybe the Romulans had the right track with their Singularity Powers, giving them a whole bag of tricks on top of their normal stuff to throw at people.
What about Tractor Beam applying a bigger -Def debuff? That's a big deal because not only are they standing still and easier to hit, but players get an increased crit rate and effectiveness. Maybe multiple tractors decrease enemy accuracy or something.
Similarly, Tachyon Beam isn't just a shield drain - which is basically just damage - but weakens their Shield Hardness, or increases Shield Penetration for a time against that ship.
And then powers like Transfer Shield Strength and Science Team and Polarize Hull and whatnot act as counters to this. Make putting together a science ship like building a deck of Magic cards. Do you want to focus on debuffs and offense, or on countering the science powers of the other side?
And THAT is EXACTLY the problem. That is exactly what makes this game's group PvE experience feel lacking when compared to many other MMOs. Exactly this. Although you try to increase the advantages of science vessels and cruisers, Cryptic, so far, has done very little to tackle the issue itself: The lack of ANY real incentive to have a science or cruiser ship in your group.
I am a fan of the holy trinity, but I understand that many people are not. STO, however, could use a tiny bit more ROLE-utilization in group missions. Right now it's just: DMG DMG DMG DMG
It is dull, but the engine could enable so much more, the Devs just have to invest WAY more in encounter scripting etc.
So far I saw almost NO content that really rewards you for having a group that is not made up of 5 escorts - and Cryptic keeps protracting the problem, with only some tweaks that do not really change the situation. BUT the Devs are super-afraid of making escorts as fragile as they should be, to really give an incentive for a dedicated tank, for instance. Somehow you guys have to find a way...
STOWiki admin.
Really glad you wrote this. As a sci captain since beta, I definitely appreciate you taking the time to post this.
I think my main issue isn't adding more damage to sci ships, it's the method of which that damage is added. Sci ships should, in my opinion, have their damage dealt mainly through their science skills and techniques. Instead, what we have right now is just slapping some cannons and maybe a hangar bay on them and calling it a day.
I hate to draw comparisons to fantasy games, but as far as game mechanics are concerned, I feel that there's somewhat of a parallel. In STO, science is essentially "space magic." We're comparable to white/black mages in fantasy games. The thing that STO is doing that bugs me is that instead of giving my black mage some killer new spells, we're just getting the ability to wield a great sword. For an actual game example, see Dark Knights in FFXI. We had black magic skills but could wield Great Scythes and Great Swords.
Eventually, the black magic fell to the wayside and was largely unused by the playerbase save for a few choice skills (Stun magic). The end result was a heavy weapons user that only used 1 magic skill out of their entire spell book. That's kind of how I see science going right now in PVE. We're just becoming escorts/destroyers that can use GW3. That's the exact opposite of how I believe it should be.
However, instead of simply retooling existing science skills to be more damage oriented, I feel that we should start moving into the introduction of new boff skills. A whole new set of skills from Ensign to Commander. Even though we've had new ships with new layouts and new mechanics, we've pretty much been stuck with the same skills since launch. Having a new set of skills like that can allow people to build their ships on how they see fit. Want to be a "black mage" ship? No problem, the damage skills you want are there. Want to continue being a "white mage" support/heal ship? That's fine too, all the old skills are still there for you.
To go one step further, I also feel that Engineering and Tactical could use some all new skills as well. I kind of feel that build diversity is starting to falter since we've been using the same ones for so long. That's a different issue separate from science, but it's somewhat related I think. Since I realize that would be a massive undertaking, maybe tuck that idea away for a future expansion.
In short, I feel that the current trend of adding more tactical ability to science ships through cannons and hangar bays is just a band-aid to the core issue. So while I do agree with you that it's okay for science ships to be able to deal more damage, I disagree with how that damage is currently being added to them.
Mine Trap Supporter
Two problems. First, the AI of all NPCs needs to be brought up to Both standards and maybe give them higher tier specced skills.
The second problem is that science is the only class where you have to over specialize at the expense of damage in order for the boff abilities to be effective and it's only some of them. The worst problem was fixing GW and making it more effective for classes other than sci and penalizing overspecializing to try and maximize its damage.
Follow up question, what's up with hyping up 2nd deflectors so much and then coming up with such a weak one, including that horrible drain gimmick that does practically nothing?
Exactly. Exactly.
To be frank, it is easy to think of ways to fix a problem. The hard part is finding the time and possibly the manpower to fix them.
The consoles change was an idea to leave more room for universal consoles and now see that a console limit plus damage multipliers only stacking additively might be over kill.
Secondly nothing is wrong with A2B cooldown. Only the stacking cooldown reduction basically meaning you only need one version of any ability which means on any ship damage output can be maximized almost 100% of the time and have a variety of abilities to choose from. All it costs is one boff slot and temporary mediocre auxiliary abilities.
A2B cycling requires 2+ LT+ eng boff power slots and 3 VR Doffs to function as you claim and even then it is not anywhere near as efficient as multiple-copies of short CD/GCD powers. And without the doffs it is useless.
As for uptime, 1-2 EPTn can give you close to actual 100% uptime. It's basically like using the EPTn cooldown doffs. Anything you can run two of back-to-back (accounting for GCD) will "100% uptime" that way though some powers (e.g. beam powers) work better if you have two because of the GCD being slightly too long.
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Science powers, allegedly, are "support powers" with some being really strange (hazard emitters - I can cleanse your ship of radiation with radiation, sure!) and others being reallllly strange (viral matrix - In the 24th century trojan radiation viruses your ship!).
They tried to drive that "support" concept home with the "Support Cruiser" but I'm not sure it worked.
Powers - they need overhaulz.
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Because let's face it: We're in DPS Online now. For something to be useful, it has to cause or facilitate DPS. It's either that, or trying to design content that can be finished better by 5x 5K DPS boats than by 5x 50K Scimitars. Can anyone think of a hypothetical mission design where having 5 5K boats that do something OTHER than DPS can somehow outperform an all-Super-Scimitar team...and yet still be challenging, and not Azure, which we all know is properly performed with no shots fired?
And some abilities have duplicate cooldowns longer than global which means ways to reduce that further can help too. Example: gravity well has a 30 duplicate and a 15 sec global using a2b I can use it every 20 sec. As for the ep2x doffs, they only have a chance to proc at most once every 15 sec. And there are times where I don't get procs many times in a row leading to drop offs and loss of uptime. A2B doffs replace at least 10 separate doffs. Every one of those other doffs are chance based. Not only that it makes a certain science boff ability feel very lack luster with its low uptime in comparison. I just don't know how a thing like that is really defendable with balancing as the goal.
So you've never used A2B and your knowledge of Gravity Well and EPtN seem equally disingenuous. Thanks for the clarification.
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I'm salivating at your suggestion of a "when stuff blows up, make it blow up more" skill... there's nothing better than staying cloaked until you get 5.0km away from a cluster of baddies, load up scatter volley and torp spread 3, then hit everything with a grav well and unload. Bonus points if you take away their resistances and smack them with proton barrage. So many 'splosions....
I also feel that a suggestion made earlier in this thread to change all science abilities to deal exotic particles instead of kinetic, that'd go a long way to improving our situation. On that note, I also feel like Proton damage should be linked the Particle Generators as well, since the weapon seems the most science-ey out of all of them.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
What ppl fail to understand, is that STO, despite being called an MMO, really isn't one. It's essentially a single-player game (in an MMO environment, if that makes sense). Simply put: ppl want to come home from work, do a few casual missions, and be done with it. As soon as they have to really rely on others -- either for survival or for completion of the mission -- they walk, as it's too much of a hassle getting organized with folks you don't know, and too much trouble for the casual gamer to get to know ppl and build reliable teams with.
Cryptic knows all this, of course. Hence, they will *always* make it so, that you -- whatever profession you are -- will essentially be completely self-reliant. And this, in turn, highly favors the Tact Captain, as this game is about DPS, and he doesn't need anyone else for reasons outlined above.
I'd almost say that this really favors the Engineer more... with Aux2Bat the way it is, they can easily dish out the pain and have an emergency heal available.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Except that the best defense... is offense. DPS-tanking (= 'tanking' by simply killing everything fast) is still the best way to go. My CEO has a NWS build with only 1 EPtS1 (and no DCE's); he's somewhat of a NWS legend. He gets by with so little tankability, simply because, as a Tact, he has insane DPS: nothing really gets to shoot at him long enough for it to become an issue.
I was wrong and I will recognize that. However I am clearly missing how I was wrong with the ep2x ability cooldown reduction doffs and how even with 3 it is never a 100% chance to activate unlike a2b.
A few things I disagree with you:
1- It is not 'ok' to have science do more dps. It is not the science ship's role and this mentality that 'its ok' is, in my opinion, 'the easy way out' of a problem. And the problem is quite, quite big. You don't make a class viable by prostituting it to the role of another class simply because it takes less work.
2- NPCs are certainly 'tough' enough for the most part. You're again taking the easy road here when it comes to identifying the source of the problem.
Ask yourself this: How is it that players can deploy such high DPS numbers? Its not because you have increased the damage in guns or the damage bonus of weapon power settings nor that people have figured out new combos of boff abilities to increase the dps.
Its not even the damage bonuses that come from 2-piece or 3 or 4-piece gear sets. Its not that NPCs are not tough enough.
The reason DPS output is so high is simply because player ships, particularly escorts, can stay with their noses pointed at targets for very long periods of time firing nonstop using double-cycled abilities (atk omega+cannon spread for example.. 2 copies of each). That DPS adds up incredibly fast.
Why can escorts stay such long periods of time firing? Its quite simple: Attack Omega's defense bonuses significantly reduces the damage they receive (the def bonus alone makes most shots miss the escort) and Tactical Team's shield balancing (also 2 copies of it).
You need to realize that to match attack omega's defensive bonuses alone a ship would need to have:
Lt Engineer: Emg to Engines 1 and Aux to Dampeners (for flight speed, turn bonus, immunities and resists).
AND
Ensign Science: Polarize hull (for immunity to holds)
For a non-escort ship it is not an option to use the LT tactical station to slot two tac teams just to gain constant shield autobalancing hence these ships do not receive the benefit of all 4 shields = 1 shield because once the only tac team they can afford to slot is on timer downtime, they become VERY vulnerable. They don't have attack omega to significantly reduce their incoming damage (def bonus and resists) nor its 'get me out of their weapons range fast' speed boost.
Now add to this the fact that in the captain skill boxes, the boxes that determine hull and shield HP (Structural Integrity and Shield Systems) are in the cheapest boxes (Lt and Lt Cmdr). You will also notice the boxes that increase the strength of heals are also in the same tiers (Hull Repair, Shield Emitters).
I bring this up to show you that an escort can afford to put 9 points into all of those boxes to max out its hull and shield HP and to gain = healing power to cruisers and sci ships. This is because the difference in performance between tier 2 and 3 shields is hardly noticeable when they are healing ships with the least shield and hull HP. In simple terms, an ensign or lt level heal is enough to almost fully heal the escort with one click. All this while still being able to literally max out all the tactical damage and defense skill boxes plus put at least 6 in most engineering power bonus and resist skill boxes.
Before getting derailed here... just take into account that ALL OF THIS is what allows the escort to add up its dps to monstrous levels. You cannot and will not ever balance this game until you address this.
I'd dare you to for just one week remove the defensive buffs on attack omega..let it keep only its speed boost and damage boost... and remove shield autobalancing from tactical team. You will see overall dps plummet without having changed a single damage related value or made changes to NPCs.
I made a post about the changes that could be made to the game to address all the above plus bring back science into the game:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1033401
No. Escorts with cannons don't pump out the highest DPS anymore, friend. I hate to alarm you and shatter your argument, but BEAM ARRAYS currently hold the record for DPS. The culprit behind the current crazy DPS numbers is Aux2Bat (20%+ Crit Hit and Antiproton weaponry is also an issue).
Secondly, why isn't it alright for science to do decent DPS? In most MMOs, every class has a DPS spec. All I'm getting from your post is "STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!!!"
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Shield healing on science is a joke compared to an engineer, healing on the ground is a joke on science and yes I have all of the percentages maxed with every kind of medical ground Doff there is and I'm a chief medical officer. Played this toon from day one and there's still something wrong when science captains can't outheal a medical generator on HoT's.
The shipside we're supposed to be explorers right yet we get none of the benefits thereof without doing exactly the same things other players do like getting Doffs that give more Particle Traces, nor do we have access to more options for Explorations (which is also due big time for a huge upgrade), we don't have access to more options in missions both standard and Foundry, we don't have bonuses to commendations for being science based (which I think they should do for all three careers based on the career itself and improve the Commendation rewards accordingly)
They broke the command system for minis in carriers, and then made it so that minis will die 100% of the time against all AI enemies which means all ships with heal minis are now useless because they die before they can reach anyone and that's IF they actually fly to the target we command them to fly to AT ALL.
Everyone's basically in DPS, ALL cannons if possible, ALL fast ships with engine focus, all burst or shield bypass as much as possible and the whole point of the series wasn't to just fly around and blow things up. So how do they fix this innate problem then? Why is it that science is not anywhere near a focus for STO why has the federation become a fleet bent on conquest rather than an exploratory and protective armada?
Just thought of another flaw in science ship design. The Tier 5 or 5.5 ships fleet ships don't come with a higher level of Target Subsystem which is completely useless and yes I have maxed out all skills that affect this ability it's terrible and needs to be replaced. When you get a high level ship the skills on that ship should reflect that it's high level. Making these abilities Tier III for example won't make them OP because in PVP most people choose the defensive skills to prevent these skills from lasting a long time or from affecting them at all, but in PVE it's very necessary to have the higher skills. What's sad however is it's easier to go with cannons on this game for everything. I found it much easier to go with 1 beam in the front and 3 turrets in the back and 2 fore kinetic damage devices on regular non-store bought, non-fleet, non-event science ships with nothing but cannon skills than any beam skill because of the inherent design flaws of combat in this game that are not science/beam friendly and I'm not talking about DPS I'm talking about making beams functional.
Aux2Bat builds and antiproton have been around forever, it is not the reason dps is so high.
I have yet to see a beam boat no matter its build wipe the floor clean of an entire group of 6+ ISE spheres in one pass.
Sure, FAW boats can end up with a higher total dps..but that's just an illusion. hitting random ships with the weakest beam weapon using weakly buffed damage only adds up when said 'plinking' damage is delivered nonstop. Is it effective? Not unless multiple ships are doing it. Is it AS effective as multiple aoe cannon ships? No.
You can end up with the highest dps in a map and yet not have made a difference in defeating the enemy.
In contrast you can have low dps ships do more then FAW max dps boats. A torpedo boat can literally one-shot a group of 6 spheres or the ISE transformer and end up with lower dps than the FAW boat that spent a couple of minutes spamming the damage to the same.
Why? Ships rotate. FAW ends up with taking out every hitpoint on every shield before taking the hull down. Cannon boats punch their damage in so fast they barely have to strip one or two shield facings before the hull is one.
Think about what DPS meters are feeding you and think how it is achieved. Beam array boats are not the highest damage dealers. Cannons are.
It isn't alright because the issues with SCIENCE are not being addressed BECAUSE the ships are being given dps to compensate. Why would I fly a science ship whose sci abilities don't work and DPS is what I need rather than flying a lt-cdmr sci capable escort who literally will end up doing the same job current sci ships are limited to but much better (grav well tossing, healing and dps)?
If you had been here pre-f2p when science ships actually had working abilities you would understand what I mean.
The DPS problem stems from attack omega and tac team shield autobalance. It comes from escorts having access to full healing abilities with just lt level abilities. It comes from NPC's having so much resists to science abilities and so little to weapons that sci ships have no job to perform. Not to mention many sci abilities on their own are simply broken since F2P patch.