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fix for a2b wanted
wast33
Member Posts: 1,855 Arc User
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=17780571&postcount=9 :
"the right fix to it", what could that be? discuss if you like (and keep it civil plz ^^).
u may be aware of that this thread is not about a2b is weird or not! if u read it so, plz just assume that it is (at least that is implied by that comment) and only drop comments on how may to fix/alter it, thx for understanding.
btw: i don't expect them to do anything about, though they may see the need for a fix. will keep my 2cents y that may is that way for myself
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suggestions-edit (page 1-8):
(page 8-20):
these are the suggestions i found yet, gathered after a quick read through. if u feel i missed a suggestion, shortened it too much or killed the sense of ur post just tell me (i tried to only quote first posters of an idea and every idea only once, though probably doubled or missed some. sry for that).
from time to time i will update the op with suggestions made, as long this thread is open.
adjudicatorhawk wrote: »We actually really don't like A2B, but it's a bit of a "third rail" situation. When we have the right fix to it, someday, we'll probably possibly maybe make it.
"the right fix to it", what could that be? discuss if you like (and keep it civil plz ^^).
u may be aware of that this thread is not about a2b is weird or not! if u read it so, plz just assume that it is (at least that is implied by that comment) and only drop comments on how may to fix/alter it, thx for understanding.
btw: i don't expect them to do anything about, though they may see the need for a fix. will keep my 2cents y that may is that way for myself
...suggestions-edit (page 1-8):
riccardo171 wrote: »...
shared cooldown of 20 seconds with other copies
...
...
1. Provides temporary immunity to drain effects/subsystem offlines: 1 per weapon/shields/engines power type. Using all 3 would provide 8-10 seconds immunity to all
2. Cooldown reduction of specific Engineer Boff powers only: EWP, DEM, RSP, Ace Beam (make Ace Beam better) or any other Eng Boff power that doesn't already have a cooldown reducing doff.
3. Speed up Aux power replenishment/shorten it's 5 power downtime & lengthen Aux2batt power bonus duration to the other subsystems.
4. Short burst of modest increased cap to weapon/shields/engine power. Doesn't stack w/other potential cap boosting effects beyond 135.
... put back all the shared cooldowns they've removed, eg PH&HE, Teams Shared, Various Sci Debuff Boff powers that don't share cooldowns anymore etc, EPtX & aux2batt shared cooldown. Prevent Aux2batt from effecting an ability more than 1x during a cooldown cycle.
dontdrunkimshoot wrote: »...
- no bonus power from AtB provided when tech doffs are equipped
- aux power is instantly refunded after AtB expires, so on 2 AtB builds you will more consistently always have no more then 5 aux
...
I wouldn't mind A2B being engineer captain skill...
I wouldn't mind A2B working only on cruisers
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Only cruisers with commander engineering are able to use technicians.
Techinicians are restricted to vessels with commander engineering slots.
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virusdancer wrote: »I'd still like the simple start of capping Aux at 5 while AtB is active.
...
...
another consideration may would be to just bind a2b to a certain sets of abilities, like f.e. eng-ones.
or what about a change for a2b completely? f.e. just make it effect powerlevels and change that doff to work with a new ability in 3 flavours (tac, sci, eng), so u could choose which set of abilities to bring down to global.
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ursusmorologus wrote: »...
...cap the amount of Aux that is transferred, so that it is only a modest buff and does not peg everything to max.
Also you could run it through something like the EPS Manifold trait so that Engi gets more power to the subsystems.
...impose power drain on every ability. If PH/HE/TSS consume aux while running and AtB has only left a little to spare, those powers become useless unless you allocate more base power to Aux in the first place...
...
ursusmorologus:...
power levels capped and scaled:
AtB1 = 15 Aux -> 5 weap/shields/engine
AtB2 = 30 Aux -> 10 weap/shields/engine
AtB3 = 45 Aux -> 15 weap/shields/engine
That would actually make low-level AtB poor for power buffs (although still viable for cooldown management). High-level AtB would still be awesome, but very expensive.
...
breadandcircuses wrote: »...
or have Aux2Batt apply a consistent transfer between subsystems over the full duration rather than working as an instant activation;...
...(edit by wast33: regarding aux hardcap of 5)
Now if this were a soft cap like our natural subsystem caps, that would be a great solution as the power wouldn't actually disappear, allowing Aux2Batt to cycle as close to normally as possible using a power cap fix...
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doffs shouldn't stack.
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this1isavailable wrote: »What about moving a2b 1 to lt. comm. slot? It nerfs overused ships and makes eng heavy ships more interesting.
riccardo171 wrote: »...
...restrict it to ships with a Commander Engineering, only one copy allowed.
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decrease targeting by 20% and while running at a power level of five make all enemies and friends disappear off the screen beyond 10km.
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think about what aux power should power and take that stuff away for running power levels below 25 points.
...
...
capping aux power to 5 while a2b is active... duration increased to the global so if one uses 2 copies they will keep their aux power at 5.
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beameddown wrote: »...
every boff power, no matter what should not be none stop or overlapping, all the cooldown doffs, % chance reduction, etc should NOT be able to make any ability overlap or run perfectly back to back
put gaps between every boff power so if someone runs emergency power shields and emergency power weapons there then would be a HARD 5 second gap no matter what doffs or boff powers are run,
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systemwide rebalance?
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(page 8-20):
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Activating A2B brings aux power level to 5 for 10 seconds. If any copy of A2B is activated with only 5 aux power, then aux goes to zero for 10 seconds. Correcting power level issue.
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Finally, for tech doffs make the stacking effect have diminishing returns. One tech doff is 10%, two gives 18%, three gives 24%. Keep the cooldown reduction for all abilities, but tone it down a bit.
Place A2b on shared cooldown with RSP, no more spamming 30 second doffed RSP at global cooldown
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Just give technicians another space buff instead of reducing cooldowns.
antoniosalieri wrote: »...
Put A2B back on the proper global system and things are fixed again.
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Give each ship a base power level, and make warp cores the only thing that can increase a ships power.
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Oh, and when a system is being used (I.e., weapons are fired, shields are hit) they either drain power and restore it slowly (in the case of weapons, or you could restore it with eptw at the cost of your other 3 systems), or they stay at full power and drain. From your other 3 systems (in the case of your shields).
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antoniosalieri wrote: »...
- Reduce Tech doffs to 5% for purple. - However have them reduce skills an added 5% per system (max one system) when under the effect of a cruiser command.
So Tac cruiser command (reduces Tac boff skills) - Shields (science boff skills) - Attract fire (engi boff skills) - manuvering (engi boffs).
That would mean 10% still for cruisers on skills from ONE class of skill... and 5% on the rest.
For escorts sci and carriers... with out Command codes... it would be 5% unless they are in a command aura. (another reaosn to work together I guess)
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Only allow 1 Tech doff equipped at a time.
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some of the suggestions presented in this thread. While I don't believe that a single one would do it, a combination of them may be better.
For Example:
- Cap Auxiliary power to 5 while Aux2Batt is in use
- Moving Aux2Batt-1 to Lt Commander and Aux2Batt-2 to Commander
- Extending the global cooldown from 10 to 20 (though I think 15 may be better, I haven't done the math)
- reduce the power bonus granted from Aux2Batt.
...
...
- change tech-doffs to not grant their safe cd-reduce of 10%. make them chance-based, like f.e. crf-doffs. chance to reduce cd's for 10% could be 30% f.e..
these are the suggestions i found yet, gathered after a quick read through. if u feel i missed a suggestion, shortened it too much or killed the sense of ur post just tell me (i tried to only quote first posters of an idea and every idea only once, though probably doubled or missed some. sry for that).
from time to time i will update the op with suggestions made, as long this thread is open.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
No we could use a new thread with actual solutions being offered. The thread he linked is a thread about new traits effecting a2b isn't it.... its not a suggest possible sane fixes for the tech/a2b issue. (or could we really... eh who cares)
Does anyone believe the dev wasn't just blowing sunshine. They don't like it... but there fine with the money they make releasing a stream of ships lately that are custom designed to use it. Seems real disingenuous to me. Perhaps I am being hard on them... or perhaps the devs that do care are simply in a situation where the company only really cares about the $... I don't know and really don't care anymore.
They won't ever be fixing the tech doff issue. So there is no point in suggesting fixes.
1 pve players QQs about a2b the devs quotes and asnwers.100pvp players QQ about a2b ...a dev removes the PvP dili.
Sad and not really corelated, but it's true.
BTW TRIBBLE a2b, it hurts the player using it the most, and in the long run it lowers the quality of gameplay.
Super SpecialStar Trek Online Review
SpecialTemporal PUG 100K DPS Build
We are Travelers
Ahahahahahhahaahaha, and this is why my wallet has been closed since October 2013.
How dare you speak the truth! Using facts, logic, and common sense is a serious offense around these parts. You better watch yourself...
1. Provides temporary immunity to drain effects/subsystem offlines: 1 per weapon/shields/engines power type. Using all 3 would provide 8-10 seconds immunity to all
2. Cooldown reduction of specific Engineer Boff powers only: EWP, DEM, RSP, Ace Beam (make Ace Beam better) or any other Eng Boff power that doesn't already have a cooldown reducing doff.
3. Speed up Aux power replenishment/shorten it's 5 power downtime & lengthen Aux2batt power bonus duration to the other subsystems.
4. Short burst of modest increased cap to weapon/shields/engine power. Doesn't stack w/other potential cap boosting effects beyond 135.
If it stays the same put back all the shared cooldowns they've removed, eg PH&HE, Teams Shared, Various Sci Debuff Boff powers that don't share cooldowns anymore etc, EPtX & aux2batt shared cooldown. Prevent Aux2batt from effecting an ability more than 1x during a cooldown cycle.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
- no bonus power from AtB provided when tech doffs are equipped
- aux power is instantly refunded after AtB expires, so on 2 AtB builds you will more consistently always have no more then 5 aux
I wouldn't mind A2B being engineer captain skill. (too much outrage)
I wouldn't mind A2B working only on cruisers (again too much outrage)
Any logical balance or nerf stated will most likely be overlooked. It's the sad lesson I've learned here at STO forums.
@ Devs
You can't really tell is something is balanced or not if you don't 'play' the game, or listen to the people playing the game. By listen, I mean look at their ideas, test them a little. To make the game better you must be open minded and logical, but don't be too extreme (see KDF's Tachyon Drones). Just a friendly message from Queen Scora@altlantra (Me).
Techinicians are restricted to vessels with commander engineering slots.
How is this not a decent solution.
Can easily be expanding to excluded battle cruisers like the avenger.
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Cause when the second AtB doesn't drain, when you've got things like EPS Manifold, WCE +Power, Leech, MACO Shields, EPtA, Batteries, EPM, etc that counter it - well - it's not much of a balancing angle, is it?
Sure, if AtB with boosted Aux resulted in consistent zero Aux - that might be one thing - but it doesn't even come close to doing that consistently - if it does it at all.
When folks can chain AtB and still run with 75+ Aux...there's a problem, eh? So address that problem first...get everybody on the same page that's using it. Then start to take a look at it, eh?
Yeah, that's been my schtick on it for almost two years now...cause without it working consistently in some fashion, how can one touch it with any sort of consistent results to be expected?
Sure, some folks will say that it's no problem to run at 5 Aux - but they've built around running at 5 Aux. How many folks have? How many folks are just running AtB builds that are running far better than the AtB builds that others are running - Hell, even if two folks are running the same exact build and playing it the same way, there's no guarantee that the same thing is going to happen. Let's start with some consistency and take it from there...
I mean, you lose your greatest bogeyman if its gone^^
remember when the bug ship was alone at the top and turned everything into a skid mark easily? think of all the other great escorts out since then. so that, x2, when all the AtB ships disappear :rolleyes:
Yeah, we shouldn't fix anything because we might find something else that needs a fix too...genius.
Sadly I have to agree in the most part. Double AtB slowly starts to destroy your skills. It gets all too automatic, served on a silver dish, global cooldowns all around.
I do use AtB, especially on Scimitar and Avenger. I have no hate for it, but I wouldn't care if they removed it as well.
nice start folks, keep it rollin' the gentle way
as for me i really like that idea of aux5 (auxpower capped at 5 for the duration) for a good start to may go further.
another consideration may would be to just bind a2b to a certain sets of abilities, like f.e. eng-ones.
or what about a change for a2b completely? f.e. just make it effect powerlevels and change that doff to work with a new ability in 3 flavours (tac, sci, eng), so u could choose which set of abilities to bring down to global.... would cross with po at least i guess, so therefore baaad idea+maybe that's just a bit too much of coding. but almost worth a cent
some ideas already mentioned that appeal me a lot of more and are way more easy to bring to life.
that's absurd
If the power was returned instantaneously in the same way it was taken/given, this would not happen, and 2xATB boats would constantly run at 5 Aux.
Here's an extremely boring video demonstrating the nature of the inconsistency that bugs me.
Before getting into any details about what's going on with Aux in the video, I wanted to point out something that I hadn't really noticed before. Take a look at the CD progression on the AtB's vs. the EPtX's. 1s != 1s. The AtB cooldown countdown will actually pass the EPtX CD/CD multiple times.
For example:
AtB 9s
EPtX 6s
The AtB 9s countdown will complete before the EPtX 6s countdown. That's without the pesky issue of the bounce back that happens at times, where an EPtX will drop to 2s you'll think it's finishing, but instead of going to 0s it bounces back to 2s or so. It's as if the AtB CD reduction is applying not only to the AtB itself, but also to the seconds for the AtB. So an AtB second is shorter than the second for any other abilities being reduced by AtB. That would appear to be a definite bug, eh? It threw me a few times while doing the video as I was waiting on an EPtX to finish but the AtB finished first.
Okay then, some info about what's going to be going on in the video.
The "normal" Aux for the toon is 57.1 - the 0.1 is kind of important, because of some of the things that happen during the video. Can tell that it is 57.1 instead of 57 because the AtB1 states it drains 52.1 Aux instead of 52 Aux. There will be some recalculation moments in the video where you see Aux at 4 before going to 5, 14 to 15, etc, etc, etc. Not sure if that is just hang up between the UI or if it is an actual recalculation. UI might see that -52.1 is taking place, so it drops it down to 4 instead of the 5 - the system says it's 5, so the UI updates - that sort of thing...or if it's actually dropping to 4, being recalculated, and going to 5.
I rolled a new toon on my second account, I had deleted the toons there cause I wasn't doing this kind of testing - had quit it - but decided to get back into it loosely. So Fawcett is plinking away at Maal with a min weapon power turret to trigger the +10 to all subsystems from the MACO shield. This takes his Aux to 67.1 - which you'll see and not see from time to time during the course of the video.
Maal is an Engineer with the EPS Manifold trait and sufficient Starship Battery Skill to maintain the +10 to all subsystems between EPtX/Y activations. In the absence of the AtB Aux drain, this would take his Aux to 77.1 (including the MACO shield boost).
To throw that random kink into the works, Maal has a Rare WCE +20 all subsystem power DOFF (20%). Should it trigger (in the absence of AtB Aux drain), then his overall Aux would hit 97.1 (including both the MACO shield boost and EPS Manifold).
Here's the video: http://youtu.be/6y3N9BqFQ2Y
There's no reason to watch the whole six and half minutes - that's time you can't get back of your life.
Watching enough of it should give enough of the gist of what I'm talking about though...there's almost no consistency in what is taking place there. Why is it 52 at times instead of 57? Why is it 24? Why is it 19? Why does it sometimes pseudo zero after the WCE proc but not others? Why does it sit at 5 here and there when you'd expect it to be 15 or 0? Heck, even the 0 that's actually 0.1 so you can still AtB or use Aux abilities because it's not actually 0. Etc, etc, etc...it's just not consistent in any fashion.
...so that desire that it cap at 5 during the 10s the AtB buff is in place - rather than bouncing around as it does.
hmmm... indeed kinda weird ^^. i though do know that cd-jumping on timer/availability myself from non-a2b builds. only correlation i can spot instantly is that wc-doff i run on most of my builds.
but those "shorter seconds" and powerlevel-rollercoaster really should be looked at, in the best case before they "possibly, probably, maybe" take further action.
thx a lot for that illustration
To be honest, what the hell does it mean to have six engineering boff powers and four tactical on the new patrol? Or maybe a Hunter? Or a Nicor?
they're escorts, they can deal damage and unload their payload without the need of cycling AtB. How come JHAS rocks in escort category and still it has at best one Lt. engineering power? Just the turn rate? It plays an important part, but it's not just that. I trashed AtB on Patrol, it doesn't seem right, Too cheap to fly and too much fluctuating power levels for an escort; limited tac buffs.
seriously, as Scora suggested AtB should be allowed only on large ships, those with dimensions of a battle cruiser or superior.
Yes, you can keep all your other subsystems at full power pretty much all the time, but that doesn't really translate into any kind of advantage considering what is given up. You may be able to activate bfaw over and over again, but because of the delay between separate copies of aux2batt, there is a point at which both are unavailable, and in that time, you aren't able to inflict any real damage, nor are you able to heal or support anyone. As someone who used it for nearly a year, and am just switching off of it, I can say that there is really no huge advantage with aux2batt. So there's no need for any type of change to it.
Another big thing that would help this and a lot of other stuff would be to impose power drain on every ability. If PH/HE/TSS consume aux while running and AtB has only left a little to spare, those powers become useless unless you allocate more base power to Aux in the first place. This is probably the cleanest bestest fix for gameplay but the least likely to happen due to aggravating the casuals.
Tech DOFFs are a separate problem. DOFF should never add whole new function and this is great example why. Unfortunately its needed to make the older cruisers barely functional in DPS races that subsitute for content here. There is no way to use some of the engi-heavy, tac-lite cruisers successfully without it.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this. I can clearly see the bug and it should get fixed along with the fast countdown one. My question is on how aux2bat really works.
1) If Aux power were = 0, would the ship be able to use aux2bat again? Example, my drain build piling on tgt aux subsystems 3+Siphon2+Tyken's 3+Voth Aceton. I know this is overkill, but I've had my ship draining aux2bat builds like crazy, and they still manage to use aux2bat constantly.
2) If it gets fixed and the power is always left down at 5, and lets use this video as example. The engine power was 63. Would it just get boosted to 68 on the second use of aux2bat?
Note:
I just saw this on the wiki
Modified by:
Skills
Starship Electro-Plasma System - Increase weapon, shield, and engine power bonus.
Subsystems power level
Auxiliary -- Power bonus depends on current auxiliary power level.
I know Aux2bat builds run very high EPS. Having said that, if the Aux power is zero, Aux2bat should give a bonus of zero power or be disabled since there is nothing for it to run on.
Note that HE and TSS's effectiveness depends on Aux power level. If these ships actually ran Aux at 5 all the time, the heals off using them should be junk.
The resurgence of science ships/builds in the last few months has already shown that if anything, it would go from Aux2Faw Online, to Science Online.
For some Defensive stuff, Aux affects the following BOFF abilities...
PH: Damage Resistance
AtS: Heal & Damage Resistance
AtD: Kinetic Damage Resistance, Flight Speed, Turn Rate, Able/Alive Crewman Resistance Rating
HE: Heal & Damage Resistance
TSS: Heal, HoT, & Shield Damage Reduction
Captain abilities...
Scattering Field: Energy Damage Resistance
The Shield Damage Reduction of ExS or RSF is affected by Shield Power.
Aux2Batt, like most powers in the game, locks in its derived effects when activated. Adding a hard cap of Aux power 5 upon activation would basically waste any missing Aux that wasn't present to apply to the other subsystems upon activation, which is why the instant drain/instant recovery seems the better solution. Either that or have Aux2Batt apply a consistent transfer between subsystems over the full duration rather than working as an instant activation; then again, even Energy Siphon doesn't do that since you still get power bonuses even if the target is long dead.
Anyway, this wreaks havoc with Aux2Batt's own functions because of the previously mentioned instant drain vs slow recovery. Basically, if you come off of Aux2Batt and have only recovered to say 30 Aux power, that's what the ability drains from Aux and what it uses to calculate the Weapon, Shields, and Engines power level bonuses. That means if you were set to 50 Aux power, you would finish recovering the remaining 20 after triggering Aux2Batt early, while getting smaller power level bonuses to Weapons, Shields, and Engines. I'm sure virus or dontdrunk could give a better numerical example, but hopefully you get the idea; it doesn't work quite that logically, but it's likely the separate and conflicting behaviors that the ability is trying to accomplish that ends up with... weirdness.
For the numbers:
1) The reason(s) they are probably able to keep spamming Aux2Batt could be any number of things: investment in Power Insulators, triggering Nadion Inversion when they spot your drains starting, use of Aux Batteries as a direct counter, Plasmonic Leech or the MACO shield adding just enough to trigger Aux2Batt then getting the slow recovery afterward, etc. The inability to drop Aux to 0 could be a lot of things in PvP, since players can learn after being defeated by a given tactic. Drain boats are not a new thing, which also means folks are more likely to have encountered them and developed counter strategies.
2) If a hard cap of 5 Aux power were applied, but the activation and recovery were left as is, the ability would still work strangely but in a punitive manner rather than a beneficial one. The first Aux2Batt would finish, you would recover whatever you can in your 5 sec window, then the second Aux2Batt would apply its bonuses based on whatever had come back while still applying its cap of 5. Now if this were a soft cap like our natural subsystem caps, that would be a great solution as the power wouldn't actually disappear, allowing Aux2Batt to cycle as close to normally as possible using a power cap fix. Still, I'd lean towards the instant drain/instant recovery as it would make Aux2Batt give the bonuses and penalties it was intended to in the first place.
As far as the Red Text:
"Starship Electro-Plasma System" bonuses affect the amount of power assigned to Weapons, Shields, and Engines subsystems for each point of Auxiliary power drained upon activation; more Starship EPS skill means each point of Aux will give a slightly higher bonus to the three other subsystems; it also affects how fast the recovery occurs afterward, but that recovery is part of what makes it function strangely... faster recovery speeds make Aux2Batt work closer to the way it is described
"Subsystems power level: Auxiliary" simply means that the more Aux power you have upon activation, the more is reallocated, based on the Starship EPS ratio mentioned above
Hopefully this makes it a bit clearer rather than being one of my overly verbose walls-o-text