Romulans are in fact fine... yes I said it. The stacking of boffs could perhaps do with a diminishing return formula... however My Fed bug is running 2 Romulan Crt boffs + 1 Rom Defense boffs + 2 efficent. (the option of running 2 Effic or 2 Human boffs is a good one). Tac that together with spire consoles and the crit numbers on my fed are really not that far off my rom numbers.
Aha, it of course doesn't matter that roms can get a stacking defense and crit bonus (dual space traits) on every boff they use? And singularity powers and all battlecloak ships are perfectly balanced by the 40 points of power differential? Yeah sorry, but i don't buy it. Put a Fed/KDF captain in a regular fleet ship and pit them against a romluan captain of equal skill...
And btw, i already said that a nerf to the tech doffs is needed, but not a2b itself, because there are enough drawbacks to this ability already. I can safely say, that i wouldn't be using it (cause i would actually like to use my t4 nukara rep and aux healing abilities), if it wouldn't be so easy (even if it is limiting your other options).
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!
Isn't it awesome that they removed the CD period on the Elachi Disruptors over on Tribble? It's absolutely FAWtastic! Meh...
you fix tech doffs my marginalizing them with improvements to other doffs. like
1 purple tt/st/et is all you need to put it on global, + adding an additional helpful effect.
2 purple damage controls giving you full up time with 1 copy of 2 EPt skills with no chance BS.
1 purple deflector doffs putting all deflectors skills at global.
and so on. with doffs like that you can target what you really need cooled down, and not lose all your aux. nerf tech doffs though, and about 10 ships in the entire game will be worth using, most of them being warbirds.
Isn't it awesome that they removed the CD period on the Elachi Disruptors over on Tribble? It's absolutely FAWtastic! Meh...
well they're saying it's only going to proc on the first hit and have the standard 2.5% chance like all other procs...but yeah...lets see how it goes. Maybe this is a shift off per hit proc chances? I hope so.
you fix tech doffs my marginalizing them with improvements to other doffs. like
1 purple tt/st/et is all you need to put it on global, + adding an additional helpful effect.
2 purple damage controls giving you full up time with 1 copy of 2 EPt skills with no chance BS.
1 purple deflector doffs putting all deflectors skills at global.
and so on. with doffs like that you can target what you really need cooled down, and not lose all your aux. nerf tech doffs though, and about 10 ships in the entire game will be worth using, most of them being warbirds.
I can't agree with this anymore.
This theory works for MOST stuff... I like the idea of buffing stuff instead of reducing some stuff. However sometimes it is clear that something is Broken and there is no amount of buffing that would really honestly fix something.
For me there are only 2 things in the game right now that can not possibly be balanced by buffing other things. I listed them, for me to honestly believe the Cryptic Devs in fact WANT to balance the game they have to be able to admit when they F something up.
FAW is a massive F UP
Tech Doffs after changing the global on A2B is a major F UP
Simple fix for both of those things really... Tech doffs where FINE when A2B was on the EPTx Global group. They where very powerful with out being completely game breaking. Bort is the one to blame for that change... and he made a mistake. If they can admit that and fix it I might care what they are planning to do with STO again.
well they're saying it's only going to proc on the first hit and have the standard 2.5% chance like all other procs...but yeah...lets see how it goes. Maybe this is a shift off per hit proc chances? I hope so.
I'm just picturing the following...
BEFORE
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays are locked out.
AFTER
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays don't care.
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays are locked out.
AFTER
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays don't care.
Yup, that's exactly the problem. I would love to know if they tested using a single array and that's where they got the 2% improvement figure. In this game, most people don't run a single copy of a weapon type.
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays are locked out.
AFTER
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays don't care.
There is only one thing that matters and it's not balance. $$$$
There are only 60 mk11 and 50 mk12 each beam arrays on the exchange - can you say lockbox madness if a change like continuous shield bypass is allowed onto holodeck.
This theory works for MOST stuff... I like the idea of buffing stuff instead of reducing some stuff. However sometimes it is clear that something is Broken and there is no amount of buffing that would really honestly fix something.
For me there are only 2 things in the game right now that can not possibly be balanced by buffing other things. I listed them, for me to honestly believe the Cryptic Devs in fact WANT to balance the game they have to be able to admit when they F something up.
FAW is a massive F UP
Tech Doffs after changing the global on A2B is a major F UP
Simple fix for both of those things really... Tech doffs where FINE when A2B was on the EPTx Global group. They where very powerful with out being completely game breaking. Bort is the one to blame for that change... and he made a mistake. If they can admit that and fix it I might care what they are planning to do with STO again.
take a good look at every single cruiser that thanks to AtB can perform about 85% as well as an avenger or monbosh, and then take AtB away from them. the avenger would be fine more or less, but the gap between it and the rest would grow an incredible amount. AtB is the only thing keeping half the ships in the game, in the game.
befor they had the good sense to not release destroyers you could AtB without making them suck pretty hard in 1 important area, mostly turn rate. then they released all them warbirds, elachi escort, and the hirogion escort. the biggest offender of all, and you have ideal escort size and movement + AtB now, were before you had to deal with 13 or 14 turn rate vet ships and jem heavies.
buffing the other doffs would do wonders for all those escorts you cant AtB, and sci ships, rescuing them from their now very low point, letting them have cooldowns on exactly what they need, wile being able to actual have aux, and run AtD or AtS. i know it would work, and no one would be wronged, like galaxy R fans have been.
There is only one thing that matters and it's not balance. $$$$
There are only 60 mk11 and 50 mk12 each beam arrays on the exchange - can you say lockbox madness if a change like continuous shield bypass is allowed onto holodeck.
Kind of raises the question...who's going to shell out for them to copy to Tribble and then decide whether to hold on to them depending on how things go, eh? It's a gamble...if they end up crazy, then they'll likely wish they'd bought more...if they don't go live like that, well - what kind of loss might they be looking at with unloading the ones they did buy, eh?
This theory works for MOST stuff... I like the idea of buffing stuff instead of reducing some stuff. However sometimes it is clear that something is Broken and there is no amount of buffing that would really honestly fix something.
Yep, imho - that's how this game has ended up as screwed up as it is. Rather than trying to balance X, they've gone about pumping power into Y and Z. Things keep adding up and...well, how long until we get a pat on the back for successfully logging into the game because even that's OP? Yeah, massive hyperbole - but the constant buffing of everything to try to create pseudo balance instead of nerfing what needs to be nerfed is no better than a couple of kids in a sandbox having a nuclear arms race...
take a good look at every single cruiser that thanks to AtB can perform about 85% as well as an avenger or monbosh, and then take AtB away from them. the avenger would be fine more or less, but the gap between it and the rest would grow an incredible amount. AtB is the only thing keeping half the ships in the game, in the game.
I am not sure I agree with your take on cruisers. With changes to team globals and such with out tech doffs they are still the best ships to be running spike heals on... with the proper set of doffs and layout you can make the non-pew pew cruisers you are talking about be very effective spike healers while retaining most if not all of the resistance healing that has been king since the healing change way back in S1.2.
However your own point holds true here... IF it is found that a good chunk of the cruiser fleet is BAD... then buff them. Buff what is weak up to the level of what is not. (I believe they tried to address this with cruiser commands... if you really believe that doesn't do it perhaps what is needed is buffs to those... or doffs for added effects to cruiser commands)
Don't do it by turning a bind eye to a Broken mechanic that just happens to favor those ships.
I say fix the stuff that is plainly Broken... and I don't believe its a long list... I can only think of 2 that are not possible to balance to buffs of other stuff. FAW which is broken and will always be disproportionately effected by any buff to dmg added to the game... making it a skill that can not be balanced.
The other yes it is TECH doffs. No matter how much buffing other doffs get tech doffs will still be better... unless we are going to take every cool down doff and remove the RNG component and boost there numbers to a point where they can bring a skill to global with just one... and then they have to go and create a cool down doff for every Lt Cmd and Commander skill in the game that does the same... then I guess they are balanced because people can load 5 or 6 doffs and reduce ALL there skills to global. lol
I am kidding of course that isn't an option... so how exactly are you going to buff the other doffs to compete with tech doffs... You can't. Which is why THEY need to be fixed before doffs can be looked at as a balanced mechanic.
At least that is how I see it... I don't completely discount what you are saying about cruisers... but I would much rather the ships get balance passes if they really needed it. Doffs balancing out ships is sort of a major issue as I see it, makes the gap between people in the know and those not or those with and those with out that much greater.
*** Edit *** after thinking about it DDIS... why not add new Cruiser focused Tech Doffs.
Perhaps tech doffs that add +5-10% dmg when using weapon aura... or a Weak always on shield and hull dots and or hots when using the healing and tanking auras. Perhaps that would entice people to dump the cool down reduction if they could stack +30% dmg worth of tech doffs instead of -30% cool downs.
The other yes it is TECH doffs. No matter how much buffing other doffs get tech doffs will still be better... unless we are going to take every cool down doff and remove the RNG component and boost there numbers to a point where they can bring a skill to global with just one... and then they have to go and create a cool down doff for every Lt Cmd and Commander skill in the game that does the same... then I guess they are balanced because people can load 5 or 6 doffs and reduce ALL there skills to global. lol
thats pretty much what i was thinking. tech doffs should be the only doff you need 3 of, and all your aux, to get the desired effect. the rest should all be 1 purple, or 2 blues, or 3 greens. and its not every skill, its every cooldown system. and no chance role BS. tech doffs are the new normal, and it wont serve the playerbases desire of the meta or their bottom line to take them away.
At least that is how I see it... I don't completely discount what you are saying about cruisers... but I would much rather the ships get balance passes if they really needed it. Doffs balancing out ships is sort of a major issue as I see it, makes the gap between people in the know and those not or those with and those with out that much greater.
people tend to have a hard time accepting new additions to the game, fundamentally effecting things, i know i do. people out right reject them, or always apply a bit of bias and apply a lack of legitimacy to them, becase what they do is an improper thing. doffs being a socketable gem that effects your skills is a fact of the game, and has been for years. decontenting it will never be the solution, and tech doffs are clearly what sets the stranded for what doffs can do. the fix that ruins the least ships and that elevates every ship, especially the weak links, is what i proposed. this is something i've given a lot of though to as well. that and FAW, nerfing the extra 5 shots per cycle out of it, and a doff that turns it into single target beam rapid fire is still the best fix imo.
*** Edit *** after thinking about it DDIS... why not add new Cruiser focused Tech Doffs.
Perhaps tech doffs that add +5-10% dmg when using weapon aura... or a Weak always on shield and hull dots and or hots when using the healing and tanking auras. Perhaps that would entice people to dump the cool down reduction if they could stack +30% dmg worth of tech doffs instead of -30% cool downs.
eh, more ship specific stuff i dont care for. global adjustments fixing multiple problems, till everything on multiple platforms is perfect, is a much more sexy way of doing things.
with these doffs, the BO3, APO3, and GW1 would all be at global with 1 doff each, im thinking your gunna need 2 damage control though, for cutting down 4 skills to 2. this ship doesnt need a cannon doff or a TT doff, its got enough tac to take care of that already. those would come much more in handy on a sci ship or non AtB cruiser or something.
doffs: 1 AtD duration extender, 1 AP doff, 2 purple damage control, 1 RSP extender, 1 ET reducer
im sure you can think up some devilish sci ships yourself, and think lol AtB when your done. sure the power of just about everything in the game will be increased quite a bit, but it ALL will be, everyone that knows what they are doing. so again, elevate and create a new normal to cure whats broken, but cant be fixed.
but, this is something i want them to do, so they will do a doff reboot, and then not do anything remotely close to this.
The idea of a doff for every cool down system... is over the top I think.
Really at that point why not just delete the doff system and system and skill globals... same effect.
The idea behind cool downs is to in fact add a balance element to the game. So that skills or a type of skill can be balanced. (so you can't for instance Overload and target a subsystem)...
Doffs allow us to ignore that balance component... which was always dangerous for balance.
I can understand being able to ignore ONE system group per ship though doffs... that isn't to bad. I believe that if enough Good options for doffs exist then yes the limited number of 6 slots make cool down doffs a possible option with out brekaing things.
However when we start talking about slotting 6 doffs and ignoring every cool down system on a ship... I think its broken... your system would mean no more cool downs for anyone. At that point I don't understand why we need doffs... just delete cool downs completely if that is the idea. The issue is right now there is one class of doff that DOES allow right now on live 40% of the games ships to run 3 doffs and completely ignore every cool down mechanic in the game.
I know we won't ever agree on this one... its fun arguing, just don't think we will ever convince each other. I don't want cruisers to be junk... however right now they are far from junk, they are way to good... as I see it faw and tech doffs are to blame for that. Myself I can't think of any reason why a lt cmd tac ship deserves to get all there stuff reduced to global... those ships are not lacking as I see it.... as for the other ships that don't have lt cmd tac... well they have lt cmd engi or sci... which with a combo of the new team changes and cruiser auras are hands down the best spike style healing ships in the game. So I see no issue with cruisers not being able to use tech doffs. Dmg cruisers will still be on par with escorts doing 80% of the dmg and 120% of the tank... sounds right... and the healing ships will have no match in terms of healing power. If people don't want to play cruiser healer well fly one of the battle cruisers there are lots of options there.
Your idea though DDIS of comparing DOFFS to gem sockets in other games I like that.
Why not change the current doff system like this.
Your idea for one doff one system cool down is fine... however... give all Doffs a Class.
So you can slot
1 - cool down doff
1 - Weapon system doff
3 - Skill effect doffs
With the Sixth doff slot unlock being a Uni Style slot. (or perhaps another Skill effect... limiting cool down doffs to 1 per ship)
This would allow the cool down doffs to be balanced by not allowing anyone to run more then 2. Same with weapon doffs.
So tech doffs could be run at a max of 2 instead of 3.... and new effect doffs like No RNG Deflector and Damage control ect... would again be limited. Every ship able to run one system at gloabl... 2 if they use there sixth slot for another cool down. (or perhaps not... and just make that sixth slot a skill effect so people with out 150k fleet cred and a tier 3 spire are not handicaped so bad)
The idea of a doff for every cool down system... is over the top I think.
Really at that point why not just delete the doff system and system and skill globals... same effect.
It's weird how there are some doffs that have chance-based effects (low chance: deflector abilities, comparatively high chance: EPtX) and some that always trigger (AtBat, Pattern Doffs, Teams). That doesn't really feel balanced between the different abilities.
But what I really meant to say: Doffs killed cruisers.
Before there were doffs, eng stations were valuable. A really good support cruiser could have used 2+2+2+1+1+1 = 9 eng stations (2xEPtS + 2 EPtW + 2 ET + AtSIF + Extend + RSP). And indeed for a time the Neghvar with its 8 eng stations (sacrificing one EPtW and running the other on a 60s cooldown in order not to interfere with EPtS, or sacrificing one ET) was the best support cruiser in the game. But with doffs the 4 EPtX slots reduce to 2, the 2 ETs reduce to 1 and suddenly there is no reason for more than 6 eng stations and the old 4+3 cruisers become obsolete. Eng Cmdr+LtC cruisers are essentially dead and hybrid ships or carriers take over.
The idea of a doff for every cool down system... is over the top I think.
Really at that point why not just delete the doff system and system and skill globals... same effect.
The idea behind cool downs is to in fact add a balance element to the game. So that skills or a type of skill can be balanced. (so you can't for instance Overload and target a subsystem)...
Doffs allow us to ignore that balance component... which was always dangerous for balance.
I can understand being able to ignore ONE system group per ship though doffs... that isn't to bad. I believe that if enough Good options for doffs exist then yes the limited number of 6 slots make cool down doffs a possible option with out brekaing things.
However when we start talking about slotting 6 doffs and ignoring every cool down system on a ship... I think its broken... your system would mean no more cool downs for anyone. At that point I don't understand why we need doffs... just delete cool downs completely if that is the idea. The issue is right now there is one class of doff that DOES allow right now on live 40% of the games ships to run 3 doffs and completely ignore every cool down mechanic in the game.
I know we won't ever agree on this one... its fun arguing, just don't think we will ever convince each other. I don't want cruisers to be junk... however right now they are far from junk, they are way to good... as I see it faw and tech doffs are to blame for that. Myself I can't think of any reason why a lt cmd tac ship deserves to get all there stuff reduced to global... those ships are not lacking as I see it.... as for the other ships that don't have lt cmd tac... well they have lt cmd engi or sci... which with a combo of the new team changes and cruiser auras are hands down the best spike style healing ships in the game. So I see no issue with cruisers not being able to use tech doffs. Dmg cruisers will still be on par with escorts doing 80% of the dmg and 120% of the tank... sounds right... and the healing ships will have no match in terms of healing power. If people don't want to play cruiser healer well fly one of the battle cruisers there are lots of options there.
its still just 6 cooldown modifiers you can slot. and they compete with all the other doffs that have nothing to do with cooldowns. im just trying to be realistic, its damage control, not the pvp master race version of perfect game balance. that wouldn't have doffs at all, and real cooldowns. and no EPtE speed boost or FAW.
Cryptic does everything in the over the top style. If they buff they over buff if they nerf they usually over nerf. Right now in the game the big gorilla in the room is the doff system. It is way out of whack. It brings back stuff that was broken way back, they removed Beta stacking but they bring it back with Doff system with AttPat Doffs, TR used to TR used to be a ship killer , now instead of 1 strong TR you now can have 2-3 moderately strong TR, AtB though never useful until recent history shows that the the CD changes over the period of the game have been thrown out. Remember all the QQ about RSP the CD we all railed for are now moot because you now run into RSP chaining ships. Though not as strong but the diaper is now training pants. The nerf to shield distro to fix TT now they are going to spilt TT.
Hey I Used to be Captain Data, well I guess I still am in game but the account link really screwed everything up :rolleyes:
What always bugged me about those disruptors is it gives 100% shield penetration AND 50% armor penetration. Shouldn't it be one or the other?
That's a tough one. Is it a dual proc in exchange for not dropping the Disruptor proc and something else or is it simply seen as being balanced because it doesn't apply a Disruptor proc?
Which is why it would be nifty to know if that's how it's going to work. I need to read more over on Tribble. But honestly, I see this as being a PvE vs. PvP battle, eh? Cause for PvE...wheeee! While for PvP...omgherd!
you fix tech doffs my marginalizing them with improvements to other doffs. like
2 purple damage controls giving you full up time with 1 copy of 2 EPt skills with no chance BS.
I certainly agree with that, especially since damage control DOffs ONLY affect EPtX skills. It's ridiculous such a limited skill is chance based.
Aux2bat technician DOffs meanwhile should be chance based, since they affect all BOff powers. High chance perhaps, but still chance based.
That said, I'm wondering how useful tact team conn DOffs will be in the future, should the shield distribution ability be split off to it's own power as rumoured.
That said, I'm wondering how useful tact team conn DOffs will be in the future, should the shield distribution ability be split off to it's own power as rumoured.
Well, the TT CD reduction DOFFs also buff SAP...some folks use that to buff their APB, APD, APO.
I'm surprised some see a2b doffs more broken than doffs such as that warp core engineer that removes debuffs almost all the time - The only thing tech doffs have done is shine a light on just how terrible photonic officer was, but at least there are still situations where you'd still want to use photonic officer.
And lol, no cruiser would have had 2 engineering teams before that last patch - the reality always was that certain cruisers had too many engineering stations, too many abilities had shared cool downs and that just made them bad, even if you were considering a "dragon build".
Even the intrepid suffers from too many science stations, which is surprising considering the lack of shard cooldowns amongst science skills.
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays are locked out.
AFTER
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays don't care.
because thats how they make the game more accessible to those "casual" players who love to be killed in 2 seconds by ships flying in circles spamming faw.
Don't forget about that healing console romulans have ...the more dps you get the more healed you are...that is cryptic game design.
geko wanted dhc useless now they are useless.He wanted beams or gtfo here we are with beams or gtfo.
I'm surprised some see a2b doffs more broken than doffs such as that warp core engineer that removes debuffs almost all the time - The only thing tech doffs have done is shine a light on just how terrible photonic officer was, but at least there are still situations where you'd still want to use photonic officer.
Can I vote for option 3, both are silly?
I still maintain that a mechanic that increases the effective number of abilities available from 12 to 22 is daft, in a game that is balanced around everybody having a limited number of abilities. However, a doff that pretty much functions as a perma-cleanse over time needs its numbers tweaked too.
I still maintain that a mechanic that increases the effective number of abilities available from 12 to 22 is daft, in a game that is balanced around everybody having a limited number of abilities. However, a doff that pretty much functions as a perma-cleanse over time needs its numbers tweaked too.
Well the perma cleanse feeds off the a2b craziness in this game, but I do agree, those 2 doffs in particular are a problem in this game. Given ST can be now better used, the cleanse doff has no reason to stay as a 100% effective doff.
I still maintain that a mechanic that increases the effective number of abilities available from 12 to 22 is daft, in a game that is balanced around everybody having a limited number of abilities. However, a doff that pretty much functions as a perma-cleanse over time needs its numbers tweaked too.
Well the perma cleanse feeds off the a2b craziness in this game...
Can I add a third? Which also feeds off of AtB? Inspirational Leader. With a 3-stack, it's adding the equivalent of 35 VR Mk XII skill consoles...+30 each.
So we've got the AtB playing magic with abilities, WCE(Cleanse Everything) adding how many additional abilities as it cleanses everything, and Inspirational adding 35 console slots to a ship.
Hrmm, I'm sure if we stopped to think about it for a sec - we could easily add in a fourth, fifth, and keep going from there...with how much of it tracing its origin back to AtB, eh?
Can I add a third? Which also feeds off of AtB? Inspirational Leader. With a 3-stack, it's adding the equivalent of 35 VR Mk XII skill consoles...+30 each.
So we've got the AtB playing magic with abilities, WCE(Cleanse Everything) adding how many additional abilities as it cleanses everything, and Inspirational adding 35 console slots to a ship.
Hrmm, I'm sure if we stopped to think about it for a sec - we could easily add in a fourth, fifth, and keep going from there...with how much of it tracing its origin back to AtB, eh?
Comments
Aha, it of course doesn't matter that roms can get a stacking defense and crit bonus (dual space traits) on every boff they use? And singularity powers and all battlecloak ships are perfectly balanced by the 40 points of power differential? Yeah sorry, but i don't buy it. Put a Fed/KDF captain in a regular fleet ship and pit them against a romluan captain of equal skill...
And btw, i already said that a nerf to the tech doffs is needed, but not a2b itself, because there are enough drawbacks to this ability already. I can safely say, that i wouldn't be using it (cause i would actually like to use my t4 nukara rep and aux healing abilities), if it wouldn't be so easy (even if it is limiting your other options).
Isn't it awesome that they removed the CD period on the Elachi Disruptors over on Tribble? It's absolutely FAWtastic! Meh...
Really ? lol I havn't been watching tribble notes. I'm really not sure what they are thinking with that.
Yeah, I had it in post #6. I should have updated the OP with it...I'll add it there too.
1 purple tt/st/et is all you need to put it on global, + adding an additional helpful effect.
2 purple damage controls giving you full up time with 1 copy of 2 EPt skills with no chance BS.
1 purple deflector doffs putting all deflectors skills at global.
and so on. with doffs like that you can target what you really need cooled down, and not lose all your aux. nerf tech doffs though, and about 10 ships in the entire game will be worth using, most of them being warbirds.
well they're saying it's only going to proc on the first hit and have the standard 2.5% chance like all other procs...but yeah...lets see how it goes. Maybe this is a shift off per hit proc chances? I hope so.
I can't agree with this anymore.
This theory works for MOST stuff... I like the idea of buffing stuff instead of reducing some stuff. However sometimes it is clear that something is Broken and there is no amount of buffing that would really honestly fix something.
For me there are only 2 things in the game right now that can not possibly be balanced by buffing other things. I listed them, for me to honestly believe the Cryptic Devs in fact WANT to balance the game they have to be able to admit when they F something up.
FAW is a massive F UP
Tech Doffs after changing the global on A2B is a major F UP
Simple fix for both of those things really... Tech doffs where FINE when A2B was on the EPTx Global group. They where very powerful with out being completely game breaking. Bort is the one to blame for that change... and he made a mistake. If they can admit that and fix it I might care what they are planning to do with STO again.
I'm just picturing the following...
BEFORE
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays are locked out.
AFTER
5x FAW boats with 7 Elachi Arrays. One procs, 34 Arrays don't care.
Yup, that's exactly the problem. I would love to know if they tested using a single array and that's where they got the 2% improvement figure. In this game, most people don't run a single copy of a weapon type.
There is only one thing that matters and it's not balance. $$$$
There are only 60 mk11 and 50 mk12 each beam arrays on the exchange - can you say lockbox madness if a change like continuous shield bypass is allowed onto holodeck.
take a good look at every single cruiser that thanks to AtB can perform about 85% as well as an avenger or monbosh, and then take AtB away from them. the avenger would be fine more or less, but the gap between it and the rest would grow an incredible amount. AtB is the only thing keeping half the ships in the game, in the game.
befor they had the good sense to not release destroyers you could AtB without making them suck pretty hard in 1 important area, mostly turn rate. then they released all them warbirds, elachi escort, and the hirogion escort. the biggest offender of all, and you have ideal escort size and movement + AtB now, were before you had to deal with 13 or 14 turn rate vet ships and jem heavies.
buffing the other doffs would do wonders for all those escorts you cant AtB, and sci ships, rescuing them from their now very low point, letting them have cooldowns on exactly what they need, wile being able to actual have aux, and run AtD or AtS. i know it would work, and no one would be wronged, like galaxy R fans have been.
Kind of raises the question...who's going to shell out for them to copy to Tribble and then decide whether to hold on to them depending on how things go, eh? It's a gamble...if they end up crazy, then they'll likely wish they'd bought more...if they don't go live like that, well - what kind of loss might they be looking at with unloading the ones they did buy, eh?
Yep, imho - that's how this game has ended up as screwed up as it is. Rather than trying to balance X, they've gone about pumping power into Y and Z. Things keep adding up and...well, how long until we get a pat on the back for successfully logging into the game because even that's OP? Yeah, massive hyperbole - but the constant buffing of everything to try to create pseudo balance instead of nerfing what needs to be nerfed is no better than a couple of kids in a sandbox having a nuclear arms race...
I am not sure I agree with your take on cruisers. With changes to team globals and such with out tech doffs they are still the best ships to be running spike heals on... with the proper set of doffs and layout you can make the non-pew pew cruisers you are talking about be very effective spike healers while retaining most if not all of the resistance healing that has been king since the healing change way back in S1.2.
However your own point holds true here... IF it is found that a good chunk of the cruiser fleet is BAD... then buff them. Buff what is weak up to the level of what is not. (I believe they tried to address this with cruiser commands... if you really believe that doesn't do it perhaps what is needed is buffs to those... or doffs for added effects to cruiser commands)
Don't do it by turning a bind eye to a Broken mechanic that just happens to favor those ships.
I say fix the stuff that is plainly Broken... and I don't believe its a long list... I can only think of 2 that are not possible to balance to buffs of other stuff. FAW which is broken and will always be disproportionately effected by any buff to dmg added to the game... making it a skill that can not be balanced.
The other yes it is TECH doffs. No matter how much buffing other doffs get tech doffs will still be better... unless we are going to take every cool down doff and remove the RNG component and boost there numbers to a point where they can bring a skill to global with just one... and then they have to go and create a cool down doff for every Lt Cmd and Commander skill in the game that does the same... then I guess they are balanced because people can load 5 or 6 doffs and reduce ALL there skills to global. lol
I am kidding of course that isn't an option... so how exactly are you going to buff the other doffs to compete with tech doffs... You can't. Which is why THEY need to be fixed before doffs can be looked at as a balanced mechanic.
At least that is how I see it... I don't completely discount what you are saying about cruisers... but I would much rather the ships get balance passes if they really needed it. Doffs balancing out ships is sort of a major issue as I see it, makes the gap between people in the know and those not or those with and those with out that much greater.
*** Edit *** after thinking about it DDIS... why not add new Cruiser focused Tech Doffs.
Perhaps tech doffs that add +5-10% dmg when using weapon aura... or a Weak always on shield and hull dots and or hots when using the healing and tanking auras. Perhaps that would entice people to dump the cool down reduction if they could stack +30% dmg worth of tech doffs instead of -30% cool downs.
thats pretty much what i was thinking. tech doffs should be the only doff you need 3 of, and all your aux, to get the desired effect. the rest should all be 1 purple, or 2 blues, or 3 greens. and its not every skill, its every cooldown system. and no chance role BS. tech doffs are the new normal, and it wont serve the playerbases desire of the meta or their bottom line to take them away.
people tend to have a hard time accepting new additions to the game, fundamentally effecting things, i know i do. people out right reject them, or always apply a bit of bias and apply a lack of legitimacy to them, becase what they do is an improper thing. doffs being a socketable gem that effects your skills is a fact of the game, and has been for years. decontenting it will never be the solution, and tech doffs are clearly what sets the stranded for what doffs can do. the fix that ruins the least ships and that elevates every ship, especially the weak links, is what i proposed. this is something i've given a lot of though to as well. that and FAW, nerfing the extra 5 shots per cycle out of it, and a doff that turns it into single target beam rapid fire is still the best fix imo.
eh, more ship specific stuff i dont care for. global adjustments fixing multiple problems, till everything on multiple platforms is perfect, is a much more sexy way of doing things.
it might help if you could see my idea in action
MVAM- a ship left behind these days i find
TT1, CRF1, BO3, APO3
TT1, CRF1
TS1
EPtE1, EPtS2
TSS1, HE2, GW1
3DHC, 1 DBB, cutting beam, proton, grav torp
doffs: 1 beam cooldown, 1 deflector cooldown, 1 AP doff, 2 purple damage control, 1 BFI doff
with these doffs, the BO3, APO3, and GW1 would all be at global with 1 doff each, im thinking your gunna need 2 damage control though, for cutting down 4 skills to 2. this ship doesnt need a cannon doff or a TT doff, its got enough tac to take care of that already. those would come much more in handy on a sci ship or non AtB cruiser or something.
fleet patrol
TT1, APD1, CRF2, APO3
TT1, CSV1, BO3
EPtE1, AtD1
EPtS1
TSS1, HE2
3DHC, 1 DBB, 3 turrets
doffs: 1 beam cooldown, 1 cannon skill cooldown, 1 AtD duration extender, to global now, 1 AP doff, 2 purple damage control
how are AtB builds better then these? they got just about all the perks and the aux.
fleet vorcha
TT1, CRF1, APO1
TT1, CRF1
EPtE1, AtD1, ET3, RSP3
EPtS1
HE1, TSS2
4 dhc, 4 turrets
doffs: 1 AtD duration extender, 1 AP doff, 2 purple damage control, 1 RSP extender, 1 ET reducer
im sure you can think up some devilish sci ships yourself, and think lol AtB when your done. sure the power of just about everything in the game will be increased quite a bit, but it ALL will be, everyone that knows what they are doing. so again, elevate and create a new normal to cure whats broken, but cant be fixed.
but, this is something i want them to do, so they will do a doff reboot, and then not do anything remotely close to this.
Really at that point why not just delete the doff system and system and skill globals... same effect.
The idea behind cool downs is to in fact add a balance element to the game. So that skills or a type of skill can be balanced. (so you can't for instance Overload and target a subsystem)...
Doffs allow us to ignore that balance component... which was always dangerous for balance.
I can understand being able to ignore ONE system group per ship though doffs... that isn't to bad. I believe that if enough Good options for doffs exist then yes the limited number of 6 slots make cool down doffs a possible option with out brekaing things.
However when we start talking about slotting 6 doffs and ignoring every cool down system on a ship... I think its broken... your system would mean no more cool downs for anyone. At that point I don't understand why we need doffs... just delete cool downs completely if that is the idea. The issue is right now there is one class of doff that DOES allow right now on live 40% of the games ships to run 3 doffs and completely ignore every cool down mechanic in the game.
I know we won't ever agree on this one... its fun arguing, just don't think we will ever convince each other. I don't want cruisers to be junk... however right now they are far from junk, they are way to good... as I see it faw and tech doffs are to blame for that. Myself I can't think of any reason why a lt cmd tac ship deserves to get all there stuff reduced to global... those ships are not lacking as I see it.... as for the other ships that don't have lt cmd tac... well they have lt cmd engi or sci... which with a combo of the new team changes and cruiser auras are hands down the best spike style healing ships in the game. So I see no issue with cruisers not being able to use tech doffs. Dmg cruisers will still be on par with escorts doing 80% of the dmg and 120% of the tank... sounds right... and the healing ships will have no match in terms of healing power. If people don't want to play cruiser healer well fly one of the battle cruisers there are lots of options there.
Why not change the current doff system like this.
Your idea for one doff one system cool down is fine... however... give all Doffs a Class.
So you can slot
1 - cool down doff
1 - Weapon system doff
3 - Skill effect doffs
With the Sixth doff slot unlock being a Uni Style slot. (or perhaps another Skill effect... limiting cool down doffs to 1 per ship)
This would allow the cool down doffs to be balanced by not allowing anyone to run more then 2. Same with weapon doffs.
So tech doffs could be run at a max of 2 instead of 3.... and new effect doffs like No RNG Deflector and Damage control ect... would again be limited. Every ship able to run one system at gloabl... 2 if they use there sixth slot for another cool down. (or perhaps not... and just make that sixth slot a skill effect so people with out 150k fleet cred and a tier 3 spire are not handicaped so bad)
But what I really meant to say: Doffs killed cruisers.
Before there were doffs, eng stations were valuable. A really good support cruiser could have used 2+2+2+1+1+1 = 9 eng stations (2xEPtS + 2 EPtW + 2 ET + AtSIF + Extend + RSP). And indeed for a time the Neghvar with its 8 eng stations (sacrificing one EPtW and running the other on a 60s cooldown in order not to interfere with EPtS, or sacrificing one ET) was the best support cruiser in the game. But with doffs the 4 EPtX slots reduce to 2, the 2 ETs reduce to 1 and suddenly there is no reason for more than 6 eng stations and the old 4+3 cruisers become obsolete. Eng Cmdr+LtC cruisers are essentially dead and hybrid ships or carriers take over.
its still just 6 cooldown modifiers you can slot. and they compete with all the other doffs that have nothing to do with cooldowns. im just trying to be realistic, its damage control, not the pvp master race version of perfect game balance. that wouldn't have doffs at all, and real cooldowns. and no EPtE speed boost or FAW.
yeah I stand corrected...
What always bugged me about those disruptors is it gives 100% shield penetration AND 50% armor penetration. Shouldn't it be one or the other?
That's a tough one. Is it a dual proc in exchange for not dropping the Disruptor proc and something else or is it simply seen as being balanced because it doesn't apply a Disruptor proc?
Which is why it would be nifty to know if that's how it's going to work. I need to read more over on Tribble. But honestly, I see this as being a PvE vs. PvP battle, eh? Cause for PvE...wheeee! While for PvP...omgherd!
I certainly agree with that, especially since damage control DOffs ONLY affect EPtX skills. It's ridiculous such a limited skill is chance based.
Aux2bat technician DOffs meanwhile should be chance based, since they affect all BOff powers. High chance perhaps, but still chance based.
That said, I'm wondering how useful tact team conn DOffs will be in the future, should the shield distribution ability be split off to it's own power as rumoured.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Well, the TT CD reduction DOFFs also buff SAP...some folks use that to buff their APB, APD, APO.
And lol, no cruiser would have had 2 engineering teams before that last patch - the reality always was that certain cruisers had too many engineering stations, too many abilities had shared cool downs and that just made them bad, even if you were considering a "dragon build".
Even the intrepid suffers from too many science stations, which is surprising considering the lack of shard cooldowns amongst science skills.
because thats how they make the game more accessible to those "casual" players who love to be killed in 2 seconds by ships flying in circles spamming faw.
Don't forget about that healing console romulans have ...the more dps you get the more healed you are...that is cryptic game design.
geko wanted dhc useless now they are useless.He wanted beams or gtfo here we are with beams or gtfo.
Can I vote for option 3, both are silly?
I still maintain that a mechanic that increases the effective number of abilities available from 12 to 22 is daft, in a game that is balanced around everybody having a limited number of abilities. However, a doff that pretty much functions as a perma-cleanse over time needs its numbers tweaked too.
Well the perma cleanse feeds off the a2b craziness in this game, but I do agree, those 2 doffs in particular are a problem in this game. Given ST can be now better used, the cleanse doff has no reason to stay as a 100% effective doff.
Can I add a third? Which also feeds off of AtB? Inspirational Leader. With a 3-stack, it's adding the equivalent of 35 VR Mk XII skill consoles...+30 each.
So we've got the AtB playing magic with abilities, WCE(Cleanse Everything) adding how many additional abilities as it cleanses everything, and Inspirational adding 35 console slots to a ship.
Hrmm, I'm sure if we stopped to think about it for a sec - we could easily add in a fourth, fifth, and keep going from there...with how much of it tracing its origin back to AtB, eh?
Insp Leader also feeds off the a2b mess, true.