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So uh, curious where the chatter is on...
virusdancer
Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
While posting in another thread, I brought up some stuff from another thread stating I was surprised that there wasn't more chatter on certain things that had been said...in the Team decoupling thread. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1042681
Things like the following...
...and...
...and...
edit: The following was in post#6, but was being missed - so I'll include it here as well...
Things like the following...
adjudicatorhawk wrote: »The metagame in general is dominated by choices that are too good compared to the other choices available. This leaves players dissatisfied with false choice. For instance, Beam Fire at Will is ostensibly an AoE power, but deals more damage to a single-target than normal Beam Fire does. Conversely, Beam Overload is a single-target damage power, but actually lowers the users medium-term DPS despite providing burst due to its more-than-substantial power drain, and due to competing with Fire at Will for a power slot. Long term, the more real (nontrivial) choices we can present players with, the happier they will be with the game. This is exemplified in our Trait revamp and our upcoming Kit Revamp, and our ongoing efforts to make all of our ship classes competitive with each other but in different ways.
...and...
I'd like to see an added "Heal other" PBAoE. There are no heals ingame currently (afaik) that effect more than 1 player. Hazard Emitters would be a great place to make an AoE Heal ability, possibly adding the Cleansing effect. As the idea holds for a PBAoE, perhaps the Cleansing should only effect the "caster" at max effectiveness, with a reduced effectiveness on teammates? Science Team cleanser would always be superior.
adjudicatorhawk wrote: »You should wait a couple more weeks.(Also, the Vesta has a PBAoE heal console)
...and...
adjudicatorhawk wrote: »We'll soon be testing some updates to Sensor Analysis that, I think, will make Science really interesting and give it a distinct playstyle that's not at the mercy of their foe's ability to clear debuffs.
adjudicatorhawk wrote: »The change we're testing de-couples sensor analysis from your hard target. It lets you pick a target to analyze by using a power on them, and does not require that they remain your target to build up stacks. It builds up to 30% effectiveness over 18 seconds, and it allows you to analyze allies as well as foes, giving you a healing bonus to analyzed allies.
The change is testing really well internally and should be on Tribble soon, which is why I'm comfortable telling you about it before it sees the light of day. Feedback and tuning on it will still be needed, of course, and as always in game development, this is not a promise that this will be what we end up doing.
edit: The following was in post#6, but was being missed - so I'll include it here as well...
coldsnapped wrote: »Removed the 5 second immunity associated with Elachi Disruptor procs.
These weapons no longer cause a lockout period, and can proc as often as other weapons.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Along the lines of if you don't kill the target in 2-3s...good luck killing anything, eh?
edit: Then again, there was this from Tribble...
...so uh, yeah.
I don't. It's like screaming at the carpet because you don't like the color.
Every 6 months there is a new - 'this is OP'. This too shall pass.
Heh, yeah - his things were teases of what we should be seeing on Tribble soon...but honestly, how much has made it to Tribble that didn't make it to Holo?
edit: But still, picture Renim in his Sci Ody...building up the Sensor Analysis buff for healing on a friendly target while tossing out some additional kind of AoE heals? How can we not speculate up a poopstorm on that kind of fun?
The EPtX changes on Tribble were part of the LoR launch. They were on Tribble because they were going to go live with LoR...so there was the back and forth of extended testing.
That's a different kind of Tribble...it's Tribble while Redshirt's up. Still don't follow their logic for doing that. Why not bring Redshirt up for that and keep Tribble as Tribble instead of doing that switcheroo thing, eh?
The only thing other than the shuttle queue that they ever tried to add to PvP. The Pi Canis Raids.
i'll never forgive them for excluding it from the galaxy 'reboot', they could not have been more passive aggressive. they cant just tell us to STFU and DIAF, but they can do what they did, and i bet it was so gratifying for whoever it is that just hates the galaxy class over there. i really would have liked to use the R and not been in a team compromising ship, but really its the principle of the thing, im done putting up with this kind of abuse to the actual star trek fans, and the blatant disregard of canon in favor of geckos fanfiction.
whats most funny is how much they apparently hate money, which is funny because gecko always talks about how all their decisions are based on what makes business sense. do they really think a decent galaxy R wouldn't sell like hot cakes? and are they so stupid as to think that an ok galaxy would be the last ship anyone would ever buy?
This change fixes all the placate/jam/scramble/black goo/romulan cloak target loosing junk, but I'm guessing devs will put a 1 min cooldown or more on it in the name of "balance".
That's kind of the gist of this particular thread...given how quick some things have gone from Tribble to Holo recently, the ability to gear up the thought process to tackle some testing over there when it hits Tribble.
Would you see the second part of what lucho said as a change or a fix? Cause, I'd see it as a fix...cause all of that stuff out the wahzoo tanked SA.
On another note, from the dev's post, I can't tell if they're making more changes to sci abilities or not. Damn ambiguity.
im excited about the SA change, it will be interesting to have that on my odyssey.
also, thanks for this thread. the pvp forums has been boring lately.
Yeah, I'm curious how the AoE tease thing is going to work out. Are we looking at a new ability, a new DOFF, overhealing spilling over to those in a certain range...a DOFF that does that, etc, etc, etc.
Outside of the potential healing boost to the Sci Ody - have to wonder what it will mean for the damage potential for the Command Bortasqu'...heh, I've got no Fed toons; so usually even my "Fed" posts are because I'm interested in how it might affect the KDF (kind of like all the Gal-R/Gal-X stuff, cause I was thinking about the Fleet Negh'Var and the possible Assault Negh'Var that's been mentioned)...
They can already boost gravity well using tactical abilities, they don't need any more unnecessary boosts.
It really, really, really shouldn't be based on career type and almost certainly won't be.
yeah that's so 2012 lol
Fine leave it to be used by any captain, although I would tie it to current Aux level just to make things fair.
I've been looking over at innate captain abilities and I think I found the weak spot and it's science fleet. Most sci captains fly around with power insulators and frankly adding more on top of having spent 6 points in skill in it is junk.
How about switching that for a +X in science skill training? That way we get a boost on all our science abilities instead of a boost to just one that sucks. I think that would bring sci captains back up to where they should be.
DPS is already out of control in this game anyway, so boosting sci skills by a bit more doesn't really hurt at this point.
Hrmmm...
Tac Fleet: +Damage, +Defense, +Accuracy
w/Trait: +FlightSpeed, +TurnRate, +SlowImmunity
Eng Fleet: +DamageResistace(Hull), +HullRepair, +CorePorential
w/Trait: +HullHoT
Sci Fleet: +DamageReduction(Shields), +ShieldEmitters, +PowerInsulators
w/Trait: +ShieldHoT
The +16 Power Insulators is an 8% reduction in drains on top of whatever amount you have from Insulators already. If you had 6 in PI, it would take you from 42% to 50%...basically saving you the cost of the 3 ranks or 4500 SP. If you already had 9, it would take you from 50% to 58%.
Compare that to the +16 Warp Core Potential which does...well, it doesn't do anything. If it were still Warp Core Efficiency, it at least might do something in certain cases. WCP on the other hand...+16? Nothing...
"The metagame in general is dominated by choices that are too good compared to the other choices available. This leaves players dissatisfied with false choice. For instance, Beam Fire at Will is ostensibly an AoE power, but deals more damage to a single-target than normal Beam Fire does. Conversely, Beam Overload is a single-target damage power, but actually lowers the users medium-term DPS despite providing burst due to its more-than-substantial power drain, and due to competing with Fire at Will for a power slot. Long term, the more real (nontrivial) choices we can present players with, the happier they will be with the game. This is exemplified in our Trait revamp and our upcoming Kit Revamp, and our ongoing efforts to make all of our ship classes competitive with each other but in different ways."
Tbh, idk wtf he's trying to get at. FaW has long been designed to do more damage to a single target than not using a Boff and firing Beams, it's been a matter of degree of balance. Likewise, BO is designed to be a burst damage w/a negative impact on followup energy damage based on its power drain. Those aren't "false choice(s)".
The trait revamp doesn't offer diversity. Letting everyone basically get every space ability (non-Pay-for-power that is) isn't promoting diversity. The difference is in Captain class trait options, which aren't based on ship classes.
Removing cooldowns/shared cooldowns/reducing cooldowns doesn't promote diversity, but just lets everyone fit everything but the kitchen sink on a build. They even have ships which "transform" into another ship type. Again, that's not diversity it's let a ship/build be all things.
Diversity is having unique niche roles to excel at and all those roles having a worthwhile purpose. It's specialized by its nature. When done well it often entails sacrificing to achieve those results. Something, Cryptic hasn't even feigned doing for years now.
OT, I didn't comment on it b/c I don't think it will matter and I'd hit my quota of "wtf are you talking about" posts for the day.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Right now there are 2 MAJOR issues it is staring every player directly in the face... which means if they don't understand that they simply are incompetent or simply don't care. Either way I don't think wasting time trying to have good conversations about possible changes is worth wile. For them as they may perhaps read this, if the answer to there inability to act is not the don't care option.
1) Faw is a broken mechanic that CAN not exist in any game as it is currently designed and EVER be balanced. A skill that allows for 100% uptime on target... with no need for player input to acquire a target at all. = Busted and is beyond its nature of operation to become balanced ever.
Think of it this way... IF they adjusted numbers so that Scatter Volley and FAW where right now perfectly balanced with no ship equip involved. The second you slot ANY gear that gives a bonus to DMG or Crit Hit or CrtD, reductions to power drains, or boosts / added procs. FAW becomes unbalanced again. It is the only skill that is ALWAYS going to have a wepaon on a target... so it gains 100% of any boost from any gear. No other skill works that way... so where a +10% dmg console may not make a skill like Scatter UBER as the on target time is more like 50-70%... it WILL boost FAW by a full 10% as it is on target 100% of the time.
The only solution and we all know it is true accept them... is after 20+ patches that have changed faw and not worked... simply admit it is a bad mechanic and remove it. As long as the WAY faw works continues to be the way faw works it will always be game breaking... either by being to weak and making cruiser style ships pointless for DPS... or by being to strong and making those types of ships Defacto.
2) Tech doffs... this one is plain to see for anyone that is semi objective. 30% cool down reduction when activating a skill that itself is cooled down by the same doffs... and can in fact be tag teamed with 2 copies of the same skill... bringing EVERY other skill a ship loads to global... is beyond broken.
In the very first iteration of this doff A2B was on a shared global cool down with EPTx skills... this in fact made the skill balanced. As EPTx skills are very important, the old global allowed people to keep ONE EPTx (almost always EPTS) up at global while reducing (Most) of there other skill to cool down or close to... it made 2 copies of E2B suicidal... it made other doffs like Damage control doffs a good second option even on engi heavy ships.
These are clearly broken to pretty much everyone with a half way impartial look at the game. They either need a massive reduction in magnitude. (around 5% per purple)... OR better yet the system global on AP2 need to be returned to the EPTx system. (this solves the EPTW/S running PVE Super ships... and the EPTE/S PvP ships both options now running 2 E2B making for globals on even long duration skill like DEM). Running Tech doffs needs to be had at a cost and right now there pretty much isn't one.
Those 2 issues are why it is POINTLESS to talk about further changes to the game.
Until Cryptic proves to me they CAN admit when they have Messed something up and correct it I refuse to further contribute to discussion about "Fixing" X Y or Z. Fix what the heck they broke themselves first.. grow a pair.
I can completely agree with you on point #1, but point #2 is debatable.
Using tech doffs comes with a pretty high opportunity cost. 2 lt. boff abilities, and 3 doffs. This means that you loose out on potentially good healing abilities ala aux2sif and HE, TSS, due to low aux levels and conflicting cooldowns. But this is of course only the case for moderatly engineering-heavy ships. Ships with a stronger engineering focus have less problems in that regard, because they can simply use other doffs to increase specific powers and take multiple copies of a certain power to cycle. The most ideal ships to use aux2bat on would be ships with a healthy mix of tac and enginerring stations and at most a lt. science station (maybe a lt cmdr. sation). Those ships are not very common. The scimitar is one of those ships, hence why it's so easy to use aux2bat on it and achieve good resulst.
Nerfing aux2bat won't really hinder the pve crowd in achieving massive dps numbers in any way, since most high scoring ships don't use it now anyways.
There are also a lot of other cooldown-reducing doffs out there, that aren't tied to an ability that adversely effects your aux level and these are more often than not more advantageous.
I do agree though that something has to be done with the doffs itself, but not the ability they effect. Maybe lower the cooldown reduction per doff to only 6,5% per doff so that the gap it would leave in low cooldown abilities would be a lot higher. This would force player to either slot multiple copies of those low cd abilities or use more active doff space to take the full advantage of the tech doffs.
P.S.: I'd like to add another point that should be looked at ... Romluans. It shouldn't matter that they are available to any faction. If i don't want to play one i should have a fighting chance in my choosen factions ships to be on par. As it stands now i will never be on par, due to so many mechanical advantages this sub-faction possesses.
Oh and as to not derail this thread any further: Yes everything hawk hinted at seems interesting and i have a feeling that an ability revamp is in the making ... hopefully.
As far as tech doffs being debatable I really don't think it is no. Frankly I have HERD with my own Eyes (well it was typed not spoken) from the Devs themselves that they know Tech doffs are broken but haven't touched them due to concerns about "backlash" there word not mine.
So I stand by what I have said... until they grow a pair and are show they are capable to make decisions that yes may annoy some people in the name of balance... there is no point in having a dialog with them about any changes at all.
They know what needs fixed... we don't need to converse about it.
First off, that "cost" in my mind is minimal compared to what you get off it, a bunch of abilities at global cooldown and a massive weapons power spike to use with FAW. Second, technicians have no drawbacks. You get what requires very specific doffs for other abilities, and for them its not a sure thing.
The Romulan faction is also a problem, but I've found that -40 power deficit does give them an exploitable weakness, but yes, it's not fun getting vaped by one (I roll a sci fed, never done PvP with a Romulan and can't afford those builds). I'm hoping the devs add more good boff innate traits to maybe balance things.
No no no. Romulans are effed up. There is MUCH going on there with Romulans that the other factions just can't compete against. In short engagements, or damage over time they will win.
But spot on about the doffs. Said it before, say it again, anything messes with cooldowns messes with a part of game design even more fundamental than the to hit system. And we see how well that system is STILL messing this game up.
Seriously without getting consoles yet, just boffs, I got my romulan over 17% Crit H before Alpha. And the plus defense. And the cooldown reduction, buff extension on cloak/uncloaking, with all the attack and defense bonus THAT brings.
That isn't a good thing.
Just a note: When someone runs the math on damage potential, expected damage, given or taken, you could EASILY make the case that over a long enough time period, it all equals out.
But the game doesn't actually play out over long periods of time and the shorter the time period the greater the potential variance can be.
And as sick as people may be of hearing me say this, it all comes back to the Acc/Def disaster. Please note that FAW bypasses that to an extent. That's why it breaks each patch. That's why it is so strong. TTD in this game at 100% hit rate is very low.
Anyways cheers mate happy flying!