its an idea with merit. its probably an idea that is too good to bury in this thread, in fact.
obviously we both know its more work than cryptic would be willing to do, and its likely the resulting mechanic would be overly convoluted anyway. but the kernel of this idea could be pretty simple to 'simulate' by simply assigning each and every ship a 'crit modifier' to represent the more nimble ship somehow exploiting weak spots.
with the insane amount of damage many people are pushing out these days a crit modifier may be an unavoidable necessity anyway. may as well present it in a simple, coherent, and logical package, yes?
I'm glad you like it, but my idea depends on cruisers having the highest raw damage (so that they tank natively) while escorts/sci ships would be going for/boosting the criticals. So there'd still need to be a pretty big rebalance to ships for a crit modifier to be able to simulate the idea. As it stands, giving escorts a higher crit modifier would just set them even further and farther ahead of other ships.
Another mechanic that could be nice would be that shields with lower integrity have higher bleed through (that's how it worked in star trek: bridge commander) but that too would require quite a bit of work. We already have far too much shield ignore/uber bleed in the game, that this would likely only compound that problem without quite a bit of change. But it would give enhanced mobility a real bonus to be able to stay on/get around to a lower facing. Of course... tac team might ruin that... so again, lots of rebalancing.
I have lots of ideas, I throw them out there, but over the years it's become easier to accept that we're largely going to get minor changes to the game here and there cause the devs do have a schedule to keep and new content to deploy. A massive rework isn't likely to happen unless they decide to eventually devote a season to balancing/polishing/overhauling mechanics.
Allow me to just chime in here, so we can try and stem the tide of requests for a Commander Tac on the Gal-X.
A ship that has a Comm Array will not have a Commander Tactical station. A Commander Engineering slot is one of the defining factors in determining whether or not a ship has a Comm Array. Furthermore, a Commander Engineering slot is one of the core defining characteristics of a Cruiser, which the Gal-X is, and will remain.
So, I'm afraid you can cross that one off your wish list.
Yeah this is what we love to hear from the dev team: "We read your feedback, all 300 pages of it, and we decided: F U"
Didn't even entertain the LCDR Universal/Tac request, which a number of cruisers have
Wot a shock Kdf outfit slots still buged. well done dev for once again claming something is fixed when its not. Just like that freighter captain spam out side ESD n BFAW that does not take acc overflow in to account.
I mean every ship should technically have access to every skill in the game all at once.
I read all your comments and picked this one for the reply. I take your feedback with a grain of salt since I've seen you whine about some non-broken game mechanics. No, not every ship should have access to all powers, it would break what little balance there is left. Like it has been mentioned, tac captains with access to GW1 are pretty effective in this game (Ex. Mobius Destroyer), they don't need more power creep. Same goes for a2b engineers, I wouldn't want them having access to one extra non-engineering Lt.Cdr. ability on global CD, they don't need it.
What this game does need is some pullback from DPS wins back into teamwork wins on the PvE side. The people on those DPS channels have figured out that the #1 shortcut to farming in this game is DPS and have gone to great lengths to maximize it. The videos on youtube showing Scimitars FAWing away ISE in record times, sometimes by themselves, should not be possible. It's all benefits and no penalties for them in PvE gameplay which is why we're in this current mess.
Cryptic, I am all for cruiser love, but have you gone completely stark-raving mad?
Did you forget that Team powers, be it Engineering, Science or Tactical, are all independent of Auxiliary power?
Let me connect the dots for you:
If you fly an Aux to Battery cruiser, then every 15-seconds, you have access to a 10,000-point hull heal, a 2-4,000 point shield heal, and tactical team, without any penalty whatsoever
If your goal is to make anything with average access to science and engineering powers invulnerable, then you are definitely on the right path.
If Cryptic wants 2 bring back Team powers that have no shared CD with each other they should made Eng and Sci Team stats more dependable on Aux, so uber dps A2B players most of the time don't have reliable heals when A2B is being used in that period (being A2B DOff's reducing Aux Power when A2B is used)
As for Tac Team... dunno? maybe Aux can determine the rate of the shields being distributed? whatever the case it's up to Cryptic to decide...
To be fair, is a 10k hull heal every 15 seconds that overpowered in a world where you are up against 5 people capable of doing 20k+ every second?
1,500k >>>> 10k
It may have been too much when we were all lucky to break 5k... but now... It's a different world. Give it a chance.
Are escorts obsolete now? That is the implicit statement behind "everybody does +20k"... I mean, you might have a point that this makes sense in a world where we focus on attrition, but we're not there yet, and this change breaks the game since it can instantly repair all damage halfway through the burst cycle.
Also, from a design pov, instant healing needs to consume a resource to be balanced. Usually there is something here like a bandage or potion (or a hypo/battery), or if its not using a consumable then its using something else like subsystem power, and there is no penalty on use here except a cooldown that can be effectively eliminated. Absent that its not balanced at all. Cryptic doesnt do balance. We can complain about that without waiting.
To be fair, is a 10k hull heal every 15 seconds that overpowered in a world where you are up against 5 people capable of doing 20k+ every second?
1,500k >>>> 10k
It may have been too much when we were all lucky to break 5k... but now... It's a different world. Give it a chance.
I do think we need such heals especially from against uber DPS players which many of them are A2B players that does alot of damage from more than 20k and up, i once saw a Scimitar player in STF Kitomer elite doing around 40k dps with a A2B build.
But back on A2B builds i do believe it should be punish on Aux side preventing any significant heals and using any Aux boosting battery being used when A2B is active, also like koppenflak said Team Powers are not effected by Aux so therefor A2B players can be extremely hard 2 kill or indestructable in certain conditions all of this while spitting out huge amounts of dps. so i beileve that Team Powers should be effected by Aux.
But in any case ur right and we're now in a different and strange new world and we've have 2 adapt...
Comments
I especially love how it indirectly nerfs subnuc. Such an atrocity of a skill, and an offense to game design, deserves no respect in my book.
STO Screenshot Archive
I'm glad you like it, but my idea depends on cruisers having the highest raw damage (so that they tank natively) while escorts/sci ships would be going for/boosting the criticals. So there'd still need to be a pretty big rebalance to ships for a crit modifier to be able to simulate the idea. As it stands, giving escorts a higher crit modifier would just set them even further and farther ahead of other ships.
Another mechanic that could be nice would be that shields with lower integrity have higher bleed through (that's how it worked in star trek: bridge commander) but that too would require quite a bit of work. We already have far too much shield ignore/uber bleed in the game, that this would likely only compound that problem without quite a bit of change. But it would give enhanced mobility a real bonus to be able to stay on/get around to a lower facing. Of course... tac team might ruin that... so again, lots of rebalancing.
I have lots of ideas, I throw them out there, but over the years it's become easier to accept that we're largely going to get minor changes to the game here and there cause the devs do have a schedule to keep and new content to deploy. A massive rework isn't likely to happen unless they decide to eventually devote a season to balancing/polishing/overhauling mechanics.
Yeah this is what we love to hear from the dev team: "We read your feedback, all 300 pages of it, and we decided: F U"
Didn't even entertain the LCDR Universal/Tac request, which a number of cruisers have
I read all your comments and picked this one for the reply. I take your feedback with a grain of salt since I've seen you whine about some non-broken game mechanics. No, not every ship should have access to all powers, it would break what little balance there is left. Like it has been mentioned, tac captains with access to GW1 are pretty effective in this game (Ex. Mobius Destroyer), they don't need more power creep. Same goes for a2b engineers, I wouldn't want them having access to one extra non-engineering Lt.Cdr. ability on global CD, they don't need it.
What this game does need is some pullback from DPS wins back into teamwork wins on the PvE side. The people on those DPS channels have figured out that the #1 shortcut to farming in this game is DPS and have gone to great lengths to maximize it. The videos on youtube showing Scimitars FAWing away ISE in record times, sometimes by themselves, should not be possible. It's all benefits and no penalties for them in PvE gameplay which is why we're in this current mess.
If Cryptic wants 2 bring back Team powers that have no shared CD with each other they should made Eng and Sci Team stats more dependable on Aux, so uber dps A2B players most of the time don't have reliable heals when A2B is being used in that period (being A2B DOff's reducing Aux Power when A2B is used)
As for Tac Team... dunno? maybe Aux can determine the rate of the shields being distributed? whatever the case it's up to Cryptic to decide...
1,500k >>>> 10k
It may have been too much when we were all lucky to break 5k... but now... It's a different world. Give it a chance.
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
Are escorts obsolete now? That is the implicit statement behind "everybody does +20k"... I mean, you might have a point that this makes sense in a world where we focus on attrition, but we're not there yet, and this change breaks the game since it can instantly repair all damage halfway through the burst cycle.
Also, from a design pov, instant healing needs to consume a resource to be balanced. Usually there is something here like a bandage or potion (or a hypo/battery), or if its not using a consumable then its using something else like subsystem power, and there is no penalty on use here except a cooldown that can be effectively eliminated. Absent that its not balanced at all. Cryptic doesnt do balance. We can complain about that without waiting.
I do think we need such heals especially from against uber DPS players which many of them are A2B players that does alot of damage from more than 20k and up, i once saw a Scimitar player in STF Kitomer elite doing around 40k dps with a A2B build.
But back on A2B builds i do believe it should be punish on Aux side preventing any significant heals and using any Aux boosting battery being used when A2B is active, also like koppenflak said Team Powers are not effected by Aux so therefor A2B players can be extremely hard 2 kill or indestructable in certain conditions all of this while spitting out huge amounts of dps. so i beileve that Team Powers should be effected by Aux.
But in any case ur right and we're now in a different and strange new world and we've have 2 adapt...