In our preparation for Delta Rising, we've been taking a hard look at Space powers and abilities that are underperforming, as well as a select few that dominate the choices players make across the board. The purpose of this thread is for the community to come together and discuss what powers they feel meet either of these two categories, and to talk frankly about any problems with the current metagame of Star Trek Online.
I would like to put forward the argument that changing powers will not solve any problems unless content is retooled. At the moment, "elite" difficulty content has been created in such a manner that, intentionally or no, rewards damage most of anything else. The prevalence of cruisers in high-end builds should not confuse this issue because those cruisers are typically ones that can take advantage of Auxiliary to Battery technicians and a large number of tactical powers relative to other cruisers in order to do more damage than even the best escorts. While Auxiliary to Battery technicians provide a good build, the reason for this is because they allow cruisers to pump out high rates of damage. Instead of focusing on the powers that are used the most, developers should focus on the underlying content issues that cause the discrepancy in power usage.
1) Most elite-level content is timed in some manner, either as a victory condition or as an optional condition. This encourages players to focus on damage first in order to reach that timer. Such timers should be removed completely.
2) Damage done by enemies is either weak enough that escorts can tank it, or strong enough that the most durable of cruisers have a hard time dealing with it, with little room in between. This, along with the focus on damage, makes tanking have little value.
3) There are few ways to effectively manage threat. Even with +Threat consoles, full points in Threat Control and using the threat building cruiser command, high-end damage builds will pull threat more often than not. Additionally, focusing on threat generation so much diverts attention from dealing damage, which feeds back into #1.
The ideal metagame should be as follows, in my opinion:
- Escorts (defined as ships with a Tactical commander station) should be able to deal the most amount of weapons damage, but also be the most fragile. They should be able to solo one or more weaker "Rank 1" enemies (for example, Borg probes), "tankier" escorts should be able to solo one or more intermediate "Rank 2" enemies (for example, Borg spheres), but escorts should never be able to solo stronger "Rank 3" enemies (for example, Borg cubes) and should die in about five seconds if they take threat from a "Rank 4" boss enemy (for example, tactical cubes). The damage taken should simply be too much to overcome for any escort.
- Cruisers (defined as ships with an Engineering commander station) should be able to take the most amount of damage out of any ship and should be able to pull threat so they can put that bulk to good use. A cruiser should be able self-heal and survive against any enemy up to and including Rank 3 enemies and should be able to comfortably survive against Rank 4 boss enemies with support from the other four members of their team. Conversely, they should have a hard time dealing effective damage against enemies, even if they have a larger number of tactical powers. The tactical-heavy cruisers should be able to dispatch Rank 2 enemies comfortably by themselves, but Rank 3 and especially Rank 4 should be too durable themselves for any single player to solo in any circumstance.
- Science vessels (defined as ships with a Science commander station) should have buffing and debuffing powers to support the team and harass the enemies. In terms of durability they should be roughly between the escort and the cruiser so they're not liabilities in battle.
So with this in mind, all powers should be reworked and reclassified:
- Tactical powers give the user and/or its team the ability to do more damage
- Engineering powers give the user and/or its team the ability to take more damage
- Science powers support the team in as many ways as you can think of. This can also include threat control powers, as it would give science-heavy escorts the ability to dump threat and science-heavy cruisers (the bulkiest class in the game) the ability to generate threat. Science should be "force multipliers": they aren't by themselves the best damage dealers or damage takers, but multiply the ability of the team to do and take damage. They should be able to solo up to a rank 2 enemy comfortably enough, but should shine when their powers are used in a team setting.
Additionally, PvE enemies should be reworked along the same guidelines:
- Rank 1 should be the weak trash. An individual player should be able to handle a pack of them, usually three at a time.
- Rank 2 should be a threat for any individual player
- Rank 3 should be a threat for up to 3 players
- Rank 4 should require all 5 players working together to defeat
The damage and durability of each enemy should go up by rank. Additionally, each rank should get a passive and continuous self-heal. This would make it impossible for a rank 3 or 4 to be soloed by a sufficiently-bulky cruiser, requiring escorts to deal enough damage and science vessels to do enough buffing/debuffing to overcome the self-healing.
Again, the main point of this post is to emphasize that focusing on the overused powers themselves will not solve the underlying problems. They are a symptom of the underlying problems, not problems unto themselves. Content needs to be reworked in addition to the powers being changed in order to have any meaningful effect on the metagame. If the developers only focus on the powers, the only thing that will happen is players will just move onto different powers and the problems will not be fixed. Again, the only reason why powers like Auxiliary to Battery and the Emergency Power to X powers are overused are because they're the best at fulfilling what the current content demands, which is damage and nothing but damage all the time.
The ideal metagame should be as follows, in my opinion:
- Escorts (defined as ships with a Tactical commander station) should be able to deal the most amount of weapons damage, but also be the most fragile.
- Cruisers (defined as ships with an Engineering commander station) should be able to take the most amount of damage out of any ship and should be able to pull threat so they can put that bulk to good use.
- Science vessels (defined as ships with a Science commander station) should have buffing and debuffing powers to support the team and harass the enemies. In terms of durability they should be roughly between the escort and the cruiser so they're not liabilities in battle.
I disagree completely but just wanted to quickly respond to this part.
Right now all three ship classes have a single defensive and offense 'bonus' making it so all three are roughly equal out of the box both offensively and defensively before equipment, boffs, doffs, and all the rest enter the equation.
What determines the ship's actual role is the boff layout. This, in theory, allows for massive amounts of customization and lets the player decided exactly how offensive, defensive, and supportive, they want their ship build to be.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way in practice because of how dominate tactical abilities are in PvE.
Also many players cannot find a way to break 1k DPS nor how to solo a basic cube in elite STFs. I have no desire to be forced to rely on another player to be a skilled 'tank' or anything of that nature when I hit up the queue for a PuG game. Nor do I want to be forced to find a premade group if I want to participate in any content.
I disagree completely but just wanted to quickly respond to this part.
Right now all three ship classes have a single defensive and offense 'bonus' making it so all three are roughly equal out of the box both offensively and defensively before equipment, boffs, doffs, and all the rest enter the equation.
What determines the ship's actual role is the boff layout. This, in theory, allows for massive amounts of customization and lets the player decided exactly how offensive, defensive, and supportive, they want their ship build to be.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way in practice because of how dominate tactical abilities are in PvE.
Also many players cannot find a way to break 1k DPS nor how to solo a basic cube in elite STFs. I have no desire to be forced to rely on another player to be a skilled 'tank' or anything of that nature when I hit up the queue for a PuG game. Nor do I want to be forced to find a premade group if I want to participate in any content.
so all ships should do damage.Why get a healer or a tank or a debuffer....play 1 single thing ...dps class.
The ideal metagame should be as follows, in my opinion:
- Escorts (defined as ships with a Tactical commander station) should be able to deal the most amount of weapons damage, but also be the most fragile. They should be able to solo one or more weaker "Rank 1" enemies (for example, Borg probes), "tankier" escorts should be able to solo one or more intermediate "Rank 2" enemies (for example, Borg spheres), but escorts should never be able to solo stronger "Rank 3" enemies (for example, Borg cubes) and should die in about five seconds if they take threat from a "Rank 4" boss enemy (for example, tactical cubes). The damage taken should simply be too much to overcome for any escort.
- Cruisers (defined as ships with an Engineering commander station) should be able to take the most amount of damage out of any ship and should be able to pull threat so they can put that bulk to good use. A cruiser should be able self-heal and survive against any enemy up to and including Rank 3 enemies and should be able to comfortably survive against Rank 4 boss enemies with support from the other four members of their team. Conversely, they should have a hard time dealing effective damage against enemies, even if they have a larger number of tactical powers. The tactical-heavy cruisers should be able to dispatch Rank 2 enemies comfortably by themselves, but Rank 3 and especially Rank 4 should be too durable themselves for any single player to solo in any circumstance.
- Science vessels (defined as ships with a Science commander station) should have buffing and debuffing powers to support the team and harass the enemies. In terms of durability they should be roughly between the escort and the cruiser so they're not liabilities in battle.
Thats how the game was designed from start and thats what they broken now.I dont think they will ever go there because that would make the game fun and give each class of ships a role .Now its all in 1 ...kirk style.
I'm primarily a tac player so unfortunately my thoughts and feelings will focus on that.
Tac Team - Shield Distribution:
Tac team is pretty much a power I need to keep up at all times. I run with two copies and focus on keeping them up. I think that if a power has become a requirement much less two copies of it to play top end content, it should be reconsidered. Now perhaps I am not playing the tac class/ship the way it was envisioned as I am not constantly zipping about in all directions on attack runs. Without tac team, it's very easy to get two or three shotted.
Honestly, I don't know what to suggest to do with it. Perhaps there should be an innate shield distribution that is like half or a third of the affect of current tac team which is always running in the background. Then make tac team plus all shield heal abilities buff this the innate ability for the duration that they are running their other buffs. I'm sure this is a terrible idea... but I hope the point is getting across... especially with harder content on the way.
Ensign Tac Slot
Sometimes I have a hard time with a 3rd ensign tac slot. I don't like that I have to make sacrifices in skill points to make torpedoes competative. I've run all energy builds for quite some time now which causes the ensign torp powers to not even be considered. Running the Kumari is ok with all dual beam banks and a KCB and the omni in the back... I will run two tac teams and a FAW for the ensign slots. Ships like the Defiant get passed over by me, I guess I will try to mix a dual beam bank into a cannon build, but that third tac slot can be a 3rd wheel sometimes. I think moving around the powers or allowing subsystem attacks for cannons as well as beams would help make things more interesting.
join Date: Sep 2009 - I want my changeling lava lamp!
What determines the ship's actual role is the boff layout. This, in theory, allows for massive amounts of customization and lets the player decided exactly how offensive, defensive, and supportive, they want their ship build to be.
This wouldn't really be lost. What I described are generalization and the boff layout would still provide enough customization that a player can fill their role as they like. An engineering-heavy escort or a tactical-heavy cruiser or science vessel for example could function as a durable off-tank that can solo the stronger adds, while a science-heavy escort can help buff and debuff. Additionally, not every mission should be the same and there should be a variety of challenges that require outside-the-box thinking. Retraining boffs is relatively cheap, and the devs should take advantage of that fact by tweaking different enemies to require different boff powers. Their commander tactical slot would just indicate to players what the main role is intended to be in a basic setting.
I have no desire to be forced to rely on another player to be a skilled 'tank' or anything of that nature when I hit up the queue for a PuG game. Nor do I want to be forced to find a premade group if I want to participate in any content.
Sorry to say this, but this attitude is the main cause for STO being so broken. It's a multiplayer game, so people should need to work as a team in order to succeed, not just fly in with no teamwork or strategy and win because the content is that easy.
so all ships should do damage.Why get a healer or a tank or a debuffer....play 1 single thing ...dps class.
Thats how the game was designed from start and thats what they broken now.I dont think they will ever go there because that would make the game fun and give each class of ships a role .Now its all in 1 ...kirk style.
Where, in any form of canon, is this ever seen?
All ships more or less take care of themselves. Escorts and other small ships have the advantage of speed and small size to avoid incoming fire, but when USS Defiant takes a torpedo to the face, the crew of the USS Defiant has to fix things on their own.
Occasionally a ship will extend its shields but this is typically done with a completely disabled ship, and this is commonly not done in an active combat situation. Extended shields are too weak to be practical. One ship can repair another, but this takes hours or days. This isn't done instantly.
There is very little one ship can do to assist another ship in an active combat zone aside from physically moving in to the line of fire. In an active combat situation every ship is on its own. Every ship has its own tactical officers, engineers, and science/medical personnel.
Trying to neuter cruisers to be boring, passive healbots and making escorts be glass cannons that die all the time doesn't sound like a recipe for fun. Trying to enforce cooperation with people who many times don't even speak the same language is a recipe for disaster. And more importantly, this won't be very fun. This is a game. If its not fun then the game is dead.
Every player has the tools to be totally self sufficient. It is up to the player to make proper use of these tools provided. The options and ability for this are provided in the game.
Thats how the game was designed from start and thats what they broken now.I dont think they will ever go there because that would make the game fun and give each class of ships a role .Now its all in 1 ...kirk style.
I really wish that, somehow, this whole discussion was being played out in a giant arena. I can just see edna flying around ramming everyone to death. It would be glorious you know.
Also speaking of ramming. The one thing I would like to see is that Ramming Speed be modified so that any ram from a Recluse should be fatal. It has that giant spike prow after all.
Karrock/Karreck/Darth Karrock/Unspoken House of Beautiful Orions PUNISH THE FEDs
Why not just go all-in and finally break PvP powers from PvE powers? We already make exceptions, such as ground polaron weapons only having half durations against human players, the addition of PvP-only mods on crafted weps. Heck we even have it in reverse with many NPCs just being unilaterally immune to disable powers and the like. (That REALLY needs to change...)
I would like to put forward the argument that changing powers will not solve any problems unless content is retooled. At the moment, "elite" difficulty content has been created in such a manner that, intentionally or no, rewards damage most of anything else. The prevalence of cruisers in high-end builds should not confuse this issue because those cruisers are typically ones that can take advantage of Auxiliary to Battery technicians and a large number of tactical powers relative to other cruisers in order to do more damage than even the best escorts. While Auxiliary to Battery technicians provide a good build, the reason for this is because they allow cruisers to pump out high rates of damage. Instead of focusing on the powers that are used the most, developers should focus on the underlying content issues that cause the discrepancy in power usage.
SNIPPED
I agree 100% with this guy. All the powers that are popular are the ones that do massive damage, or let you boost your damage, or let you survive (not tank, survive) to do massive damage so you don't have to tank.
Take ISE for example. You have 15 minutes on the clock for optional. The best way to get that optional is to do massive amounts of damage before the heal sphere's come to fail it, and to kill everything before the 15 minutes is up. What if you could sub nuk the gate so that it didn't let probes out to heal the generators? No its useful to have a sci on the team since you don't have to put out that much damage to kill the generators before the probes get there. Now that power is worth it in PvE.
What if you only had to kill the gate, not the tac cube to end it. What if you had a hero tank cruiser that actually could hold the attention of the tac cube while the rest of the team killed the gate, and then you win.
But again, all of this assumes something else, that STO actually uses a trinity, which we have recently been told it doesn't. And it changes the game to where powers as they exist might be useful. But you want to change power to fit the current game.
So, in that case, if you want every power to be useful, here is the real simple way. Make every power do meaningful damage, boost damage, or heal. If its not doing one or the other, its useless in PvE. That is what the current game system requires, so to make any power desirable, that is what needs to happen.
Well I'm gonna stick with science abilities which is what I know best. The big problem I see is that now that the game has become a bit of a DPS race, most science characters have had to resort to using tactical station heavy ships, pure science vessels are outclassed in DPS... there are ways around this and you can get some good DPS out of a science ship if you know what you're doing, but for the general 'casual' science player they aren't going to be competitive against a casual tactical character with regard to DPS. Now I have categorized some of the science abilities I feel need some attention:
Very Situational or Impractical:
Jam Sensors- Has its uses but there are much better things you can slot than this. Suggestions: Lower the CD on this, maybe give it additional effects or a residual effect
Mask Energy Signature- Basically a weak cloak without the decloak damage bonus. Suggestions: Give it a decloak damage buff (I'd say 10% will do)
Polarize Hull- It's a nice ability but I think it's being used incorrectly. On Enterprise hull polarization didn't dissipate over time but was lost after taking damage. Suggestions: Keep it the way it is but make it a toggle ability, when toggled on you get the benefits of it. It's turned off by one of two things (the player or a certain amount of damage sustained) the CD could be tweaked to be based off how much damage sustained before deactivation.
Photonic Officer- I don't really know anyone that uses it, I tried it out before and wasn't much of a fan. Suggestions: I really don't know what to do with it...
Weak Powers:
Tachyon Beam- Utterly useless in both PVE and PVP, the drain just isn't very much even at maxed skill level. Suggestions: One of two things need to be done 1) Considerably increase the amount of drain this ability inflicts, or Change it so the target of the beam will have a shield resistance debuff of 10-20%
Charged Particle Burst- I can't say for PVP but I can definitely say that for PVE this power is useless. Most NPCs don't have cloaks first off, and the shield damage it gives is very weak. Suggestions: Uhm... I would just replace it with something else to be honest or give it a significant shield damage boost
Photonic Fleet- This power is all fluff, no usefulness. The ships barely make a dent against enemies and are quickly destroyed making them a poor distraction. The worst part of this power is that it's a Captain ability so science characters are stuck with it. Suggestions: buff it up considerably or replace it with something useful
I hope you guys make a ground version of this thread, I know some science powers that could use some tweeking :cool:
All ships more or less take care of themselves. Escorts and other small ships have the advantage of speed and small size to avoid incoming fire, but when USS Defiant takes a torpedo to the face, the crew of the USS Defiant has to fix things on their own.
Occasionally a ship will extend its shields but this is typically done with a completely disabled ship, and this is commonly not done in an active combat situation. Extended shields are too weak to be practical. One ship can repair another, but this takes hours or days. This isn't done instantly.
There is very little one ship can do to assist another ship in an active combat zone aside from physically moving in to the line of fire. In an active combat situation every ship is on its own. Every ship has its own tactical officers, engineers, and science/medical personnel.
Trying to neuter cruisers to be boring, passive healbots and making escorts be glass cannons that die all the time doesn't sound like a recipe for fun. Trying to enforce cooperation with people who many times don't even speak the same language is a recipe for disaster. And more importantly, this won't be very fun. This is a game. If its not fun then the game is dead.
Every player has the tools to be totally self sufficient. It is up to the player to make proper use of these tools provided. The options and ability for this are provided in the game.
so you need "god mode" ....facepalm
the thread was about power balance not what annoys you or how to make everything not fun.Since when pve needs to be balanced?
Another suggestion I'd have would be to give different types of tactical ships unique abilities akin to Cruiser comm arrays, secondary deflectors, and Raider flanking. Give Escorts X, give Raptors Y, and give Destroyers Z. This should increase diversity in choices, which should effectively bring tactical ships in line with other unique ship types.
I'd also do the same for "Warships"(currently under the "Destroyer" ship type I believe) and Dreadnoughts, but one thing at a time.
Sometimes I have a hard time with a 3rd ensign tac slot. I don't like that I have to make sacrifices in skill points to make torpedoes competative. I've run all energy builds for quite some time now which causes the ensign torp powers to not even be considered. Running the Kumari is ok with all dual beam banks and a KCB and the omni in the back... I will run two tac teams and a FAW for the ensign slots. Ships like the Defiant get passed over by me, I guess I will try to mix a dual beam bank into a cannon build, but that third tac slot can be a 3rd wheel sometimes. I think moving around the powers or allowing subsystem attacks for cannons as well as beams would help make things more interesting.
This seems less like a balance issue and more about not being able to min/max as much as you'd like. Not that more BOFF skill options wouldn't be good, but the lack of Ensign cannon skills aren't technically imbalancing anything.
Sorry to say this, but this attitude is the main cause for STO being so broken. It's a multiplayer game, so people should need to work as a team in order to succeed, not just fly in with no teamwork or strategy and win because the content is that easy.
I would say it is the reason why STO has been so successful. The market has a plethora of trinity esque, role specific, style 'hardcore' raiding type games. I for one have grown tired of that style of gameplay and instead prefer a more Arpg style where it is not what role you can fill, but how you do your part that matters. It is a much more casual friendly style and I feel the design direction taken should focus on improving that style instead of scrapping it for something else.
STO is broken because of the large number of bad choices that can be made and lack of in game education on what works and what does not work. Tachyon beam could be a good ability that had a similar level of impact on an encounter as fire at will does. But it's not. That is the problem.
This is everywhere in STO. Warp core has [AMP] and it's good. That other option is so terrible it shouldn't even be in the game as it is. Engineering consoles that increase power give 3.5 to a single subsystem, leech gives 8 or more to four subsystems. Those disparities are the problem.
What if you only had to kill the gate, not the tac cube to end it. What if you had a hero tank cruiser that actually could hold the attention of the tac cube while the rest of the team killed the gate, and then you win.
That would be awesome. I have absolutely no problems with their being more than one method to complete the objective I just don't want to be forced into needing to use a single option requiring several different specialized roles.
Azure Nebula works that way, kinda. Starbase blockade as well. On another note, not that most people know, but the waves of spawns in the borg STFs do not start their respawn countdown until the existing wave is destroyed. That means with the right amount of CC you don't need to kill wave after wave. Just shove them away with TBR over and over.
I would say it is the reason why STO has been so successful. The market has a plethora of trinity esque, role specific, style 'hardcore' raiding type games. I for one have grown tired of that style of gameplay and instead prefer a more Arpg style where it is not what role you can fill, but how you do your part that matters. It is a much more casual friendly style and I feel the design direction taken should focus on improving that style instead of scrapping it for something else.
STO is broken because of the large number of bad choices that can be made and lack of in game education on what works and what does not work. Tachyon beam could be a good ability that had a similar level of impact on an encounter as fire at will does. But it's not. That is the problem.
This is everywhere in STO. Warp core has [AMP] and it's good. That other option is so terrible it shouldn't even be in the game as it is. Engineering consoles that increase power give 3.5 to a single subsystem, leech gives 8 or more to four subsystems. Those disparities are the problem.
its a multiplayer game not singleplayer.Your plethora of games forgets about triple A titles that dont need a server.You dont need a mmo game to play singleplayer with god mode.It will take some time till pve people (including geko ) will understand that you dont need a server or to have a internet connection to play singleplayer .I can play offline singleplayer...I play online because I can play with other people from all over the world...that makes this genre of games different.
This post will focus only the space abilities as they exist in the current game, thus addressing the first directive of this thread.
Engineering
Emergency Power to Auxiliary -
competes with eptw/s, overshadowed
Has gained relevance recently due to the Nukara Tier 4 space traits (Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense, Auxiliary Power Configuration - Defense). Makes for an interesting choice against Emergency Power to Shields. Cannot compete against Emergency Power to Weapons.
Emergency Power to Weapons -
must have for any dps weapon build overshadows others
Easily the best and most used engineering ability, on top of the bonus to weapons power, it also increases damage done by the weapons themselves. No reason to ever not run this given the opportunity.
Emergency Power to Engines -
competes with eptw/s, overshadowed
Has a role in PvP where mobility has a higher value, but rarely seen in PvE. Does not compete with the other three Emergency Power to X abilities.
Emergency Power to Shields -
must have for nearly every build, overshadows others
The increase to shield power combined with the damage reduction to shields makes this a very powerful ability, putting it in direct competition with Emergency Power to Auxiliary.
Engineering Team -
solid ability, but in limited slotted ships overshadowed by hazard emitters
Presents an interesting choice against Auxiliary Power to Structural Integrity. Gives a non-auxiliary power based hull heal option, which is valuable in certain builds. The trade offs between Aux2SI and ET are clear and interesting: shorter cooldown, smaller heal vs. large cooldown, non-aux based large heal in addition to clearing certain debuffs.
Auxiliary to Batteries -
part of aux2bat build, otherwise never used
The Aux2Batt build is a well documented phenomenon, so it wont be discussed here. The ability by itself has very little value in the face of the Emergency Power to X abilities, making the only reason for its value is how it is modified by duty officers.
Auxiliary to Dampeners -
overshadowed by apomega or polarize hull due to them being immunity
Sees a lot of use in the PvP circles, but is rarely seen in PvE.
Auxiliary to Structural Integrity -
tanking go to ability, otherwise not useful
A fantastic ability that has clear advantages and disadvantages to Engineering Team. It sacrifices debuff clears and a larger heal for a shorter cooldown. Very rank dependant however; low ranks of this ability are usually never seen.
Boarding Party -
crew is meaningless, small targets instantly blown up by any aoe
Because the crew stat itself is meaningless, a major function of this ability has no point. Otherwise, it just becomes a Viral Matrix like ability that can be easily shot down. Very useless as the game stands now. Suggestions for improving this would need to be the improvement of the crew stat itself. If that was given value, then this ability would be given value accordingly.
Directed Energy Modulation -
nice concept, overshadowed by eptw
This ability is still used with some moderation, but is generally dropped in favor of Emergency Power to X abilities. Useless when enemy shields go down.
Extend Shields -
powerful, but limited use due to movement constraints, overshadowed by epts
Not widely used, but has moderate potential. The odd range constraint of 7.5k instead of the standard 10k is annoying and doesnt seem to serve any valuable balance purpose. It is also the only ability that scales with shield power, making its use slightly more engaging in terms of gameplay.
Reverse Shield Polarity -
nearly every build has this due to power it holds
One of the most valuable panic buttons in the game. Is an interesting ability that competes with the Emergency Power to X abilites.
Aceton Beam -
solid concept, but overshadowed by eptw or tykensrift/target subsystem abilites
Occasionally seen in PvP, the opportunity cost is too high to be seen with any regularity in PvE. Its useful, but not more so than the abilities it competes against.
Eject Warp Plasma -
useful ability with DOFF variant, although gravwell has same effect/higher damage
Not commonly seen in PvE. Nothing particularly wrong with it, but it isnt as easy to use as Gravity Well for control, and it competes against several very strong abilities.
Summery: Useful / Interesting Abilities -
Emergency Power to Auxiliary
Emergency Power to Weapons
Emergency Power to Shields
Engineering Team
Auxiliary to Battery
Auxiliary to Structural Integrity
Reverse Shield Polarity
Situational Abilities -
Eject Warp Plasma
Aceton Beam
Extend Shields
Directed Energy Modulation
Auxiliary to Dampeners
Uninteresting / Not Used Abilities -
Boarding Party
Emergency Power to Engines
Science
Hazard Emitters -
clearing nearly all debuffs with 1 button and healing hull is too powerful
An incredibly powerful ability that is found on nearly every build. Two major end game enemies use weapons with debuffs that this ability clears. It is very strong compared to other heals, and falls into the category of mandatory.
Jam Sensors -
solid concept, but is overshadowed by gravwell/tykensrift or hull/shield regen abilities
The largest flaw of this ability is how fragile it is. Even the slightest amount of damage seems to break it. Its primary purpose, an escape ability, is generally overshadowed by simple things such as Evasive Maneuvers to get out of range of the target and other similar strategies.
Mask Energy Signature -
stealth is meaningless in pve
Was extremely strong at the games launch as it allowed weapons fire while effectively cloaked. Obviously received a much needed nerf, but in the process defeated the major reason for this abilitys existence. Stealth is not valued in PvE, as by its very nature it prevents damage from being done.
Polarize Hull -
only useful at level 1 because of immunity higher ranks overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Only the first rank is useful for the immunity to tractor beams. The damage reduction at high ranks is overshadowed by the usefulness of other abilites.
Science Team -
competes with transfer shield strength for slot (only useful on aux2bat builds or subnucleonic beam using enemies) unless youre a dedicated healer
Competes solidly with Transfer Shield Strength. Adds a debuff clearing effect in addition to an instant shield heal versus a shield damage reduction buff and a heal over time effect. This is a solid and compelling gameplay choice.
Tachyon Beam -
tact/eng abilities do better job and tachyon beam overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
While there is nothing wrong with this abilitys concept, it is simply too weak to make it a viable option compared to the strength of other abilities that compete for its slot. This is purely a numbers issue, rather than a functionality issue.
Tractor Beam -
solid use in correct situations, competes with shield/hull regen abilties
A generally solid ability that does what it is supposed to, but it isn't commonly seen because it lacks AoE functionality which is considered paramount in PvE. It also seems to have trouble against "boss" enemies such as the Tactical Cube in Infected Space: Conduit and Donatra's Scimitar in Khitomer Space: Vortex.
Transfer Shield Strength -
better shield heal then sciteam, no cleanse allows sciteam to compete with it
One of the best science abilities in the game, competes directly with science team. Strengths and weaknesses are observed in the Science Team section.
Charged Particle Burst -
gravwell does more damage, tykens rift stronger control effect
Very few enemies in PvE cloak, and even fewer are even affected by this ability. Serves no discernible purpose with current strength.
Energy Syphon -
tykens rift drains more and is aoe, overshadowed by sheild/hull regen abilities
Seen more in PvP than PvE. Nothing terribly wrong with the ability itself, there are just other abilities such as Tykens Rift that do the job better.
Feedback Pulse -
solid tanking ability, but is largely overshadowed by TSS/SciTeam/hazard emitters
Not seen frequently in PvE due to the nature of its ranking. Rank I starts in the Lieutenant slot, and it isnt powerful enough at that rank to compete with other abilities such as Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield strength on vessels with limited science stations. On science ships, in PvE, it generally serves no purpose as cruisers and escorts are the ones drawing aggro and thus being attacked.
Photonic Officer -
better to run a 2nd ability then use this slot, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Would recommend complete removal of this ability. Never seen, never used. Doesnt compete at all with other abilites.
Tractor Beam Repulsors -
effective on control setup ship, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities otherwise
Used in some builds to increase DPS on multiple targets, it is a valuable control ability that competes against Gravity Well and Tykens Rift. Not as useful in most situations as the other two, it still has a solid place in the game.
Scramble Sensors -
solid concept pve targets recover very quickly, overshadowed by gravwell, shield/hull regen abilities
Due to the single target nature of the ability, it is generally considered less useful than a Gravity Well or Tykens Rift. Nothing wrong with the ability per se, but the nature of PvE encounters favors abilities with an AoE component.
Tykens Rift -
solid concept on control based ship, competes with gravwell, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Slightly more situational than Gravity Well, this ability still holds it own with drain builds.
Gravity Well -
great ability, competes with shield/hull regen abilites (though they still win for most builds)
A mandatory ability if there ever was one. Works very well because of the AoE focus of most PvE encounters. Does respectable damage and the ability to hold ships in place as they detonate, and thus damaging the other ships stuck in the well, makes it invaluable. Overshadows most other sciences abilities on a per slot basis.
Photonic Shockwave -
gravwell better damage, repulsors better for control, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Not widely seen. The stun is too short to really be of any noticeable effect. While a solid concept, it simply cannot compete for limited science slots with other abilities.
Viral Matrix -
tykens rift and polaron weapons do have same effect, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Had greater value early in STOs life particularly in PvP. While not a bad ability, it suffers the same problem that most other single target abilities do: the current state of PvE heavily favors AoE utility above all else.
Summery: Useful / Interesting Abilities -
Gravity Well
Hazard Emitters
Transfer Shield Strength
Science Team
Uninteresting / Not Used Abilities -
Viral Matrix
Photonic Shockwave
Scramble Sensors
Jam Sensors
Photonic Officer
Charged Particle Burst
Tachyon Beam
Mask Energy Signature
Tactical
Beam Array: Fire At Will -
solid go to ability
A mandatory ability if beams are being used. Does superior DPS to both single targets and AoE. Suggestions would include severely reducing the amount of damage done by this ability to a single target. There is no reason to use any other ability for beam builds.
Beam Array: Overload -
overshadowed by FAW even without power loss
While the effects of the recent changes to this ability have yet to be seen, it currently has a limited role as a spike damage ability which finds the most value in a PvP environment. There is no reason currently to use this in PvE, given the AoE focus of the majority of PvE encounters and the superior performance of Fire At Will on single targets.
Cannon: Rapid Fire -
overshadowed by scatter fire in most pve STFs due to largely aoe requirements
A useful PvP ability, good for spike damage. Not generally seen in PvE for reasons that have been mentioned (single target vs AoE).
Cannon: Scatter Fire -
solid go to ability
The mandatory ability if cannons are being used. See Beam Array: Fire At Will for more details.
Torpedo: High Yield -
small projectiles/crafts generally blown up against any aoe, overshadowed by spread
Good for spike damage in PvP, torpedoes in general are not highly valued in PvE because of the way tactical consoles stack and the greater overall usefulness of energy weapons. When this ability is used to form targetable projectiles (plasma, transphasic, etc) they are quickly shot down in PvP and depending on the enemy in PvE as well.
Torpedo: Spread -
solid go to ability
See commentary on torpedoes in Torpedo: High Yield. Overall a solid PvE ability.
Dispersal Pattern Alpha -
mines largely unused due to turrets/beam arrays on aft slots being affected by scatter volley/faw
Very rarely seen, due to mines being very underused in the game. It is so underused that no meaningful commentary can be made about the ability itself, only on the usefulness of mines. They have a limited lockon range that can only be increased by a specific trait (large opportunity cost as well as a hassle), and they are easily destroyed by AoE abilities (which is as they are designed, but the tradeoff in terms of damage isnt considered good).
Dispersal Pattern Beta -
mines largely unused due to turrets/beam arrays on aft slots being affected by scatter volley/faw
See Dispersal Pattern Alpha.
Tactical Team -
no reason to use higher ranks then 1 due to other tact abilities gaining far more power
The mandatory ability for every build for the shield balancing alone. It is extremely powerful for this function and greatly improves the survivability of every ship that uses it. Removing the shield balancing would be the first step towards balancing this ability.
Target Weapons Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilities
Cannot be used in conjunction with Beam: Fire At Will or Beam: Overload, and as such the opportunity cost is too high. Only ever seen using in the science ship innate version. Needs to be seriously buffed in all aspects to even be considered a viable choice. Removing this ability would have very little effect on the game at all.
Target Engines Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilities
See Target Weapons Subsystem.
Target Shields Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilties
See Target Weapons Subsystem.
Target Auxiliary Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilties
See Target Weapons Subsystem.
Attack Pattern Beta -
solid ability paired with aoe abilies, team benefits
Very useful ability, nearly always seen on high damage builds where it can be fit. Competes with additional weapon modification abilities (Beam: Fire At Will, Cannon: Scatter Volley et al). Is an interesting gameplay choice.
Attack Pattern Delta -
solid ability for damage and tanking, team benefits
Not commonly seen, can be situationally useful especially on tanks. Will usually never be taken over Attack Pattern Beta or Omega. Not a bad ability, but it has a hard time competing with others.
Attack Pattern Omega -
solid abilitiy for damage and/or escape
See Attack Pattern Beta.
Summery: Useful / Interesting Abilities -
Beam: Fire At Will
Cannon: Scatter Volley
Attack Pattern Beta
Attack Pattern Omega
Tactical Team
Situational Abilities -
Beam: Overload
Cannon: Rapid Fire
Torpedo: High Yield
Torpedo: Spread
Attack Pattern Delta
"Hakeev is too badly injured to speak. He struggles only for a moment before he is finally still...Hakeev's end comes without any desperate speech or furious diatribe. As his plans collapse around him, only silence follows him into oblivion." -The original ending to Cutting the Cord
Devs, if you read any of my posts on this forum, save yourself some time and make it this one, these issues are more important to me than anything else I've posted in the last 1.5 years here. Please.
My biggest complaints about space:
Powers, stats, and skills
Overall, I think the biggest problem isn't the rock-paper-scissors of how the powers work. It's that too many powers are must-haves for multiple reasons. HE is a t1 cleanse AND heal. TT buffs damage AND redistributes shields. APO buffs def, damage, AND breaks holds. You're losing lots of build diversity because there are all these powers that no sane person would go without, and I think that ideally, there should never be a power in the game where someone would look at your taskbar and say "why would you not have that power? Go get that power, you need it, everyone needs it!" There needs to be some opportunity cost to powers like these.
-For solo missions and lacking teams, Engineering needs more offensive options and attention in general, there are so many powers there that aren't really worth investing or slotting, and I think that's a big reason so many people have moved from cruisers to escorts. This is disregarding A2B of course, which is one single build and is living on borrowed time. In the meantime, we have so many redundant heals and power transfers, but no way to help our weapons outside of EPTW & DEM. DEM, EWP, BP, AtD all spring to mind as things that have very singular niche build uses, but generally wouldn't be apparent options to lower level new players and would never get slotted or tried like that.
-Science could also use more team supporting debuffs. How are APB and FOMM, the best debuffs in game, both tac powers? TAC is supposed to hurt, sci is supposed to help them hurt smarter/more effectively. Maybe some kind of sci power like "coordinated targeting" that gives allies firing at your target a weak plasmonic leech affect or debuff to enemy weapon/power cds something. Trade tac sci's disables.
-Tacs should be engaging the team's target, sci should be coordinating the tacs and eng, eng should be keeping everyone buffed and alive. Instead it's currently just tacs buffing themselves up, debuffing the target, engaging the target, then breaking off to leave combat and instaheal while eng and sci either try to emulate that or stay out of the way.
-In my opinion, the ideal order of a team battle should be like:
1) Sci identifies, calls target, and debuffs it.
2) Eng Buffs tac.
3) Tac engages.
4) Eng keeps tac and sci alive and buffed. Sci keeps target debuffed and generally gremlin-ed so tac can do his job.
5) Target dies, eng gets everybody fixed up, and the sci finds a new target
6) Back to 1
-Get rid of the out of combat instaheal. That should only be a thing in sector space, in system space you should be relying on abilities from yourself or your team.
-DEM without dulmur is flat out lacking given its current investment and slotting requirements. It's only useful at CMDR level and at that point, there's universally better things to slot there. At least it gets useful, unlike boarding party. More on that further down.
-EPS greasing the wheels on your ship for incoming power drain from enemies needs to be fixed, that's a long time issue that really bugs me.
-Crew needs to be made useful in some capacity, and by extension boarding party needs to actually be worth using. I trust you to think of a better way to implement this than anyone on the forums or reddit. But please, don't mess with my beloved jem hadar doff that sticks point defense consoles on the shuttles, that's awesome.
-Fleet support is kind of pointless right now. One star cruiser every 15 minutes? At least make it a useful NPC like a Vesta or something that'll scramble some fighters, sensor scan my enemy, heal me, and suppliment my DPS. Plus that'd be an awesome commercial and a throwback back to the new tutorial.
-We need more placates and confuses, the 2 we have aren't very competitive/effective because of the prevalence of so many cost-less cleanses on top of their very weak, not adjusted for DPS creep breaking thresholds. Flavor-wise, I'd like to see more ECM/Electronic warfare options. That's really neglected right now. We've got jam sensors, scramble sensors, viral matrix, and mask energy signature. Surely there's more electronics on board our ships than that. If you can make crew useful, cutting off life support would be an example of this applied for a good ability. Another might be to mess with an enemy's weapon CDs. Maybe a confuse that spreads between enemies?
-Speaking of MES, it's alright when fully specced into, but given the opportunity cost there, it could really use some love. I think the Hirogen ships' and Stalker's innate lower detection rate was a step in the right direction. Why not create that disparity entirely based on ship sensors vs ship stealth, add some fog of war-ish-ness?
-There's no need for a HP gate for ramming speed. If the captain wants to ram, let him ram. If anything it should just be a passive collision+speed thing like you introduced in viscous cycle and ramming speed the power should just buff your ship to take advantage of the mechanic.
Builds
-Pet play is a little lacking right now. Most RPGs have a dedicated pet class, here it's like everyone can have a pet. This gets especially silly when ships that are perfectly fine in their own right like any of the HEC's, the Narcine, the Scimitar, the JHDC also get a hangar. Pet usage should be a specialization. Let us get tac consoles that let us spec away from our ship's weapons and towards pet survivability and damage. In this thread I presented an answer to this issue that I still strongly support, more than anything else in this post, hear me out in here! Also, speaking of pets, please consider adding some more definite roles between them. Something like: Frigates focus on anti-fighter/torp picket duties, shuttles and runabouts debuff, hunt stealthed units and heal, fighters hunt down bombers and shuttles, bombers hit your target hard. Right now they're all just flying energy weapons platforms with a bridge officer ability or two. They could use some distinct categorization, I feel like such a jackass explaining to a noob that the difference between fighters and shuttles is "fighters are just better, go for elite scorpions."
-Think about engineering on ground. We can deploy shield gens, med gens, turrets, mortars, support drones, seeker drones, buffs from combat supply, and minefields. In space we get fighters and underpowered satellite turrets. Minefields are useless, our turrets are laughable, we have no repair platform wards, no buff containers...
-HECs need to stop. Tacs put out enough damage, they do not need pets. Talk about making the rest of the trinity obsolete. Engineers need pets for DPS suppliment while they keep them healed and buffed, IE the neglected FDCS, scis need pets to do damage to the targets they've debuffed, harkening to the science-y roots of the Vesta and Atrox.
-Defense is the redheaded step child of stats right now. Crit and acc overflow are out of control, speed and evasion were sealed in a tomb and buried long ago. Evasion tanking should be a build option, and yet, if one were to assign the players' ability to spec into ACC/Crit and Defense into a number line, Acc at the positive and Def at the negative end, one would be able to spec to 125 in accuracy and 100 in defense before hitting their respective caps, so even the full spec of def is still useless against anyone who's specced more than 80% into acc, which everyone already does. The math's not sound, I'm not a spreadsheet warrior, but that is the situation. An ACC specced guy just pulls up to the fight passively feeling all his benefits while a speed tank has to buff up and manage cooldowns or die. You can max def/speed and still not match the benefits from a maxed att/crit build, and that disparity needs to be addressed.
Weapons
-At LoR, you introduced the ammo mechanic with the flamethrower and those purple plasma weapons from the Dil store. It would be awesome to see something like that in space for select weapons.
-We need some way to get end-game viable specialty weapons. Transphasic cluster torps and piercing tets both come to mind as things that would really bring some needed build-potential to their damage families if there were MK 12 versions available. Quad cannons especially should be worth the 20 dollars they cost...
-Single cannons and mines need some rethinking too. The Hirogen single cannon was a great idea, a sniper role in space would be awesome. 12 KM spike damage from a weak dps weapon. That's an idea that should be refined for more single cannons, I'd love to see sniper ships in game. We need more role diversity. Right now it's mainly ATB-FAW-APB cruisers and decloaking vape scimitars. Not to mention, if you have sniper ships, then Science ships get another duty added to their role by using their sensors and debuffs to designate targets that the sniper might not be able to see because of the better sensor/stealth fog of war system i mentioned earlier.
-Speaking of mines, those turret satellite devices are all but useless. Why not give them the ability to self destruct like mines, coupled with that AoE you gave mines with the 8472 rep? That modifier alone really added more usefulness to mines. Hell, turn the satellite turrets into a 1 per ship mine weapon, replace their beam array with a point defense turret (5km cannon with bonus to torps and fighters, small pecking damage to bigger ships), run it off the ammo mechanic from the LoR weapons or the Omega torp, and BOOM, suddenly we have a nice little space fieldworks option, you can lay a few point defense turrets to block a corridor that explode and do high radius damage to a too-close large ship. Adds diversity and answers to pet play, diversity and usefulness for mine spec, and a new dimension to space combat.
PVE
-Everyone in the galaxy has aegis shields or adaptive fleet shields. It's time to give the borg space forces adaptive shields they're supposed to have had for decades now. Speaking of which, the borg were fearsome enemies in the show. They'd hit you with a tractor beam and start cutting into you and you'd be spamming the coms like OH GOD HELP, they'd beam over and start taking over your ship. Make them more likely to use the tractor beam-cutting beam combo, but make it MUCH harder to break without teammates pulling you free somehow. Same with assimilate ship/borg boarding party. Make it like a disable/CD debuff that only has a chance to cleanse on TT or whatever. Between adapting shields, Better disables/debuffs, and stronger holds that require co-op break outs, that's 3 things that can bring the borg back into their canon ferocity.
-We need elite space queues to fight tholians in for accolades, nukara, and NR marks. And I mean new ones that don't involve a giant pinecone or hitting full impulse every five seconds between a couple different objective areas like ANR and the Vault. You guys have to do something with the tholians, that whole tangent has so much unused potential between Nukara and New Romulus.
Misc Space issues
-Our first officer currently plays no function whatsoever. It'd be interesting if they allowed us use of a single lower-tier or less effective scaled usage of their profession's captain ability or a boff only equivalent.
-The C store ships need to stop coming with ship-only consoles. I know it cuts down on dev time, but I bought my thunder child for the point def and my NX for the grappler, and I fly neither and put those consoles on lots of ships. I would've bought the Avenger and patrol escort for the Vata and phaser bomb if I could use them on other ships (at least cruisers in the Vata's case). I'd buy more ships and spend more dil on builds if I could play with consoles locked to single ships, and no I don't mean the defiant cloak, leave that alone. I mean the Vata, Torp Point Defense, Nadeon bomb, etc...
-Bring back rechargable batteries, give freighter/civvie ships some kind of love now that their crafting abilities are moot, let us use those lockbox traits and skills on our boffs. And for the love of god, let us spec our ground and space traits and skills from separate, NOT SHARED pools, or add an option in the c store that lets me buy enough trait slots and skill cap raises to spec both how I want them.
-The freighters in enterprise could drop their cargo and zip around when attacked. If their crafting advantage is null, what if freighters could drop their cargo box in combat, making a space combat supply or repair ward, and add miniscule damage support from their 3 weapons while relying on an extremley high evasion stat or low sensor sig to stay alive?
-Sort of space related: small craft need some kind of look. I enjoyed atmosphere assault, that was a good proof of concept. Could we not touch something up, make something a little better now?
I would say it is the reason why STO has been so successful. The market has a plethora of trinity esque, role specific, style 'hardcore' raiding type games. I for one have grown tired of that style of gameplay and instead prefer a more Arpg style where it is not what role you can fill, but how you do your part that matters. It is a much more casual friendly style and I feel the design direction taken should focus on improving that style instead of scrapping it for something else.
If that's the case, then why bother pretending there's any roles at all? Get rid of careers, let people customize their ships to have the bridge officer powers and consoles they like, go completely freeform with it.
If there's going to be classes and careers then it stands to reason that there needs to be an actual reason to have those classes and careers. Right now the gameplay rewards one thing only: damage. If it's going to reward one thing only, then at least let players do that one thing in any ship they want.
Aux to Dampeners grants repel immunity but offers no defense against holds, meaning it works against Tractor Beam Repulsors but does nothing against Tractor Beam (non-repulsor). That doesn't make any sense to me.
Hazard Emitters cleanses basically every debuff, which naturally makes it a must-have (though I've been successfully running a cruiser build without HE). Taking some of HE's cleanses and giving them to other abilities might not be inappropriate (thinking an Eng heal like A2SIF here).
1) Aceton Beam and Boarding Party: Two powers that are so weak that people only use them if they just have too many Engineering slots. They need a broad redesign.
2) Directed Energy Modulation: Great with Marion and A2B. Otherwise, the cooldown is way too long for a kinda meh power.
3) Ensign Engineering powers (aka why people are still mad about the Galaxy): There's just an issue with shared cooldowns and other powers for the Engineering branch. While messing with emergency powers may help, I really just think either you need to knock some powers down a level or create new ones.
4) Auxiliary to Dampeners: Why doesn't this break tractor beams? It would be a better general power (or Emergency Power to Engines) if it did.
5) Photonic Officer: What should have been more A2b in the first place.
6) Tachyon Beam: Weak. Needs to drain shields better.
7) Charged Particle Burst: In PVE barely does anything.
8) Mask Energy Signature: Pseudo cloak that does nothing.
I think the problem overall is that Engineering heavy ships don't have enough choices in powers, and both Engineering and Science ships have issues with dealing damage. I think the resistance is too easy for Science damage powers/disables, and they need to have more ooomph.
Some ideas (I'm just spitballing here)
Tactical Team - Remove shield redistribution power, increase the damage bonus
Reasoning: Tac Team right now is one of the ultimate, must-have defensive abilities. Shield distribution, clearing boarding parties, and the damage bonus (plus the attack pattern bonus with the BO) means that this power is super powerful. Removing the shield distribution power makes sense to focus this ability as an offensive (tactical) power, and also with the buffs to boarding party and crew usefulness (below) makes this ability more of a choice instead of a necessity.
Reasoning: With the shield distribution power being removed from tac team, this power is almost good enough to have as its own slot in Engineering. Flavors might modify the speed at which shields are transferred from facings, and if that doesn't seem to be enough for an individual power, add a shield hardness buff to the power.
Boarding Party (Maybe move to tactical?)- either increase shuttle shields/hull, or give a BO that allows instant boarding party (beam through shields)
-possibly allow beam through shields if lower than 25% instead of using shuttles
Reasoning: As has been said upthread, Boarding Party is one of the hardest skills go gauge at how useful it is. Besides the fact that the shuttles launched take one beam hit (FAW being so prevalent these days, you might as well say it is useless), the effect on enemy ships are not that visible to the players using the skill. With suggested ability changes to tac team, changes to BP would make TT a much more powerful counter to this skill
Make crew more useful and less susceptible to loss via direct damage. A way to make them more useful is to have crew status (%) modify the skill recharge times. (IE skill recharge time increased 20% if you lose 80% of your crew, scaled by percentage of crew / max crew - also IE lose 40% of your crew, skill recharge increased 10%)
Reasoning: I always feel strange when I'm flying around with 50 crew in an oddyssey without taking too much damage. Add to that the fact that crew only seem to be useful in passive hull repair, there doesn't seem to be any reason to take any of the consoles that reduce crew loss/use. Increasing their effect on your ship's whole effectiveness would make Boarding/Assimilation that much more scary, and also make the previously mentioned skills that much more useful choices.
Emergency Power to * - Remove the hardcap and replace with a softcap at 125 with diminishing returns after 125.
Reasoning: These abilities seem to be underpowered, largely because of the 125 power hard cap. I'd almost prefer a soft cap with a diminishing effect over what was the hardcap to make reasons to take these powers while maxing those power settings.
Aux2Batt - Significantly reduce the power bonus (and corresponding drain)
Reasoning: Besides the prevalence and the perceived unbalance of Aux2Batt, diminishing the effectiveness of this power would balance things out slightly so that you can't get away with running 5 power on a system without it effecting your, um, effectiveness.
Aux2Damp - Remove or drastically increase crew loss resistance
Reasoning: Not even sure if this ability is used by anyone (especially since it partially duplicates brace for impact)
Directed Energy Modulation - Change ability to add to hull damage instead of creating a separate hull tick. Have bonus based on weapon damage instead of flat bonus (?)
Reasoning: Having a separate hull tick creates confusion as to how effectively this ability works. Also having this be a percentage of weapon damage instead of a flat bonus based on power level might boost the usefulness of this power. (Latter change may be too much).
Aceton Beam - Reduce the cooldown to 1m, reduce weapon damage reduction to compensate. Cleansed with engineering team.
Reasoning - Aceton beam is stupidly powerful right now, but equipping it is almost too hard a choice because of the stupidly large cooldown. Reducing the cooldown to be in line with other high-performance abilities (like Grav Well) while reducing damage reduction would make this ability a more sensibly balanced choice for equipping.
*New Skill* Ion Radiation Beam (Engineering) - 1m cooldown, accuracy debuff. Cleansed with engineering team.
Reasoning - Another alternative to debuffing using Aceton beam, also makes stacking defense (and using engine power) more effective against people not stacking accuracy
*New Skill* Baryon Overload (Engineering) - 1m cooldown, turn and movement debuff. Cleansed with engineering team.
Reasoning - A way to deal with those pesky people trying to turn their escorts into fighters. Another alternative to tractor beam. Also would increase usefulness of wider arc weapons without buffing the numbers.
Tachyon Beam - Increase shield drain
Reasoning - right now, while the total shield drain may be a sizeable number, because of shield redistribution and tac team (now), this ability is much less effective than the numbers imply
*New Ability* Tachyon Rift (or other name?) (Science) - AoE shield drain and shield hardness debuff, cloaking debuff
Reasoning - Science abilities need some serious tweaking right now. Only having 2 reliable damage abilities means that there aren't enough alternatives to to Grav Well and Tyken's Rift. More abilities that have offensive purposes would mean more choices for science captains.
Photonic Shockwave - change origin from immediate area to area of target (including enemies)
Reasoning - would make this a more reliable damage dealer instead of whiffing (super annoying to whiff with this ability which means much less likely to be used)
Tractor Beam - Change the way the beam tic refresh works - total trac time should be indicated in the active skill instead of refreshing every few seconds
Reasoning - I think one of the major reasons this skill is overlooked is that it's very hard to judge the effectiveness of this skill due to judging the approximate time it will be active.
*New Skill* Sensor Sweep (Science) - Cloaking detect +250% (or some other large number) in forward arc for 20s, +100% in other arcs for 20s. (maybe a doff added effect)
Reasoning - Cloakers are stupidly overpowered due to their crazy alpha strike abilities. Feds in particular are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to combatting cloaked ships.
*New Skill* Corbomite Reflector (Science) - Energy invulnerability, high% damage reflection using shields. 1m cooldown, short duration (2/4/6s or something).
Reasoning - An alternative to Feedback Pulse, and a way to make alpha strikers (and other spike damage overbuffers) much more hesitant to pop everything at the same time
In my opinion
( says Marshall Rosenburg, the diplomacy expert) - wiki it
Here we go
Subsystem Attacks:
In my opinion ....this ability could really help the game feel more like Star Trek. Currently while in combat a ship only recieves a temporary power drain to a subsystem or the subsystem is disabled for 3 - 10 sec.
I propose that the subsystem attacks function as they are, except they have "a critical chance to cause subsystem actual subsystem damage during combat". Therefore during regular play a subsystem can accumulate damage from the white damage level all the way to the red. ( even if the ship is not destroyed).
Subsystem repairs could require a repair component linked to a duty officer assignment in the duty officer system and or the Crafting system and or a Starbase Engineer. A time component could be added to repair a subsystem increasing repair times.
The second part of this system would allow for a Critical hit to "damage or disable a console" if the subsystem damage is in the red damage level. Console repairs would require the crafting system or a starbase engineer
** remember , the current system of subsystem power drain or temporary disabling is still in effect **
usage example:
So players could use a repair component to run a Doff assignment that repairs the subsystems. Repairs would happen whenever the assignment was complete, so even in the middle of action , systems could be coming back online as your engineers repair subsystems. If you don't take care of your white yellow and red repair flags your ship slowly degrades in performance until there is a chance of you actually damaging your console.
PVE and Role playing benefits:
Ships could be disabled in many ways. Allowing for more diplomatic solutions to complete mission objectives without distruction and killing. This also requires mission objectives that do not require an enemy be destroyed.
*** I would even say this is a first step towards a functioning Diplomacy system **
*Crazy Advanced thought:
Due to crafting we actually could have a list of components that make up each console. When console damage started, it could trigger critical chances to destroy these components. When crafting is used to repair a console , a player could actually replace the individual parts, ( my pants are wet now ).
Tachyon Beam:
Tachyon beam is an overcharged blast from the main deflector, so the 90 degree firing arc is an essential part of this skill. I agree it is not powerfull enough , I have been trying dual tachyon III builds with very little success.
Masked Energy Signature: or (MES)
I have been using the ability Masked Energy Signature II. I use this to avoid combat with moderate success, at around 10km I get detected in PVP capture n hold scenarios. Masked energy signature I barely works on PVE.
I like the Role playing value of this skill, it allows for many more options to avoid combat during regular play. This might even be considered essential for fist contact diplomacy missions and similar type scenarios. It could be reccomended in foundry missions to avoid combat.
Possible Solutions:
I feel that if masked energy signature utilized an ensign slot, and had an increased Auxillary Power multiplier it would become more useful. ( what if ? 130% Aux power + Masked Energy Signature I was as effective as a Masked Energy III.
I always cringe when I assign this skill to anything above ensign level.
Facts:
** Masking an energy signature means reducing emmisions. Emmissions like sensors scans. Sensor range could be reduced when MES is active. Engine emmissions, (full impulse already reduces Aux power so this should scale properly during Full Impulse ***
:cool: To Sir Boulevard: A fun thought regarding teamwork in pVp
A new ensign skilled called "Tachyon detection grid I"
This Powers would only work when other players have it active. The skill creates a cloak detection grid that extends 5-10km from each participating player. "If possible the distance stacks with each additional player that activates the ability. This skill could scale with Auxillery Power.
This type of shared skill could be a way to increase teamwork in pvp scenarios.
Gravity Well.
- What if Gravity well effected friends and foes ???-
- Allow Planets asteroids ,and objects to be the target of Gravity well
- add Collision Damage on combat maps.
Torpedo Spread:
- I agree with less torpedo animations
- I agree sounds need to be adjustable,, a weapons volume would be nice
( foot step volume would be nice too)
Feedback Powers in general.
They don't seem to be powerfull enough in general and don't redirect enough damage back to the enemy
Power levels:
In the past I have noted that having your power slider all the way up , is much more effective than raising a power level via an emergency power boost. This should be clarified or fixed. Just try it with shields.
Tractor beams could use an increase in holding power, esspecially for tractor beam III. Pvp players blow through it like it isn't there.
Eject warp plasma is very weak too, I see players fly around in it like its thier favourite lunch soup.
Directed energy Modulation :
I don't even notice when this skill is acitve. This power with a subsystem attack should be deadly.
Increased hull hit points
I agree with the idea of increasing hull hit points by 3 times or more in order to make battles more stable.
Lets make these ships feel solid, and hard to destroy, The solid duranium hull should last long after all the subsystems are burnt out.
My Goal is to make powers more immersive for roleplaying and fun for Pvp/Pve too, cause eventually they will be the same thing okay ,, thats all for now.. Please ask for any clarification , i put alot in here, and expect a few questions,
Thank you for taking the time to read.
See you , out there :cool:
I'm going to be talking purely PvP here, so keep that in mind.
The main problem I see with this is that no matter what we come up with here, or whatever fixes are done to boff powers, or whatever like that, it won't do much in the end. The problems go a lot farther than boff powers.
I fly my non-cloaking tac escort into a PvP arena match and feel pretty much useless, but why? Because unless the ship I'm shooting at is a newbie, I know that I'm not going to get much of anywhere. I focus fire on someone, and my shots maybe take some health, but then bounce off as they heal and resist everything away and I can't touch them. And then there's the special effects, the AoE, everwhere. Clouds of plasma and radiation, bubbles of who the hell knows what, carrier pets and gravity wells and everything going everywhere. I get smacked to death with my shields up, and it's over.
Here's what I'm getting at. Lockbox, fleet, reputation, and doff garbage. Everywhere. No matter what we change of the base mechanics, it won't do much to help PvP. There's so much stuff built up on it - clickies, uber resistances via consoles and gear, doffs, cloak spam, pet spam, gravity well spam, plasma spam - that boff power or subsystem changes will not fix the problem. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't balance the basics of the PvP metagame. That's still needed. Let me go through the different categories and my thoughts.
- Doffs. They weren't a problem for a long time, until ridiculous ones came about. There's one that can make RSP go on for something like 15-20 seconds, there's one that can create extra grav wells, there's Keel'el, there's Marion, there's the BO bleedthroughs... the list goes on. It's not good.
- Clicky consoles. Too many of them. The ones that belong to C-store ships of their own faction have always been there and aren't an issue. But all those lock box things, the ones that give you instant heals, or instant damage, or a free ticket to escape (which gives time to use the other magic heals to get back to full health) or a super resist, or an AoE mess.
- All these resistances. New gear from each new rep and crafting and C-store ship or giveaway brings something crazy to the table.
Okay look, I'm just tired now of writing this, but you get the idea. There's so much stuff screwed up piling on top of PvP that unless something is done about it, the basics won't matter. If you truly want to help PvP, Hawk, then we - you and us, the community - need to come together and decide what stays and what goes. The only way to really fix PvP is disabling or seriously bringing in line the junk. Yes, it would require a split of the PvE world and PvP world, and yes it would be a monumental task.
But if you take the first step, we'll support you the whole way.
I have a bit more feedback to add to my earlier suggestions:
Engineering Captain Powers
Nadion Inversion: Power drain is easily mitigated in many other ways, so this ability has been rendered drastically less useful. My favorite use for this until recently was for the occasional beam overload/phaser lance spike, but that's no longer necessary. As of right now, it's a momentary respite from an enemy drain build. I think this one could be drastically reworked or replaced with something more useful. I'd rather see a debuff clearer that could be cast on allies, or some kind of damage booster -- nadions are related to phasers, after all.
EPS Power Transfer: Again, power is cheap and plentiful these days. While this ability is more useful than Nadion Inversion, and it's nice that it can be cast on an ally, it's still no match for Sensor Scan or Attack Pattern Alpha. Not by a long shot.
Miracle Worker: A solid hull and shield heal. With the addition of Grace Under Fire, this is an awesome ability. I just wish that it could be used on allies.
Science Captain Powers
Photonic Fleet: I've always felt that this one was a little lackluster. It wouldn't feel right as a major damage-dealing ability, but it also doesn't seem to do a great job of distracting the enemy or drawing fire, either. I'm not sure what to do with this one, but right now it mostly just clutters the field of battle.
Aux2Batt - Significantly reduce the power bonus (and corresponding drain)
Reasoning: Besides the prevalence and the perceived unbalance of Aux2Batt, diminishing the effectiveness of this power would balance things out slightly so that you can't get away with running 5 power on a system without it effecting your, um, effectiveness.
By reducing the drain, you improve the Nukara reputation traits that depend on Aux. Reducing the power bonus does nothing to effectively rebalance the power, since its main attraction with the current glut options for power levels is the Technician doff.
Reasoning: Not even sure if this ability is used by anyone (especially since it partially duplicates brace for impact)
Aux2Damp builds exist, mainly for ships like the Scimitar or Mogh where agility is desired and Aux2Batt can be dropped due to other sources of getting your Emergency Power and Tactical abilities on short cooldowns. A certain costly doff also stretches the power's bonus to kinetic resistance over to all other resistances.
If we want to discuss metagame changes, we need to discuss metagame. And the current meta is "DPS is King". So, we should start there. Why is DPS king? Because it gets everything done more quickly, and there's no reason NOT to do it. There needs to be a REASON not to DPS. There also needs to be utility in non DPS builds. Both of these can be handled fairly easily. How?
Make NPCs capable of the same things players are. PvP needs work, yes. But in it is the only time you face anyone REMOTELY on the same level as you. Every player has 12 BOff powers, on top of a smattering of Captain abilities, for a usual total of about 20 powers they can pop at any given time. NPCs commonly have... what, three? Four? I'd like to see NPCs with player-level builds. I'd especially like it if there were variants which spawned semi-randomly - spice up PvE gameplay. And this is already in the game with the Breen Chel Grets. The Cruiser has Subnuke, the Warship doesn't. So you CAN do it. But instead, have, say, five different types of Voth Bastion Cruisers with slightly different BOff layouts. NPCs don't feel like enemy ships. You don't have the feel of "that's a ship with an enemy crew and an enemy captain that might be a threat." NPCs are target practice. If there were various builds - maybe with various stats and maybe even Active DOffs, as well - you would get the feel that yes, that is another SHIP. That is a CREW. They may be a challenge. It would make single-player PvE a lot more fun, and make Queued PvE especially difficult.
But how does this affect the meta? Well... some NPC ships might be really heavy hitters - to the point that squishy Escorts can't do much before going pop. But some might be fairly tanky. Frankly, I think the meta of "Frigate, Escort/Cruiser, Battleship" should be done away with. Frigate squadrons are trash mobs anyway and they threaten no one. It's a Space representation of a concept that only works on the ground. Throw that away. Instead, have each class of ship be unique and present a unique challenge. Let's use the Klingons as an example. Right now, you have Birds of Prey as Frigates, Raptors and Vor'Cha as mid-tier, and Negh'Vars as Battleships. In this system, you'd have a SINGLE Bird-of-Prey that does a LOT of damage and is maneuverable (and maybe cloaks every now and again to be sneaky). It would use Tactical Captain abilities and have a fairly Tactical BOff layout. Or maybe have a smattering of Science powers - represent how a player's BoP can vary. Raptors would still have a Tactical BOff layout, but might use Engineering Captain powers. The Vor'cha would still have the Engineering Captain powers, but would have a more Engineering-heavy BOff load. And then Negh'Vars would have either Tactical or Engineering Captains and heavy doses of Tactical and Engineering BOff powers. Another good example might be the Voth. Palisades might use Science Captain and BOff powers. Bastions might have an Engineer leanings for its BOffs and a Tactical or Engineer Captain. Bulwarks would likely have a Tactical Captain with heavy Engineer leanings to be a mix of DPS and durability. This would cause players to plan for high DPS and high durability enemies in PvE - meaning they might not want to go DPS, because it might not be the best option. Make PvE variable enough that you want to do another role. Make people WANT to tank. Make Threat skills generate appropriate amounts of Threat (since most DPS builds generate more Threat than ANY cruiser, no matter how many Threat bonuses they have). Make 30k DPS worthwhile, but also make tanking viable.
Of course, none of the above means spit in PvP. So, what do we do about that? A good solution might be to take a page out of TOR's book. They actually have Treat abilities there. In PvE, it forces NPCs to target you. But you can't rightly do that in PvP, so what it does is it causes a MASSIVE damage debuff (something like 30% I think) to the Taunted (their version of Threat) player UNLESS they target the player that Taunted them. Basically, in this scenario, any enemy players in weapon range get a damage debuff against everyone EXCEPT the Cruiser using Attract Fire. This means that having a tank protects the team by effectively shielding everyone from damage. But that would lead to MOST cruisers just being burned down because DPS is so stupidly high. So, my second proposal would be to make Cruisers a LOT beefier. A Defiant-class ship, less than the size of a Galaxy-class saucer section, shouldn't have a hull strength equal to half to two-thirds of the entire Galaxy-class ship. Double or even triple the hull of most Cruisers. Make the ships that are supposed to tank actually tanky. While every CAPTAIN should be able to do any role, that role should be solidly defined by the ship. While this would require additional balancing - some Cruisers are fairly capable DPS ships and this would need to be corrected somewhat to prevent "god ships" that can do everything.
Finally, there are some abilities that need specific attention (or abilities for which I have neat ideas), in no particular order:
Attack Pattern Omega: This ability has a TRIBBLE TON of high-power buffs - it's ridiculous. It combines the Tractor resist and damage resist of Polarize Hull, the speed buff of EPtE, the damage bonus of EPtW, and adds a Turn buff. It needs a trim. It does NOT need a speed buff, a damage resist buff, or immunity to movement debuffs. Trim that down or double its cooldown - a minute is too short.
Tactical Team: The shield distribution buff is fairly strong for an ability that already boosts damage with Skill boosts. Transfer that to Photonic Officer (see below).
Tachyon Beam: As previously said, Tachyon Beam is weak sauce. It needs a massive increase in drain.
Photonic Officer: This ability needs to have its cooldown dropped a lot. For the tiny buff it gives, 3 minutes is RIDICULOUS. Drop it to one minute with a duration of 20s. But even then, a Cooldown Reduction buff isn't that meaningful in a meta with A2B builds and doubling up on BOff powers. Hence the addition here of shield redistribution - it would make this power more relevant. In-canon, this would be activating photonic officers to do tasks as such, which results in these buffs. It would also be cool to see this cause Team powers to be SLIGHTLY more effective while this buff is up. But if it can't be done, it can't be done.
Extend Shields: As-is, this power isn't that great. Limited-range shield regen buff. Doesn't do very well. Instead, I propose that it give a damage resitance buff, and ADDITIONALLY transfers a portion of the damage taken by the person being cast on to the caster. Make it feel more like the defensive buff it really should be.
Aceton Beam: A minor debuff that isn't fairly noticeable. For a two-minute cooldown, it's remarkably impotent. Reduce its cooldown. Additionally, a power drain debuff (in similar fashion to the Polaron weapon proc) would make it more useful and make it consistent with other Aceton abilities in-game.
Boarding Party: This one's tricky because of Tactical Team and its fairly useless nature. I propose that, in addition to subsystem disable, it has a chance to proc a Jam or Scramble Sensors on the enemy for a few seconds. Additionally, make it so that if the target's facing shields are down, you beam the parties over instead of launching shuttles. (The Shuttles could also do with a buff - give them a little hull and some shields) Make the power worthwhile and a little less easily-countered. Another handy trick would be to have TT remove ONE Boarding party every 3 seconds (since a full BP hit procs 3), clearing it over time.
Charged Particle Burst: Fairly weak since most people decloak out of its range, and don't recloak in it. It could be removed and no one would miss it. Unlike many powers, there's not much that can be done with it.
Aux to Dampeners: This is a redundant ability that really has no use. Remove it.
Mask Energy Signature: This is a slightly fun stealth buff, but doesn't compete with a cloak. However, it might be a useful buff for power drain resistance. I'd say give it a Power Insulators buff and raise its Stealth. Then, make it an in-combat toggle with an out-of-combat component (the stealth). It won't be GREAT, but it won't be useless.
Tactical Initiative: Far too restrictive in the current meta. Only Tac BOff powers in a game when you can reduce more with less cooldown on the ability. Make it unique - allow it to affect Captain powers (except Tactical Fleet). With a cooldown as long as its, it would be fairly balanced.
Abandon Ship: A useless and hard to use power. I made a post a long time ago, talking about converting it to Eject Warp Core for an interesting mechanic. It would be better than what we have.
Emergency Power to Aux: The Stealth Sight on this isn't terribly useful. I'd add to this an Exotic Damage buff to make it useful on Science based builds. Not a big buff, but a buff.
Nifty new powers:
Beam Rapid Fire (does what it says on the tin).
Cannon Overload (also does what it says on the tin).
So, to summarize... much must be changed. But effectively... balance the game so that tanks and non-DPS are viable. 'Cause they're not.
Really, I'd much rather subpar powers be buffed than "must have" powers get the nerf. Rather than simply remove shield redistribution from TT, make it valuable to use higher ranks of that power.
Rather than drastically alter the behavior of Technician doffs, keep making Aux power important- buff Aux to ID with hold resistance and Aux to SIF with debuff cleansing. And buff the strength of sci shield drains so they're actually noticeable in PvE (yes, this would make them OP against players. I don't care.).
Generally, I'm seeing a lot of strongly held feelings or opinions, but very little reasoning or rationale provided behind posts. Please try to focus more on why you feel what you feel, as it's very difficult to sort through valid and invalid points without explanatory rationale.
First - thank you for even starting this. You might want to create some sort of vote to sort through all the suggestions to get some sort of consensus form the members.
Stop catering to the tiny minority PvP crowd, its not working, how much more proof do you need? Find another solution for PvP. And most importantly, make the PvE actually fun.. there hasn't been new fun content in a long time. The first time you play elite content you shouldn't walk in and never die, get all the optionals and never want to play it again.. that is the state of the game. Tweaking abilities isn't going to do anything.
..snip..
Nicha's comments are all valid, but I want to focus here: PvP as a minority has too much control on the game in general. For a group that counts as a few hundred 'part time' players, with a dozen active voices. They have too much influence on the changes you make.
a) Ship Roles:
For those of you that have played, of seen Eve. This is a good way to keep a ship in its role. Giving it stats boost in specific area's and even for specific classes.
For example: An Assault Cruiser may have a 5% bonus damage to all beam weapons and 5% bonus to shield resistance. To add to this, ships could have synergies to Captain classes. A tac officer in the Assault Cruiser could garner 5% to projectiles too, while an Engineer may gain 5% reduction to hull damage, or a science officer could get a 5% bonus to science ability cooldowns.
b) Tactical Combat:
This is an old idea that has been swimming around our fleet since season 3. Ship combat needs to be far more strategic. Meaning that specific ships need to have more options on how they combat each other, not just in abilities but with weapons in general. (e.g. Allowing us to focus our fire on a ships systems, not just target a subsystem). Where consistent fire focused on a ships engines, will stack damage on that system, damage is eventually repaired. (Current ship damage model would facilitate this perfectly.)
Example: Critical hit with a torpedo to shields will cause the shield system to suffer stress, resulting in a -0.05% regeneration rate.
c) Weapon Range:
This is a simple one, Weapon classes have differing ranges. Torpedo's should be the longest, with ranges from 0-20km (Based on torp)
Beams with ranges from 0-15km.
Dual Beams range from 0-10km.
Cannons range from 0-10km.
Dual and Dual Heavy cannons 0-7km.
Sorry for the massive post. Hope you enjoy reading it.:D:D
Jam Sensors- Has its uses but there are much better things you can slot than this. Suggestions: Lower the CD on this, maybe give it additional effects or a residual effect
Mask Energy Signature- Basically a weak cloak without the decloak damage bonus. Suggestions: Give it a decloak damage buff (I'd say 10% will do)
Polarize Hull- It's a nice ability but I think it's being used incorrectly. On Enterprise hull polarization didn't dissipate over time but was lost after taking damage. Suggestions: Keep it the way it is but make it a toggle ability, when toggled on you get the benefits of it. It's turned off by one of two things (the player or a certain amount of damage sustained) the CD could be tweaked to be based off how much damage sustained before deactivation.
Photonic Officer- I don't really know anyone that uses it, I tried it out before and wasn't much of a fan. Suggestions: I really don't know what to do with it...
Weak Powers:
Tachyon Beam- Utterly useless in both PVE and PVP, the drain just isn't very much even at maxed skill level. Suggestions: One of two things need to be done 1) Considerably increase the amount of drain this ability inflicts, or Change it so the target of the beam will have a shield resistance debuff of 10-20%
Charged Particle Burst- I can't say for PVP but I can definitely say that for PVE this power is useless. Most NPCs don't have cloaks first off, and the shield damage it gives is very weak. Suggestions: Uhm... I would just replace it with something else to be honest or give it a significant shield damage boost
Photonic Fleet- This power is all fluff, no usefulness. The ships barely make a dent against enemies and are quickly destroyed making them a poor distraction. The worst part of this power is that it's a Captain ability so science characters are stuck with it. Suggestions: buff it up considerably or replace it with something useful
It is widely regarded that DPS is the most important aspect of performance in PvE. Some of this issue is due to mission content being outstripped by power creep, but even before the creep came so heavily into play dps was favored. If the content remains designed such that DPS were the key component then tactical abilities will remain the favored ability slot on each ship. A look at Aux2Bat shows this is the case on cruisers. A2B is strong on cruisers for the fact that it increases the number of effective tactical slots available. Certain cruisers, like the Avenger or Regent, can be more effective without A2B due to having a large number of innate tactical slots, but a ship like the Galaxy has severely limited options when not using A2B (and is still limited even when using it). The Developers will have actual numbers on which ships people are using that I do not have access to, but I would postulate from personal experience that the Galaxy is rarely used in Elite Borg STFs compared to ships like the Regent which have more tactical abilities. Given that both are older designs and were both Enterprises I would expect their numbers to be similar. I would love to see the numbers and check whether there is a correlation between the number of tactical bridge officer slots on cruisers and the number of players flying any given cruiser.
I would like to take an aside to talk about why I fly the ships I fly. I fly mostly cruisers, and tend to stick to the modern Enterprises (Galaxy, Sovereign, and Odyssey). Having been around back when cruisers were more limited to healing roles and thus experienced both that meta and this one, I have decided that I prefer to be offensively capable even at the expense of tankiness. Even if cruisers become low DPS ships only good at healing or tanking, I will likely continue to fly one as it is aesthetically my ship type of choice. One of the major design choices of the game was to unlink ship choice from captain type, such that any captain could fly any ship. I feel like a natural extension of this is to unlink ship role from ship type to some extent.
It seems from posts made by developers that the standard Federation ship classes are intended to be balanced around a Damage/Hull Healing/Shield Healing trinity corresponding to Escorts/Cruisers/Science Vessels respectively. Science also has "space magic" which provides seemingly sub par exotic damage, several debuffs, and some hull heals. Engineering has energy modifying abilities and a grab bag of ineffectual damage dealing abilities along with some shield heals. Tactical has, besides the wide array of weapon and stat buffs, several debuffs that either add to the damage done to enemies or disable their systems. This shows a wide range of abilities already available to each type of bridge officer and a lack of focus on what each type should do.
What seems natural to me, given an environment where DPS is critical, is to make the offensive options available to each of the bridge officer types equivalent with each other. I would redefine the trinity to be one distributing the type of defensive abilities available to each type of bridge officer as Speed(Defense)/Hull Healing/Shield Healing for Tactical/Engineering/Science respectively. Engineering and Science bridge officers would have access to abilities with equal offensive capabilities to the current tactical staples such as FAW or CRF. Defensively, Tactical Officers would see some older abilities changed, or new ones added, that provided defensive options focused on speed and the avoiding of hits much like how Escorts speed tank now. Engineering officers would have abilities focused on the Maintnence and Repair of Hull damage. Science officers would focus on hardening and regenerating the shields. In this way all ships could spec for as much damage or defensiveness as the captain desired while being able to maintain the flavor of their type.
Comments
I would like to put forward the argument that changing powers will not solve any problems unless content is retooled. At the moment, "elite" difficulty content has been created in such a manner that, intentionally or no, rewards damage most of anything else. The prevalence of cruisers in high-end builds should not confuse this issue because those cruisers are typically ones that can take advantage of Auxiliary to Battery technicians and a large number of tactical powers relative to other cruisers in order to do more damage than even the best escorts. While Auxiliary to Battery technicians provide a good build, the reason for this is because they allow cruisers to pump out high rates of damage. Instead of focusing on the powers that are used the most, developers should focus on the underlying content issues that cause the discrepancy in power usage.
1) Most elite-level content is timed in some manner, either as a victory condition or as an optional condition. This encourages players to focus on damage first in order to reach that timer. Such timers should be removed completely.
2) Damage done by enemies is either weak enough that escorts can tank it, or strong enough that the most durable of cruisers have a hard time dealing with it, with little room in between. This, along with the focus on damage, makes tanking have little value.
3) There are few ways to effectively manage threat. Even with +Threat consoles, full points in Threat Control and using the threat building cruiser command, high-end damage builds will pull threat more often than not. Additionally, focusing on threat generation so much diverts attention from dealing damage, which feeds back into #1.
The ideal metagame should be as follows, in my opinion:
- Escorts (defined as ships with a Tactical commander station) should be able to deal the most amount of weapons damage, but also be the most fragile. They should be able to solo one or more weaker "Rank 1" enemies (for example, Borg probes), "tankier" escorts should be able to solo one or more intermediate "Rank 2" enemies (for example, Borg spheres), but escorts should never be able to solo stronger "Rank 3" enemies (for example, Borg cubes) and should die in about five seconds if they take threat from a "Rank 4" boss enemy (for example, tactical cubes). The damage taken should simply be too much to overcome for any escort.
- Cruisers (defined as ships with an Engineering commander station) should be able to take the most amount of damage out of any ship and should be able to pull threat so they can put that bulk to good use. A cruiser should be able self-heal and survive against any enemy up to and including Rank 3 enemies and should be able to comfortably survive against Rank 4 boss enemies with support from the other four members of their team. Conversely, they should have a hard time dealing effective damage against enemies, even if they have a larger number of tactical powers. The tactical-heavy cruisers should be able to dispatch Rank 2 enemies comfortably by themselves, but Rank 3 and especially Rank 4 should be too durable themselves for any single player to solo in any circumstance.
- Science vessels (defined as ships with a Science commander station) should have buffing and debuffing powers to support the team and harass the enemies. In terms of durability they should be roughly between the escort and the cruiser so they're not liabilities in battle.
So with this in mind, all powers should be reworked and reclassified:
- Tactical powers give the user and/or its team the ability to do more damage
- Engineering powers give the user and/or its team the ability to take more damage
- Science powers support the team in as many ways as you can think of. This can also include threat control powers, as it would give science-heavy escorts the ability to dump threat and science-heavy cruisers (the bulkiest class in the game) the ability to generate threat. Science should be "force multipliers": they aren't by themselves the best damage dealers or damage takers, but multiply the ability of the team to do and take damage. They should be able to solo up to a rank 2 enemy comfortably enough, but should shine when their powers are used in a team setting.
Additionally, PvE enemies should be reworked along the same guidelines:
- Rank 1 should be the weak trash. An individual player should be able to handle a pack of them, usually three at a time.
- Rank 2 should be a threat for any individual player
- Rank 3 should be a threat for up to 3 players
- Rank 4 should require all 5 players working together to defeat
The damage and durability of each enemy should go up by rank. Additionally, each rank should get a passive and continuous self-heal. This would make it impossible for a rank 3 or 4 to be soloed by a sufficiently-bulky cruiser, requiring escorts to deal enough damage and science vessels to do enough buffing/debuffing to overcome the self-healing.
Again, the main point of this post is to emphasize that focusing on the overused powers themselves will not solve the underlying problems. They are a symptom of the underlying problems, not problems unto themselves. Content needs to be reworked in addition to the powers being changed in order to have any meaningful effect on the metagame. If the developers only focus on the powers, the only thing that will happen is players will just move onto different powers and the problems will not be fixed. Again, the only reason why powers like Auxiliary to Battery and the Emergency Power to X powers are overused are because they're the best at fulfilling what the current content demands, which is damage and nothing but damage all the time.
I disagree completely but just wanted to quickly respond to this part.
Right now all three ship classes have a single defensive and offense 'bonus' making it so all three are roughly equal out of the box both offensively and defensively before equipment, boffs, doffs, and all the rest enter the equation.
What determines the ship's actual role is the boff layout. This, in theory, allows for massive amounts of customization and lets the player decided exactly how offensive, defensive, and supportive, they want their ship build to be.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way in practice because of how dominate tactical abilities are in PvE.
Also many players cannot find a way to break 1k DPS nor how to solo a basic cube in elite STFs. I have no desire to be forced to rely on another player to be a skilled 'tank' or anything of that nature when I hit up the queue for a PuG game. Nor do I want to be forced to find a premade group if I want to participate in any content.
so all ships should do damage.Why get a healer or a tank or a debuffer....play 1 single thing ...dps class.
Thats how the game was designed from start and thats what they broken now.I dont think they will ever go there because that would make the game fun and give each class of ships a role .Now its all in 1 ...kirk style.
I'm primarily a tac player so unfortunately my thoughts and feelings will focus on that.
Tac Team - Shield Distribution:
Honestly, I don't know what to suggest to do with it. Perhaps there should be an innate shield distribution that is like half or a third of the affect of current tac team which is always running in the background. Then make tac team plus all shield heal abilities buff this the innate ability for the duration that they are running their other buffs. I'm sure this is a terrible idea... but I hope the point is getting across... especially with harder content on the way.
Ensign Tac Slot
Sorry to say this, but this attitude is the main cause for STO being so broken. It's a multiplayer game, so people should need to work as a team in order to succeed, not just fly in with no teamwork or strategy and win because the content is that easy.
Where, in any form of canon, is this ever seen?
All ships more or less take care of themselves. Escorts and other small ships have the advantage of speed and small size to avoid incoming fire, but when USS Defiant takes a torpedo to the face, the crew of the USS Defiant has to fix things on their own.
Occasionally a ship will extend its shields but this is typically done with a completely disabled ship, and this is commonly not done in an active combat situation. Extended shields are too weak to be practical. One ship can repair another, but this takes hours or days. This isn't done instantly.
There is very little one ship can do to assist another ship in an active combat zone aside from physically moving in to the line of fire. In an active combat situation every ship is on its own. Every ship has its own tactical officers, engineers, and science/medical personnel.
Trying to neuter cruisers to be boring, passive healbots and making escorts be glass cannons that die all the time doesn't sound like a recipe for fun. Trying to enforce cooperation with people who many times don't even speak the same language is a recipe for disaster. And more importantly, this won't be very fun. This is a game. If its not fun then the game is dead.
Every player has the tools to be totally self sufficient. It is up to the player to make proper use of these tools provided. The options and ability for this are provided in the game.
I really wish that, somehow, this whole discussion was being played out in a giant arena. I can just see edna flying around ramming everyone to death. It would be glorious you know.
Also speaking of ramming. The one thing I would like to see is that Ramming Speed be modified so that any ram from a Recluse should be fatal. It has that giant spike prow after all.
House of Beautiful Orions
PUNISH THE FEDs
I agree 100% with this guy. All the powers that are popular are the ones that do massive damage, or let you boost your damage, or let you survive (not tank, survive) to do massive damage so you don't have to tank.
Take ISE for example. You have 15 minutes on the clock for optional. The best way to get that optional is to do massive amounts of damage before the heal sphere's come to fail it, and to kill everything before the 15 minutes is up. What if you could sub nuk the gate so that it didn't let probes out to heal the generators? No its useful to have a sci on the team since you don't have to put out that much damage to kill the generators before the probes get there. Now that power is worth it in PvE.
What if you only had to kill the gate, not the tac cube to end it. What if you had a hero tank cruiser that actually could hold the attention of the tac cube while the rest of the team killed the gate, and then you win.
But again, all of this assumes something else, that STO actually uses a trinity, which we have recently been told it doesn't. And it changes the game to where powers as they exist might be useful. But you want to change power to fit the current game.
So, in that case, if you want every power to be useful, here is the real simple way. Make every power do meaningful damage, boost damage, or heal. If its not doing one or the other, its useless in PvE. That is what the current game system requires, so to make any power desirable, that is what needs to happen.
Nouveau riche LTS member
Very Situational or Impractical:
Jam Sensors- Has its uses but there are much better things you can slot than this. Suggestions: Lower the CD on this, maybe give it additional effects or a residual effect
Mask Energy Signature- Basically a weak cloak without the decloak damage bonus. Suggestions: Give it a decloak damage buff (I'd say 10% will do)
Polarize Hull- It's a nice ability but I think it's being used incorrectly. On Enterprise hull polarization didn't dissipate over time but was lost after taking damage. Suggestions: Keep it the way it is but make it a toggle ability, when toggled on you get the benefits of it. It's turned off by one of two things (the player or a certain amount of damage sustained) the CD could be tweaked to be based off how much damage sustained before deactivation.
Photonic Officer- I don't really know anyone that uses it, I tried it out before and wasn't much of a fan. Suggestions: I really don't know what to do with it...
Weak Powers:
Tachyon Beam- Utterly useless in both PVE and PVP, the drain just isn't very much even at maxed skill level. Suggestions: One of two things need to be done 1) Considerably increase the amount of drain this ability inflicts, or
Charged Particle Burst- I can't say for PVP but I can definitely say that for PVE this power is useless. Most NPCs don't have cloaks first off, and the shield damage it gives is very weak. Suggestions: Uhm... I would just replace it with something else to be honest or give it a significant shield damage boost
Photonic Fleet- This power is all fluff, no usefulness. The ships barely make a dent against enemies and are quickly destroyed making them a poor distraction. The worst part of this power is that it's a Captain ability so science characters are stuck with it. Suggestions: buff it up considerably or replace it with something useful
I hope you guys make a ground version of this thread, I know some science powers that could use some tweeking :cool:
so you need "god mode" ....facepalm
the thread was about power balance not what annoys you or how to make everything not fun.Since when pve needs to be balanced?
I'd also do the same for "Warships"(currently under the "Destroyer" ship type I believe) and Dreadnoughts, but one thing at a time.
This seems less like a balance issue and more about not being able to min/max as much as you'd like. Not that more BOFF skill options wouldn't be good, but the lack of Ensign cannon skills aren't technically imbalancing anything.
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I would say it is the reason why STO has been so successful. The market has a plethora of trinity esque, role specific, style 'hardcore' raiding type games. I for one have grown tired of that style of gameplay and instead prefer a more Arpg style where it is not what role you can fill, but how you do your part that matters. It is a much more casual friendly style and I feel the design direction taken should focus on improving that style instead of scrapping it for something else.
STO is broken because of the large number of bad choices that can be made and lack of in game education on what works and what does not work. Tachyon beam could be a good ability that had a similar level of impact on an encounter as fire at will does. But it's not. That is the problem.
This is everywhere in STO. Warp core has [AMP] and it's good. That other option is so terrible it shouldn't even be in the game as it is. Engineering consoles that increase power give 3.5 to a single subsystem, leech gives 8 or more to four subsystems. Those disparities are the problem.
That would be awesome. I have absolutely no problems with their being more than one method to complete the objective I just don't want to be forced into needing to use a single option requiring several different specialized roles.
Azure Nebula works that way, kinda. Starbase blockade as well. On another note, not that most people know, but the waves of spawns in the borg STFs do not start their respawn countdown until the existing wave is destroyed. That means with the right amount of CC you don't need to kill wave after wave. Just shove them away with TBR over and over.
its a multiplayer game not singleplayer.Your plethora of games forgets about triple A titles that dont need a server.You dont need a mmo game to play singleplayer with god mode.It will take some time till pve people (including geko ) will understand that you dont need a server or to have a internet connection to play singleplayer .I can play offline singleplayer...I play online because I can play with other people from all over the world...that makes this genre of games different.
Engineering
Emergency Power to Auxiliary -
competes with eptw/s, overshadowed
Has gained relevance recently due to the Nukara Tier 4 space traits (Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense, Auxiliary Power Configuration - Defense). Makes for an interesting choice against Emergency Power to Shields. Cannot compete against Emergency Power to Weapons.
Emergency Power to Weapons -
must have for any dps weapon build overshadows others
Easily the best and most used engineering ability, on top of the bonus to weapons power, it also increases damage done by the weapons themselves. No reason to ever not run this given the opportunity.
Emergency Power to Engines -
competes with eptw/s, overshadowed
Has a role in PvP where mobility has a higher value, but rarely seen in PvE. Does not compete with the other three Emergency Power to X abilities.
Emergency Power to Shields -
must have for nearly every build, overshadows others
The increase to shield power combined with the damage reduction to shields makes this a very powerful ability, putting it in direct competition with Emergency Power to Auxiliary.
Engineering Team -
solid ability, but in limited slotted ships overshadowed by hazard emitters
Presents an interesting choice against Auxiliary Power to Structural Integrity. Gives a non-auxiliary power based hull heal option, which is valuable in certain builds. The trade offs between Aux2SI and ET are clear and interesting: shorter cooldown, smaller heal vs. large cooldown, non-aux based large heal in addition to clearing certain debuffs.
Auxiliary to Batteries -
part of aux2bat build, otherwise never used
The Aux2Batt build is a well documented phenomenon, so it wont be discussed here. The ability by itself has very little value in the face of the Emergency Power to X abilities, making the only reason for its value is how it is modified by duty officers.
Auxiliary to Dampeners -
overshadowed by apomega or polarize hull due to them being immunity
Sees a lot of use in the PvP circles, but is rarely seen in PvE.
Auxiliary to Structural Integrity -
tanking go to ability, otherwise not useful
A fantastic ability that has clear advantages and disadvantages to Engineering Team. It sacrifices debuff clears and a larger heal for a shorter cooldown. Very rank dependant however; low ranks of this ability are usually never seen.
Boarding Party -
crew is meaningless, small targets instantly blown up by any aoe
Because the crew stat itself is meaningless, a major function of this ability has no point. Otherwise, it just becomes a Viral Matrix like ability that can be easily shot down. Very useless as the game stands now. Suggestions for improving this would need to be the improvement of the crew stat itself. If that was given value, then this ability would be given value accordingly.
Directed Energy Modulation -
nice concept, overshadowed by eptw
This ability is still used with some moderation, but is generally dropped in favor of Emergency Power to X abilities. Useless when enemy shields go down.
Extend Shields -
powerful, but limited use due to movement constraints, overshadowed by epts
Not widely used, but has moderate potential. The odd range constraint of 7.5k instead of the standard 10k is annoying and doesnt seem to serve any valuable balance purpose. It is also the only ability that scales with shield power, making its use slightly more engaging in terms of gameplay.
Reverse Shield Polarity -
nearly every build has this due to power it holds
One of the most valuable panic buttons in the game. Is an interesting ability that competes with the Emergency Power to X abilites.
Aceton Beam -
solid concept, but overshadowed by eptw or tykensrift/target subsystem abilites
Occasionally seen in PvP, the opportunity cost is too high to be seen with any regularity in PvE. Its useful, but not more so than the abilities it competes against.
Eject Warp Plasma -
useful ability with DOFF variant, although gravwell has same effect/higher damage
Not commonly seen in PvE. Nothing particularly wrong with it, but it isnt as easy to use as Gravity Well for control, and it competes against several very strong abilities.
Summery:
Useful / Interesting Abilities -
Emergency Power to Auxiliary
Emergency Power to Weapons
Emergency Power to Shields
Engineering Team
Auxiliary to Battery
Auxiliary to Structural Integrity
Reverse Shield Polarity
Situational Abilities -
Eject Warp Plasma
Aceton Beam
Extend Shields
Directed Energy Modulation
Auxiliary to Dampeners
Uninteresting / Not Used Abilities -
Boarding Party
Emergency Power to Engines
Science
Hazard Emitters -
clearing nearly all debuffs with 1 button and healing hull is too powerful
An incredibly powerful ability that is found on nearly every build. Two major end game enemies use weapons with debuffs that this ability clears. It is very strong compared to other heals, and falls into the category of mandatory.
Jam Sensors -
solid concept, but is overshadowed by gravwell/tykensrift or hull/shield regen abilities
The largest flaw of this ability is how fragile it is. Even the slightest amount of damage seems to break it. Its primary purpose, an escape ability, is generally overshadowed by simple things such as Evasive Maneuvers to get out of range of the target and other similar strategies.
Mask Energy Signature -
stealth is meaningless in pve
Was extremely strong at the games launch as it allowed weapons fire while effectively cloaked. Obviously received a much needed nerf, but in the process defeated the major reason for this abilitys existence. Stealth is not valued in PvE, as by its very nature it prevents damage from being done.
Polarize Hull -
only useful at level 1 because of immunity higher ranks overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Only the first rank is useful for the immunity to tractor beams. The damage reduction at high ranks is overshadowed by the usefulness of other abilites.
Science Team -
competes with transfer shield strength for slot (only useful on aux2bat builds or subnucleonic beam using enemies) unless youre a dedicated healer
Competes solidly with Transfer Shield Strength. Adds a debuff clearing effect in addition to an instant shield heal versus a shield damage reduction buff and a heal over time effect. This is a solid and compelling gameplay choice.
Tachyon Beam -
tact/eng abilities do better job and tachyon beam overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
While there is nothing wrong with this abilitys concept, it is simply too weak to make it a viable option compared to the strength of other abilities that compete for its slot. This is purely a numbers issue, rather than a functionality issue.
Tractor Beam -
solid use in correct situations, competes with shield/hull regen abilties
A generally solid ability that does what it is supposed to, but it isn't commonly seen because it lacks AoE functionality which is considered paramount in PvE. It also seems to have trouble against "boss" enemies such as the Tactical Cube in Infected Space: Conduit and Donatra's Scimitar in Khitomer Space: Vortex.
Transfer Shield Strength -
better shield heal then sciteam, no cleanse allows sciteam to compete with it
One of the best science abilities in the game, competes directly with science team. Strengths and weaknesses are observed in the Science Team section.
Charged Particle Burst -
gravwell does more damage, tykens rift stronger control effect
Very few enemies in PvE cloak, and even fewer are even affected by this ability. Serves no discernible purpose with current strength.
Energy Syphon -
tykens rift drains more and is aoe, overshadowed by sheild/hull regen abilities
Seen more in PvP than PvE. Nothing terribly wrong with the ability itself, there are just other abilities such as Tykens Rift that do the job better.
Feedback Pulse -
solid tanking ability, but is largely overshadowed by TSS/SciTeam/hazard emitters
Not seen frequently in PvE due to the nature of its ranking. Rank I starts in the Lieutenant slot, and it isnt powerful enough at that rank to compete with other abilities such as Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield strength on vessels with limited science stations. On science ships, in PvE, it generally serves no purpose as cruisers and escorts are the ones drawing aggro and thus being attacked.
Photonic Officer -
better to run a 2nd ability then use this slot, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Would recommend complete removal of this ability. Never seen, never used. Doesnt compete at all with other abilites.
Tractor Beam Repulsors -
effective on control setup ship, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities otherwise
Used in some builds to increase DPS on multiple targets, it is a valuable control ability that competes against Gravity Well and Tykens Rift. Not as useful in most situations as the other two, it still has a solid place in the game.
Scramble Sensors -
solid concept pve targets recover very quickly, overshadowed by gravwell, shield/hull regen abilities
Due to the single target nature of the ability, it is generally considered less useful than a Gravity Well or Tykens Rift. Nothing wrong with the ability per se, but the nature of PvE encounters favors abilities with an AoE component.
Tykens Rift -
solid concept on control based ship, competes with gravwell, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Slightly more situational than Gravity Well, this ability still holds it own with drain builds.
Gravity Well -
great ability, competes with shield/hull regen abilites (though they still win for most builds)
A mandatory ability if there ever was one. Works very well because of the AoE focus of most PvE encounters. Does respectable damage and the ability to hold ships in place as they detonate, and thus damaging the other ships stuck in the well, makes it invaluable. Overshadows most other sciences abilities on a per slot basis.
Photonic Shockwave -
gravwell better damage, repulsors better for control, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Not widely seen. The stun is too short to really be of any noticeable effect. While a solid concept, it simply cannot compete for limited science slots with other abilities.
Viral Matrix -
tykens rift and polaron weapons do have same effect, overshadowed by shield/hull regen abilities
Had greater value early in STOs life particularly in PvP. While not a bad ability, it suffers the same problem that most other single target abilities do: the current state of PvE heavily favors AoE utility above all else.
Summery:
Useful / Interesting Abilities -
Gravity Well
Hazard Emitters
Transfer Shield Strength
Science Team
Situational Abilities -
Tykens Rift
Energy Syphon
Polarize Hull
Tractor Beam
Tractor Beam Repulsors
Uninteresting / Not Used Abilities -
Viral Matrix
Photonic Shockwave
Scramble Sensors
Jam Sensors
Photonic Officer
Charged Particle Burst
Tachyon Beam
Mask Energy Signature
Tactical
Beam Array: Fire At Will -
solid go to ability
A mandatory ability if beams are being used. Does superior DPS to both single targets and AoE. Suggestions would include severely reducing the amount of damage done by this ability to a single target. There is no reason to use any other ability for beam builds.
Beam Array: Overload -
overshadowed by FAW even without power loss
While the effects of the recent changes to this ability have yet to be seen, it currently has a limited role as a spike damage ability which finds the most value in a PvP environment. There is no reason currently to use this in PvE, given the AoE focus of the majority of PvE encounters and the superior performance of Fire At Will on single targets.
Cannon: Rapid Fire -
overshadowed by scatter fire in most pve STFs due to largely aoe requirements
A useful PvP ability, good for spike damage. Not generally seen in PvE for reasons that have been mentioned (single target vs AoE).
Cannon: Scatter Fire -
solid go to ability
The mandatory ability if cannons are being used. See Beam Array: Fire At Will for more details.
Torpedo: High Yield -
small projectiles/crafts generally blown up against any aoe, overshadowed by spread
Good for spike damage in PvP, torpedoes in general are not highly valued in PvE because of the way tactical consoles stack and the greater overall usefulness of energy weapons. When this ability is used to form targetable projectiles (plasma, transphasic, etc) they are quickly shot down in PvP and depending on the enemy in PvE as well.
Torpedo: Spread -
solid go to ability
See commentary on torpedoes in Torpedo: High Yield. Overall a solid PvE ability.
Dispersal Pattern Alpha -
mines largely unused due to turrets/beam arrays on aft slots being affected by scatter volley/faw
Very rarely seen, due to mines being very underused in the game. It is so underused that no meaningful commentary can be made about the ability itself, only on the usefulness of mines. They have a limited lockon range that can only be increased by a specific trait (large opportunity cost as well as a hassle), and they are easily destroyed by AoE abilities (which is as they are designed, but the tradeoff in terms of damage isnt considered good).
Dispersal Pattern Beta -
mines largely unused due to turrets/beam arrays on aft slots being affected by scatter volley/faw
See Dispersal Pattern Alpha.
Tactical Team -
no reason to use higher ranks then 1 due to other tact abilities gaining far more power
The mandatory ability for every build for the shield balancing alone. It is extremely powerful for this function and greatly improves the survivability of every ship that uses it. Removing the shield balancing would be the first step towards balancing this ability.
Target Weapons Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilities
Cannot be used in conjunction with Beam: Fire At Will or Beam: Overload, and as such the opportunity cost is too high. Only ever seen using in the science ship innate version. Needs to be seriously buffed in all aspects to even be considered a viable choice. Removing this ability would have very little effect on the game at all.
Target Engines Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilities
See Target Weapons Subsystem.
Target Shields Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilties
See Target Weapons Subsystem.
Target Auxiliary Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilties
See Target Weapons Subsystem.
Attack Pattern Beta -
solid ability paired with aoe abilies, team benefits
Very useful ability, nearly always seen on high damage builds where it can be fit. Competes with additional weapon modification abilities (Beam: Fire At Will, Cannon: Scatter Volley et al). Is an interesting gameplay choice.
Attack Pattern Delta -
solid ability for damage and tanking, team benefits
Not commonly seen, can be situationally useful especially on tanks. Will usually never be taken over Attack Pattern Beta or Omega. Not a bad ability, but it has a hard time competing with others.
Attack Pattern Omega -
solid abilitiy for damage and/or escape
See Attack Pattern Beta.
Summery:
Useful / Interesting Abilities -
Beam: Fire At Will
Cannon: Scatter Volley
Attack Pattern Beta
Attack Pattern Omega
Tactical Team
Situational Abilities -
Beam: Overload
Cannon: Rapid Fire
Torpedo: High Yield
Torpedo: Spread
Attack Pattern Delta
Uninteresting / Not Used Abilities -
Dispersal Pattern Alpha
Dispersal Pattern Beta
Target Weapons Subsystem
Target Engine Subsystem
Target Shields Subsystem
Target Auxiliary Subsystem
My biggest complaints about space:
Powers, stats, and skills
Overall, I think the biggest problem isn't the rock-paper-scissors of how the powers work. It's that too many powers are must-haves for multiple reasons. HE is a t1 cleanse AND heal. TT buffs damage AND redistributes shields. APO buffs def, damage, AND breaks holds. You're losing lots of build diversity because there are all these powers that no sane person would go without, and I think that ideally, there should never be a power in the game where someone would look at your taskbar and say "why would you not have that power? Go get that power, you need it, everyone needs it!" There needs to be some opportunity cost to powers like these.
-For solo missions and lacking teams, Engineering needs more offensive options and attention in general, there are so many powers there that aren't really worth investing or slotting, and I think that's a big reason so many people have moved from cruisers to escorts. This is disregarding A2B of course, which is one single build and is living on borrowed time. In the meantime, we have so many redundant heals and power transfers, but no way to help our weapons outside of EPTW & DEM. DEM, EWP, BP, AtD all spring to mind as things that have very singular niche build uses, but generally wouldn't be apparent options to lower level new players and would never get slotted or tried like that.
-Science could also use more team supporting debuffs. How are APB and FOMM, the best debuffs in game, both tac powers? TAC is supposed to hurt, sci is supposed to help them hurt smarter/more effectively. Maybe some kind of sci power like "coordinated targeting" that gives allies firing at your target a weak plasmonic leech affect or debuff to enemy weapon/power cds something. Trade tac sci's disables.
-Tacs should be engaging the team's target, sci should be coordinating the tacs and eng, eng should be keeping everyone buffed and alive. Instead it's currently just tacs buffing themselves up, debuffing the target, engaging the target, then breaking off to leave combat and instaheal while eng and sci either try to emulate that or stay out of the way.
-In my opinion, the ideal order of a team battle should be like:
1) Sci identifies, calls target, and debuffs it.
2) Eng Buffs tac.
3) Tac engages.
4) Eng keeps tac and sci alive and buffed. Sci keeps target debuffed and generally gremlin-ed so tac can do his job.
5) Target dies, eng gets everybody fixed up, and the sci finds a new target
6) Back to 1
-Get rid of the out of combat instaheal. That should only be a thing in sector space, in system space you should be relying on abilities from yourself or your team.
-DEM without dulmur is flat out lacking given its current investment and slotting requirements. It's only useful at CMDR level and at that point, there's universally better things to slot there. At least it gets useful, unlike boarding party. More on that further down.
-EPS greasing the wheels on your ship for incoming power drain from enemies needs to be fixed, that's a long time issue that really bugs me.
-Crew needs to be made useful in some capacity, and by extension boarding party needs to actually be worth using. I trust you to think of a better way to implement this than anyone on the forums or reddit. But please, don't mess with my beloved jem hadar doff that sticks point defense consoles on the shuttles, that's awesome.
-Fleet support is kind of pointless right now. One star cruiser every 15 minutes? At least make it a useful NPC like a Vesta or something that'll scramble some fighters, sensor scan my enemy, heal me, and suppliment my DPS. Plus that'd be an awesome commercial and a throwback back to the new tutorial.
-We need more placates and confuses, the 2 we have aren't very competitive/effective because of the prevalence of so many cost-less cleanses on top of their very weak, not adjusted for DPS creep breaking thresholds. Flavor-wise, I'd like to see more ECM/Electronic warfare options. That's really neglected right now. We've got jam sensors, scramble sensors, viral matrix, and mask energy signature. Surely there's more electronics on board our ships than that. If you can make crew useful, cutting off life support would be an example of this applied for a good ability. Another might be to mess with an enemy's weapon CDs. Maybe a confuse that spreads between enemies?
-Speaking of MES, it's alright when fully specced into, but given the opportunity cost there, it could really use some love. I think the Hirogen ships' and Stalker's innate lower detection rate was a step in the right direction. Why not create that disparity entirely based on ship sensors vs ship stealth, add some fog of war-ish-ness?
-There's no need for a HP gate for ramming speed. If the captain wants to ram, let him ram. If anything it should just be a passive collision+speed thing like you introduced in viscous cycle and ramming speed the power should just buff your ship to take advantage of the mechanic.
Builds
-Pet play is a little lacking right now. Most RPGs have a dedicated pet class, here it's like everyone can have a pet. This gets especially silly when ships that are perfectly fine in their own right like any of the HEC's, the Narcine, the Scimitar, the JHDC also get a hangar. Pet usage should be a specialization. Let us get tac consoles that let us spec away from our ship's weapons and towards pet survivability and damage. In this thread I presented an answer to this issue that I still strongly support, more than anything else in this post, hear me out in here! Also, speaking of pets, please consider adding some more definite roles between them. Something like: Frigates focus on anti-fighter/torp picket duties, shuttles and runabouts debuff, hunt stealthed units and heal, fighters hunt down bombers and shuttles, bombers hit your target hard. Right now they're all just flying energy weapons platforms with a bridge officer ability or two. They could use some distinct categorization, I feel like such a jackass explaining to a noob that the difference between fighters and shuttles is "fighters are just better, go for elite scorpions."
-Think about engineering on ground. We can deploy shield gens, med gens, turrets, mortars, support drones, seeker drones, buffs from combat supply, and minefields. In space we get fighters and underpowered satellite turrets. Minefields are useless, our turrets are laughable, we have no repair platform wards, no buff containers...
-HECs need to stop. Tacs put out enough damage, they do not need pets. Talk about making the rest of the trinity obsolete. Engineers need pets for DPS suppliment while they keep them healed and buffed, IE the neglected FDCS, scis need pets to do damage to the targets they've debuffed, harkening to the science-y roots of the Vesta and Atrox.
-Defense is the redheaded step child of stats right now. Crit and acc overflow are out of control, speed and evasion were sealed in a tomb and buried long ago. Evasion tanking should be a build option, and yet, if one were to assign the players' ability to spec into ACC/Crit and Defense into a number line, Acc at the positive and Def at the negative end, one would be able to spec to 125 in accuracy and 100 in defense before hitting their respective caps, so even the full spec of def is still useless against anyone who's specced more than 80% into acc, which everyone already does. The math's not sound, I'm not a spreadsheet warrior, but that is the situation. An ACC specced guy just pulls up to the fight passively feeling all his benefits while a speed tank has to buff up and manage cooldowns or die. You can max def/speed and still not match the benefits from a maxed att/crit build, and that disparity needs to be addressed.
Weapons
-At LoR, you introduced the ammo mechanic with the flamethrower and those purple plasma weapons from the Dil store. It would be awesome to see something like that in space for select weapons.
-We need some way to get end-game viable specialty weapons. Transphasic cluster torps and piercing tets both come to mind as things that would really bring some needed build-potential to their damage families if there were MK 12 versions available. Quad cannons especially should be worth the 20 dollars they cost...
-Single cannons and mines need some rethinking too. The Hirogen single cannon was a great idea, a sniper role in space would be awesome. 12 KM spike damage from a weak dps weapon. That's an idea that should be refined for more single cannons, I'd love to see sniper ships in game. We need more role diversity. Right now it's mainly ATB-FAW-APB cruisers and decloaking vape scimitars. Not to mention, if you have sniper ships, then Science ships get another duty added to their role by using their sensors and debuffs to designate targets that the sniper might not be able to see because of the better sensor/stealth fog of war system i mentioned earlier.
-Speaking of mines, those turret satellite devices are all but useless. Why not give them the ability to self destruct like mines, coupled with that AoE you gave mines with the 8472 rep? That modifier alone really added more usefulness to mines. Hell, turn the satellite turrets into a 1 per ship mine weapon, replace their beam array with a point defense turret (5km cannon with bonus to torps and fighters, small pecking damage to bigger ships), run it off the ammo mechanic from the LoR weapons or the Omega torp, and BOOM, suddenly we have a nice little space fieldworks option, you can lay a few point defense turrets to block a corridor that explode and do high radius damage to a too-close large ship. Adds diversity and answers to pet play, diversity and usefulness for mine spec, and a new dimension to space combat.
PVE
-Everyone in the galaxy has aegis shields or adaptive fleet shields. It's time to give the borg space forces adaptive shields they're supposed to have had for decades now. Speaking of which, the borg were fearsome enemies in the show. They'd hit you with a tractor beam and start cutting into you and you'd be spamming the coms like OH GOD HELP, they'd beam over and start taking over your ship. Make them more likely to use the tractor beam-cutting beam combo, but make it MUCH harder to break without teammates pulling you free somehow. Same with assimilate ship/borg boarding party. Make it like a disable/CD debuff that only has a chance to cleanse on TT or whatever. Between adapting shields, Better disables/debuffs, and stronger holds that require co-op break outs, that's 3 things that can bring the borg back into their canon ferocity.
-We need elite space queues to fight tholians in for accolades, nukara, and NR marks. And I mean new ones that don't involve a giant pinecone or hitting full impulse every five seconds between a couple different objective areas like ANR and the Vault. You guys have to do something with the tholians, that whole tangent has so much unused potential between Nukara and New Romulus.
Misc Space issues
-Our first officer currently plays no function whatsoever. It'd be interesting if they allowed us use of a single lower-tier or less effective scaled usage of their profession's captain ability or a boff only equivalent.
-The C store ships need to stop coming with ship-only consoles. I know it cuts down on dev time, but I bought my thunder child for the point def and my NX for the grappler, and I fly neither and put those consoles on lots of ships. I would've bought the Avenger and patrol escort for the Vata and phaser bomb if I could use them on other ships (at least cruisers in the Vata's case). I'd buy more ships and spend more dil on builds if I could play with consoles locked to single ships, and no I don't mean the defiant cloak, leave that alone. I mean the Vata, Torp Point Defense, Nadeon bomb, etc...
-Bring back rechargable batteries, give freighter/civvie ships some kind of love now that their crafting abilities are moot, let us use those lockbox traits and skills on our boffs. And for the love of god, let us spec our ground and space traits and skills from separate, NOT SHARED pools, or add an option in the c store that lets me buy enough trait slots and skill cap raises to spec both how I want them.
-The freighters in enterprise could drop their cargo and zip around when attacked. If their crafting advantage is null, what if freighters could drop their cargo box in combat, making a space combat supply or repair ward, and add miniscule damage support from their 3 weapons while relying on an extremley high evasion stat or low sensor sig to stay alive?
-Sort of space related: small craft need some kind of look. I enjoyed atmosphere assault, that was a good proof of concept. Could we not touch something up, make something a little better now?
If that's the case, then why bother pretending there's any roles at all? Get rid of careers, let people customize their ships to have the bridge officer powers and consoles they like, go completely freeform with it.
If there's going to be classes and careers then it stands to reason that there needs to be an actual reason to have those classes and careers. Right now the gameplay rewards one thing only: damage. If it's going to reward one thing only, then at least let players do that one thing in any ship they want.
Hazard Emitters cleanses basically every debuff, which naturally makes it a must-have (though I've been successfully running a cruiser build without HE). Taking some of HE's cleanses and giving them to other abilities might not be inappropriate (thinking an Eng heal like A2SIF here).
1) Aceton Beam and Boarding Party: Two powers that are so weak that people only use them if they just have too many Engineering slots. They need a broad redesign.
2) Directed Energy Modulation: Great with Marion and A2B. Otherwise, the cooldown is way too long for a kinda meh power.
3) Ensign Engineering powers (aka why people are still mad about the Galaxy): There's just an issue with shared cooldowns and other powers for the Engineering branch. While messing with emergency powers may help, I really just think either you need to knock some powers down a level or create new ones.
4) Auxiliary to Dampeners: Why doesn't this break tractor beams? It would be a better general power (or Emergency Power to Engines) if it did.
5) Photonic Officer: What should have been more A2b in the first place.
6) Tachyon Beam: Weak. Needs to drain shields better.
7) Charged Particle Burst: In PVE barely does anything.
8) Mask Energy Signature: Pseudo cloak that does nothing.
I think the problem overall is that Engineering heavy ships don't have enough choices in powers, and both Engineering and Science ships have issues with dealing damage. I think the resistance is too easy for Science damage powers/disables, and they need to have more ooomph.
Tactical Team - Remove shield redistribution power, increase the damage bonus
Reasoning: Tac Team right now is one of the ultimate, must-have defensive abilities. Shield distribution, clearing boarding parties, and the damage bonus (plus the attack pattern bonus with the BO) means that this power is super powerful. Removing the shield distribution power makes sense to focus this ability as an offensive (tactical) power, and also with the buffs to boarding party and crew usefulness (below) makes this ability more of a choice instead of a necessity.
*New Skill* Adaptive Shields (Engineering) - Automatic shield distribution (possibly shield hardness buff?)
Reasoning: With the shield distribution power being removed from tac team, this power is almost good enough to have as its own slot in Engineering. Flavors might modify the speed at which shields are transferred from facings, and if that doesn't seem to be enough for an individual power, add a shield hardness buff to the power.
Boarding Party (Maybe move to tactical?)- either increase shuttle shields/hull, or give a BO that allows instant boarding party (beam through shields)
-possibly allow beam through shields if lower than 25% instead of using shuttles
Reasoning: As has been said upthread, Boarding Party is one of the hardest skills go gauge at how useful it is. Besides the fact that the shuttles launched take one beam hit (FAW being so prevalent these days, you might as well say it is useless), the effect on enemy ships are not that visible to the players using the skill. With suggested ability changes to tac team, changes to BP would make TT a much more powerful counter to this skill
Make crew more useful and less susceptible to loss via direct damage. A way to make them more useful is to have crew status (%) modify the skill recharge times. (IE skill recharge time increased 20% if you lose 80% of your crew, scaled by percentage of crew / max crew - also IE lose 40% of your crew, skill recharge increased 10%)
Reasoning: I always feel strange when I'm flying around with 50 crew in an oddyssey without taking too much damage. Add to that the fact that crew only seem to be useful in passive hull repair, there doesn't seem to be any reason to take any of the consoles that reduce crew loss/use. Increasing their effect on your ship's whole effectiveness would make Boarding/Assimilation that much more scary, and also make the previously mentioned skills that much more useful choices.
Emergency Power to * - Remove the hardcap and replace with a softcap at 125 with diminishing returns after 125.
Reasoning: These abilities seem to be underpowered, largely because of the 125 power hard cap. I'd almost prefer a soft cap with a diminishing effect over what was the hardcap to make reasons to take these powers while maxing those power settings.
Aux2Batt - Significantly reduce the power bonus (and corresponding drain)
Reasoning: Besides the prevalence and the perceived unbalance of Aux2Batt, diminishing the effectiveness of this power would balance things out slightly so that you can't get away with running 5 power on a system without it effecting your, um, effectiveness.
Aux2Damp - Remove or drastically increase crew loss resistance
Reasoning: Not even sure if this ability is used by anyone (especially since it partially duplicates brace for impact)
Directed Energy Modulation - Change ability to add to hull damage instead of creating a separate hull tick. Have bonus based on weapon damage instead of flat bonus (?)
Reasoning: Having a separate hull tick creates confusion as to how effectively this ability works. Also having this be a percentage of weapon damage instead of a flat bonus based on power level might boost the usefulness of this power. (Latter change may be too much).
Aceton Beam - Reduce the cooldown to 1m, reduce weapon damage reduction to compensate. Cleansed with engineering team.
Reasoning - Aceton beam is stupidly powerful right now, but equipping it is almost too hard a choice because of the stupidly large cooldown. Reducing the cooldown to be in line with other high-performance abilities (like Grav Well) while reducing damage reduction would make this ability a more sensibly balanced choice for equipping.
*New Skill* Ion Radiation Beam (Engineering) - 1m cooldown, accuracy debuff. Cleansed with engineering team.
Reasoning - Another alternative to debuffing using Aceton beam, also makes stacking defense (and using engine power) more effective against people not stacking accuracy
*New Skill* Baryon Overload (Engineering) - 1m cooldown, turn and movement debuff. Cleansed with engineering team.
Reasoning - A way to deal with those pesky people trying to turn their escorts into fighters. Another alternative to tractor beam. Also would increase usefulness of wider arc weapons without buffing the numbers.
Tachyon Beam - Increase shield drain
Reasoning - right now, while the total shield drain may be a sizeable number, because of shield redistribution and tac team (now), this ability is much less effective than the numbers imply
*New Ability* Tachyon Rift (or other name?) (Science) - AoE shield drain and shield hardness debuff, cloaking debuff
Reasoning - Science abilities need some serious tweaking right now. Only having 2 reliable damage abilities means that there aren't enough alternatives to to Grav Well and Tyken's Rift. More abilities that have offensive purposes would mean more choices for science captains.
Photonic Shockwave - change origin from immediate area to area of target (including enemies)
Reasoning - would make this a more reliable damage dealer instead of whiffing (super annoying to whiff with this ability which means much less likely to be used)
Tractor Beam - Change the way the beam tic refresh works - total trac time should be indicated in the active skill instead of refreshing every few seconds
Reasoning - I think one of the major reasons this skill is overlooked is that it's very hard to judge the effectiveness of this skill due to judging the approximate time it will be active.
*New Skill* Sensor Sweep (Science) - Cloaking detect +250% (or some other large number) in forward arc for 20s, +100% in other arcs for 20s. (maybe a doff added effect)
Reasoning - Cloakers are stupidly overpowered due to their crazy alpha strike abilities. Feds in particular are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to combatting cloaked ships.
*New Skill* Corbomite Reflector (Science) - Energy invulnerability, high% damage reflection using shields. 1m cooldown, short duration (2/4/6s or something).
Reasoning - An alternative to Feedback Pulse, and a way to make alpha strikers (and other spike damage overbuffers) much more hesitant to pop everything at the same time
...more meta ideas as I come up with them.
( says Marshall Rosenburg, the diplomacy expert) - wiki it
Here we go
Subsystem Attacks:
In my opinion ....this ability could really help the game feel more like Star Trek. Currently while in combat a ship only recieves a temporary power drain to a subsystem or the subsystem is disabled for 3 - 10 sec.
I propose that the subsystem attacks function as they are, except they have "a critical chance to cause subsystem actual subsystem damage during combat". Therefore during regular play a subsystem can accumulate damage from the white damage level all the way to the red. ( even if the ship is not destroyed).
Subsystem repairs could require a repair component linked to a duty officer assignment in the duty officer system and or the Crafting system and or a Starbase Engineer. A time component could be added to repair a subsystem increasing repair times.
The second part of this system would allow for a Critical hit to "damage or disable a console" if the subsystem damage is in the red damage level. Console repairs would require the crafting system or a starbase engineer
** remember , the current system of subsystem power drain or temporary disabling is still in effect **
usage example:
So players could use a repair component to run a Doff assignment that repairs the subsystems. Repairs would happen whenever the assignment was complete, so even in the middle of action , systems could be coming back online as your engineers repair subsystems. If you don't take care of your white yellow and red repair flags your ship slowly degrades in performance until there is a chance of you actually damaging your console.
PVE and Role playing benefits:
Ships could be disabled in many ways. Allowing for more diplomatic solutions to complete mission objectives without distruction and killing. This also requires mission objectives that do not require an enemy be destroyed.
*** I would even say this is a first step towards a functioning Diplomacy system **
*Crazy Advanced thought:
Due to crafting we actually could have a list of components that make up each console. When console damage started, it could trigger critical chances to destroy these components. When crafting is used to repair a console , a player could actually replace the individual parts, ( my pants are wet now ).
Tachyon Beam:
Tachyon beam is an overcharged blast from the main deflector, so the 90 degree firing arc is an essential part of this skill. I agree it is not powerfull enough , I have been trying dual tachyon III builds with very little success.
Masked Energy Signature: or (MES)
I have been using the ability Masked Energy Signature II. I use this to avoid combat with moderate success, at around 10km I get detected in PVP capture n hold scenarios. Masked energy signature I barely works on PVE.
I like the Role playing value of this skill, it allows for many more options to avoid combat during regular play. This might even be considered essential for fist contact diplomacy missions and similar type scenarios. It could be reccomended in foundry missions to avoid combat.
Possible Solutions:
I feel that if masked energy signature utilized an ensign slot, and had an increased Auxillary Power multiplier it would become more useful. ( what if ? 130% Aux power + Masked Energy Signature I was as effective as a Masked Energy III.
I always cringe when I assign this skill to anything above ensign level.
Facts:
** Masking an energy signature means reducing emmisions. Emmissions like sensors scans. Sensor range could be reduced when MES is active. Engine emmissions, (full impulse already reduces Aux power so this should scale properly during Full Impulse ***
:cool: To Sir Boulevard: A fun thought regarding teamwork in pVp
A new ensign skilled called "Tachyon detection grid I"
This Powers would only work when other players have it active. The skill creates a cloak detection grid that extends 5-10km from each participating player. "If possible the distance stacks with each additional player that activates the ability. This skill could scale with Auxillery Power.
This type of shared skill could be a way to increase teamwork in pvp scenarios.
Gravity Well.
- What if Gravity well effected friends and foes ???-
- Allow Planets asteroids ,and objects to be the target of Gravity well
- add Collision Damage on combat maps.
Torpedo Spread:
- I agree with less torpedo animations
- I agree sounds need to be adjustable,, a weapons volume would be nice
( foot step volume would be nice too)
Feedback Powers in general.
They don't seem to be powerfull enough in general and don't redirect enough damage back to the enemy
Power levels:
In the past I have noted that having your power slider all the way up , is much more effective than raising a power level via an emergency power boost. This should be clarified or fixed. Just try it with shields.
Tractor beams could use an increase in holding power, esspecially for tractor beam III. Pvp players blow through it like it isn't there.
Eject warp plasma is very weak too, I see players fly around in it like its thier favourite lunch soup.
Directed energy Modulation :
I don't even notice when this skill is acitve. This power with a subsystem attack should be deadly.
Increased hull hit points
I agree with the idea of increasing hull hit points by 3 times or more in order to make battles more stable.
Lets make these ships feel solid, and hard to destroy, The solid duranium hull should last long after all the subsystems are burnt out.
My Goal is to make powers more immersive for roleplaying and fun for Pvp/Pve too, cause eventually they will be the same thing
Thank you for taking the time to read.
See you , out there :cool:
The main problem I see with this is that no matter what we come up with here, or whatever fixes are done to boff powers, or whatever like that, it won't do much in the end. The problems go a lot farther than boff powers.
I fly my non-cloaking tac escort into a PvP arena match and feel pretty much useless, but why? Because unless the ship I'm shooting at is a newbie, I know that I'm not going to get much of anywhere. I focus fire on someone, and my shots maybe take some health, but then bounce off as they heal and resist everything away and I can't touch them. And then there's the special effects, the AoE, everwhere. Clouds of plasma and radiation, bubbles of who the hell knows what, carrier pets and gravity wells and everything going everywhere. I get smacked to death with my shields up, and it's over.
Here's what I'm getting at. Lockbox, fleet, reputation, and doff garbage. Everywhere. No matter what we change of the base mechanics, it won't do much to help PvP. There's so much stuff built up on it - clickies, uber resistances via consoles and gear, doffs, cloak spam, pet spam, gravity well spam, plasma spam - that boff power or subsystem changes will not fix the problem. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't balance the basics of the PvP metagame. That's still needed. Let me go through the different categories and my thoughts.
- Doffs. They weren't a problem for a long time, until ridiculous ones came about. There's one that can make RSP go on for something like 15-20 seconds, there's one that can create extra grav wells, there's Keel'el, there's Marion, there's the BO bleedthroughs... the list goes on. It's not good.
- Clicky consoles. Too many of them. The ones that belong to C-store ships of their own faction have always been there and aren't an issue. But all those lock box things, the ones that give you instant heals, or instant damage, or a free ticket to escape (which gives time to use the other magic heals to get back to full health) or a super resist, or an AoE mess.
- All these resistances. New gear from each new rep and crafting and C-store ship or giveaway brings something crazy to the table.
Okay look, I'm just tired now of writing this, but you get the idea. There's so much stuff screwed up piling on top of PvP that unless something is done about it, the basics won't matter. If you truly want to help PvP, Hawk, then we - you and us, the community - need to come together and decide what stays and what goes. The only way to really fix PvP is disabling or seriously bringing in line the junk. Yes, it would require a split of the PvE world and PvP world, and yes it would be a monumental task.
But if you take the first step, we'll support you the whole way.
I have a bit more feedback to add to my earlier suggestions:
Engineering Captain Powers
Nadion Inversion: Power drain is easily mitigated in many other ways, so this ability has been rendered drastically less useful. My favorite use for this until recently was for the occasional beam overload/phaser lance spike, but that's no longer necessary. As of right now, it's a momentary respite from an enemy drain build. I think this one could be drastically reworked or replaced with something more useful. I'd rather see a debuff clearer that could be cast on allies, or some kind of damage booster -- nadions are related to phasers, after all.
EPS Power Transfer: Again, power is cheap and plentiful these days. While this ability is more useful than Nadion Inversion, and it's nice that it can be cast on an ally, it's still no match for Sensor Scan or Attack Pattern Alpha. Not by a long shot.
Miracle Worker: A solid hull and shield heal. With the addition of Grace Under Fire, this is an awesome ability. I just wish that it could be used on allies.
Science Captain Powers
Photonic Fleet: I've always felt that this one was a little lackluster. It wouldn't feel right as a major damage-dealing ability, but it also doesn't seem to do a great job of distracting the enemy or drawing fire, either. I'm not sure what to do with this one, but right now it mostly just clutters the field of battle.
Aux2Damp builds exist, mainly for ships like the Scimitar or Mogh where agility is desired and Aux2Batt can be dropped due to other sources of getting your Emergency Power and Tactical abilities on short cooldowns. A certain costly doff also stretches the power's bonus to kinetic resistance over to all other resistances.
Make NPCs capable of the same things players are. PvP needs work, yes. But in it is the only time you face anyone REMOTELY on the same level as you. Every player has 12 BOff powers, on top of a smattering of Captain abilities, for a usual total of about 20 powers they can pop at any given time. NPCs commonly have... what, three? Four? I'd like to see NPCs with player-level builds. I'd especially like it if there were variants which spawned semi-randomly - spice up PvE gameplay. And this is already in the game with the Breen Chel Grets. The Cruiser has Subnuke, the Warship doesn't. So you CAN do it. But instead, have, say, five different types of Voth Bastion Cruisers with slightly different BOff layouts. NPCs don't feel like enemy ships. You don't have the feel of "that's a ship with an enemy crew and an enemy captain that might be a threat." NPCs are target practice. If there were various builds - maybe with various stats and maybe even Active DOffs, as well - you would get the feel that yes, that is another SHIP. That is a CREW. They may be a challenge. It would make single-player PvE a lot more fun, and make Queued PvE especially difficult.
But how does this affect the meta? Well... some NPC ships might be really heavy hitters - to the point that squishy Escorts can't do much before going pop. But some might be fairly tanky. Frankly, I think the meta of "Frigate, Escort/Cruiser, Battleship" should be done away with. Frigate squadrons are trash mobs anyway and they threaten no one. It's a Space representation of a concept that only works on the ground. Throw that away. Instead, have each class of ship be unique and present a unique challenge. Let's use the Klingons as an example. Right now, you have Birds of Prey as Frigates, Raptors and Vor'Cha as mid-tier, and Negh'Vars as Battleships. In this system, you'd have a SINGLE Bird-of-Prey that does a LOT of damage and is maneuverable (and maybe cloaks every now and again to be sneaky). It would use Tactical Captain abilities and have a fairly Tactical BOff layout. Or maybe have a smattering of Science powers - represent how a player's BoP can vary. Raptors would still have a Tactical BOff layout, but might use Engineering Captain powers. The Vor'cha would still have the Engineering Captain powers, but would have a more Engineering-heavy BOff load. And then Negh'Vars would have either Tactical or Engineering Captains and heavy doses of Tactical and Engineering BOff powers. Another good example might be the Voth. Palisades might use Science Captain and BOff powers. Bastions might have an Engineer leanings for its BOffs and a Tactical or Engineer Captain. Bulwarks would likely have a Tactical Captain with heavy Engineer leanings to be a mix of DPS and durability. This would cause players to plan for high DPS and high durability enemies in PvE - meaning they might not want to go DPS, because it might not be the best option. Make PvE variable enough that you want to do another role. Make people WANT to tank. Make Threat skills generate appropriate amounts of Threat (since most DPS builds generate more Threat than ANY cruiser, no matter how many Threat bonuses they have). Make 30k DPS worthwhile, but also make tanking viable.
Of course, none of the above means spit in PvP. So, what do we do about that? A good solution might be to take a page out of TOR's book. They actually have Treat abilities there. In PvE, it forces NPCs to target you. But you can't rightly do that in PvP, so what it does is it causes a MASSIVE damage debuff (something like 30% I think) to the Taunted (their version of Threat) player UNLESS they target the player that Taunted them. Basically, in this scenario, any enemy players in weapon range get a damage debuff against everyone EXCEPT the Cruiser using Attract Fire. This means that having a tank protects the team by effectively shielding everyone from damage. But that would lead to MOST cruisers just being burned down because DPS is so stupidly high. So, my second proposal would be to make Cruisers a LOT beefier. A Defiant-class ship, less than the size of a Galaxy-class saucer section, shouldn't have a hull strength equal to half to two-thirds of the entire Galaxy-class ship. Double or even triple the hull of most Cruisers. Make the ships that are supposed to tank actually tanky. While every CAPTAIN should be able to do any role, that role should be solidly defined by the ship. While this would require additional balancing - some Cruisers are fairly capable DPS ships and this would need to be corrected somewhat to prevent "god ships" that can do everything.
Finally, there are some abilities that need specific attention (or abilities for which I have neat ideas), in no particular order:
Nifty new powers:
Beam Rapid Fire (does what it says on the tin).
Cannon Overload (also does what it says on the tin).
So, to summarize... much must be changed. But effectively... balance the game so that tanks and non-DPS are viable. 'Cause they're not.
My god... Please uninstall STO before you ruin what's left of it.
Rather than drastically alter the behavior of Technician doffs, keep making Aux power important- buff Aux to ID with hold resistance and Aux to SIF with debuff cleansing. And buff the strength of sci shield drains so they're actually noticeable in PvE (yes, this would make them OP against players. I don't care.).
First - thank you for even starting this. You might want to create some sort of vote to sort through all the suggestions to get some sort of consensus form the members.
Nicha's comments are all valid, but I want to focus here: PvP as a minority has too much control on the game in general. For a group that counts as a few hundred 'part time' players, with a dozen active voices. They have too much influence on the changes you make.
Hell yes - especially to these three ideas.
I would like to take an aside to talk about why I fly the ships I fly. I fly mostly cruisers, and tend to stick to the modern Enterprises (Galaxy, Sovereign, and Odyssey). Having been around back when cruisers were more limited to healing roles and thus experienced both that meta and this one, I have decided that I prefer to be offensively capable even at the expense of tankiness. Even if cruisers become low DPS ships only good at healing or tanking, I will likely continue to fly one as it is aesthetically my ship type of choice. One of the major design choices of the game was to unlink ship choice from captain type, such that any captain could fly any ship. I feel like a natural extension of this is to unlink ship role from ship type to some extent.
It seems from posts made by developers that the standard Federation ship classes are intended to be balanced around a Damage/Hull Healing/Shield Healing trinity corresponding to Escorts/Cruisers/Science Vessels respectively. Science also has "space magic" which provides seemingly sub par exotic damage, several debuffs, and some hull heals. Engineering has energy modifying abilities and a grab bag of ineffectual damage dealing abilities along with some shield heals. Tactical has, besides the wide array of weapon and stat buffs, several debuffs that either add to the damage done to enemies or disable their systems. This shows a wide range of abilities already available to each type of bridge officer and a lack of focus on what each type should do.
What seems natural to me, given an environment where DPS is critical, is to make the offensive options available to each of the bridge officer types equivalent with each other. I would redefine the trinity to be one distributing the type of defensive abilities available to each type of bridge officer as Speed(Defense)/Hull Healing/Shield Healing for Tactical/Engineering/Science respectively. Engineering and Science bridge officers would have access to abilities with equal offensive capabilities to the current tactical staples such as FAW or CRF. Defensively, Tactical Officers would see some older abilities changed, or new ones added, that provided defensive options focused on speed and the avoiding of hits much like how Escorts speed tank now. Engineering officers would have abilities focused on the Maintnence and Repair of Hull damage. Science officers would focus on hardening and regenerating the shields. In this way all ships could spec for as much damage or defensiveness as the captain desired while being able to maintain the flavor of their type.