If you want Cryptic to show us the numbers as to what is really going on with the pets, and the full calculations of the proposed "adjustment," and what effect would realistically be seen in-game, please post here.
Only if we actually see hard proof in the numbers of a) how or if the current setup is out of whack or b) how severe, or maybe not quite as much, the actual proposal is, will we be in any kind of position to discuss this in a way that could actually help.
Yes, I will admit I am upset in that post but not blinded by rage.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
wow, 18 pages i just read, most of it negative. First: My Caitian Atrox Carrier can stand a good amount of abuse and I have had no trouble with it's carrier commands. I am sure i am not the only one. Second: I know, and I am sure I am not the only one who does this, I disable Zone chat in game because it was full of this bashing the devs bull that i just read a lot of. Since DR went live, i have personally noticed my standard stalker pets take down the shield facing on a Mogai with little trouble. Rather disturbing as my ship loadout is set up to maximize my initial damage supported by my skill allocation. Third: So far, I have had no trouble with my pets dodging core breaches and sometimes can go an entire mission without having to relaunch 1 of my 12 stalkers. The trick to it is that the player is the main AI for the hangar pets, when i am close to destroying an npc i recall my fighters to heal so that they are in my Atrox's hangar when the npc goes up. Yeah, i admit they seem a bit op and i can't speak for KDF or Romulan pets as I have yet to play a Romulan and I am just now starting my first complete KDF alt.
This all boils down to player strategy and tactics, not what the devs are doing. My opinion of the dev bash session is simple: if you have that much a problem the delete your damn account and shut up so those of us who want to play the game can without it being ruined by your garbage. I am sure that there are people, like me, who read the forums, but say little. I am finally speaking out because i am tired of seeing the constant rally cry of cryptic did this, cryptic did that. This is JUST A GAME, NOT LIFE! I have no idea what the whole Japori thing was because i was focused on nurturing my fledgling fleet at the time but i can see to an extent the need to scale down the hangar pets. I am set up to be supported by mine and they are outdoing me. That is a problem. I will agree there are bigger issues needing resolved but that is the way of things in ALL mmorpg's. I personally love my Atrox and plan to upgrade my pets and get the t5u upgrade for it. I am a science player with only one non-science alt. Cryptic has fixed a lot as things go. Holodeck is more stable than it has been in two years, the game takes up less than 15 GB of my hard drive (use to take over 40 gigs). Yes, there are issues needing resolved but there is a lot that has been fixed too. Calling for CBS and Paramount to pull the license is both childish and stupid as that means a lot of people will lose a lot of time and effort they put into the game. I have yet to see CBS or Paramount hand a license to a product over to another company and I know that even if they did, who is to say that they won't hand it to someone that will do a WORSE job of managing this game than Cryptic and PWE are? Think about that one people! I personally enjoy Star Trek Online and plan to continue to do so and continue to play it for the foreseeable future.
In some cases, the sum of the players pets were far outperforming the players ship itself.
In some cases, why shouldn't the damage from pets be more than the carrier? I'm not being facetious there, asking a real question.
My Klingon girl has the free Vo'quv (nothing I really can upgrade her to except the fleet version, which is waaaaay down the fleet tree). She doesn't do a whole lot of damage herself, but she can zone control very well with officer abilities, consoles, and some special gear powers while her pets swarm around enemies (especially when they hit 3 or 4 stars).
Why shouldn't this be a genuine build option? I kind of enjoy it as a change of pace, feels more like a "general" commanding my squad, and breaks the monotony of "space bar until it dies."
Not to mention this is also more true to life of an actual "carrier." When an aircraft carrier arrives on your doorstep, it's not really the guns and missiles on the boat you need to worry about.
We will be making some changes to Carrier Pets (e.g. Peregrine Fighters, To'Duj Fighter, Klingon Bird of Prey Pets, etc.), separation pets (like a Galaxy separated saucer, MVAM Pets, and TalKyr Support craft, etc.), as well as similarly related pets (like the Odyssey Work Bees, consumable device Scorpion Fighters, Gorn Healing Platform Drones, etc.). All these items are leveless items and all these pets were using incorrect data that was causing their HP, shields, damage and healing to be too high. In some cases, the sum of the players pets were far outperforming the players ship itself. The HP, shields, damage, healing and related values for these pets are all being reduced to scale more consistently with other player gear.
Pets that are not affected are those that deal damage based on the player, instead of independent data. Changing these pets would have no affect since they are already using player data (e.g. Andorian Wing Cannons, Avenger VATA torpedo, Bio-neural Warhead, etc.).
This change only affects pets, and not the playable versions of any of these ships (e.g. the playable Jem Hadar Attack Ship and Danube Runabout are not affected).
Here is a complete list of all pets that are affected. If a pet is missed, it is probably a mistake. Please let us know, and we will look into it.
SNIPPED PET LIST
Look for this change to go live to Holodeck in about 2-3 weeks.
LLAP
Al Captain Geko Rivera
Good day sir.
In order to understand your goals, could you perhaps share with the playerbase the design philosophy of carrier pets to which you will balance these weapons? Topics that occurred to me include:
How survivable should a pet be? Hull, shields?
Pets are small and fast. Do they have meaningful defense stats that would help their survivability?
Is the AI working as you intend?
Is the pet User Interface and Commands working as you intend?
Should pet "pilots" linger in the midst of warp core breaches so often?
Should pets take advantage of gameplay concepts like raider flanking? Targeting exposed shield facings?
Are pet attack run pathing consistent with your design?
Are pets as "fast" as you intend? Should a fighter be fast enough to pursue an Escort?
Should beam firing pets be operating inside cannon ranges, resulting in frequent deaths?
What is the desired damage contribution for pets compared to total player damage?
In collecting and analyzing the data, have player approaches such as keeping carrier beyond 10k (and dealing no damage) been considered when comparing pet damage to total player damage?
Is this a balance pass on pets, rather than a nerf of survivability and damage across the board?
Is it possible that some pets may see higher hull/shields/defense and other pets reductions?
Is the pet leveling system working as you intend?
Does your data show large numbers of pets reaching 5 stars?
Should pets achieve 5 stars regularly or should they be fire/die/fire again gameplay concepts (more of a torpedo in a way)?
How will you design your dps testbed to evaluate the resulting performance of revised pets?
Will the target be stationary or moving?
Will the target have massive shields, diminishing the impact of pet torpedo weapons?
Will the target have minimal shields, impacting the effectiveness of energy weapons?
Will there be multiple targets?
Will the target be firing on the attackers?
Will the target use AOE attacks?
Will the targets include current NPC designs and AI approaches?
What is your mechanism for measurement? Damage per second (over a period of time) or spike?
How will your measurements account for dead pet respawn time? Clearly that will have a large impact on damage per second, since dead pets do no harm.
If there is some greater understanding of the design intent, it may make player testing more meaningful to help a smooth roll out of whatever changes you are planning to implement.
A two way street for sharing information on these changes COULD result in a stronger result with greater playerbase understanding and acceptance. This was attempted in a thread more than a year ago addressing the last pass on fighter adjustments, likely tied to the Orion Slaver discussion thread. It might be worth a shot again.
is this going to fix the separation issue with the MVAM ? to get it on par with the other ships with separations? i dont see how nerfing the pets will help anyone except for the need to have brand new gold ones? so it helps crypitcs wallet but screws over those that use these current ones .
I'm patiently waiting for the dev blog that reads..."We've recently discovered that weapons are simply causing too much damage to enemy NPC's and will be removed from the game."
I'm patiently waiting for the dev blog that reads..."We've recently discovered that weapons are simply causing too much damage to enemy NPC's and will be removed from the game."
For crying out-loud! Picture this! Board room, Cryptic headquarters:
DEV1: "Yeah, taking Specialization points, didn't exactly go over well."
DEV2: "Hmm, nerfing XP wasn't really appreciated either. They even noticed us having stealth-nerfed doff XP. They're a wily bunch!"
GEKO: "Why, there *must* be something we can do to stop their insane progress! Wait a tick! Pet-nerf, baby, yeah!"
DEV1: "Um, aren't they gonna be upset with that?!"
GEKO: "The way to go about it, is just to nerf ALL pets. We'll just use the old 'incorrect data' routine. Heck, worked for the XP tables."
DEV2: "Um, not exactly."
GEKO: "Well, they're morons anyway. Who's gonna notice!?"
DEV1: "Was it checked , verified and confirmed that nobody on Priority 1 uses carriers ?"
DEV2: "Whopppss ... Cookie ...."
GEKO: "Like I said in my last sentence ... . Next ! "
Gecko, I supported you with the japori thing and I generally agree with you all. But I refuse to accept this TRIBBLE nerf. The Pets have been like this for years!!!! Many people including myself use carriers and with this nerf there is no point to them. These are part of peoples build and I implore you to rethink this issue and to consider the XP nerf as well.
I am a lifetimer and spend cash on this game. i even bought the DR Pack. Do NOT something that will alienate customers who have supported you for the last 3 years.....oh and Smirk, With this i can not in good conscience be a mod in this forum. please disreguard my request.
You know theres a problem when even the White knights are upset
Meanwhile, the game is falling apart, people are leaving right and left, ques are empty.. fleets are inactive.. but hey by all means.. lets nerf pets!!
What's wrong guys? Is the 30 minutes people are taking to complete Ques still too quick? Gotta scale back those pets and try and add another 10 minutes on?
I'm surprised you didn't 'fix' it the way you usually do.. by just multiplying enemy HP and Shields by 30.. again.
I'm just about at my end with this, every patch now makes the game worse and worse. I used to be one of the Cryptic Defenders, but now you guys deserve every bit of TRIBBLE you take on the forums.
I think the devs should look at carriers in the modern navy. Do they have fire power? Yes. DEFENSIVE fire power. They rely on their fighters and support crafts (destroyers and escorts) for the main offensive fire power.
I think the devs should look at carriers in the modern navy. Do they have fire power? Yes. DEFENSIVE fire power. They rely on their fighters and support crafts (destroyers and escorts) for the main offensive fire power.
Quoted for Truth.
My Vesta can/could do a lot of disable, and really make an NPC have a miserable time, but the real firepower came from pets. Vesta's six weapons plus two little tac consoles doesn't give you massive DPS. I've built her with decent deflector phaser but that's once every four minutes and outside of massive (e.g. Unimatrix) enemies, it's useless.
This silly nerf (Hello! You know those multi-million HP NPC ships are the problem, right? Hello!!) simply means that my Vesta will now be incapable of being effective at all.
I think the devs should look at carriers in the modern navy. Do they have fire power? Yes. DEFENSIVE fire power. They rely on their fighters and support crafts (destroyers and escorts) for the main offensive fire power.
ok, just got home from work, too late can't read this thread yet, just skimmed a couple pages, read it tomorow.
But, for the first time I was actually happy with Carrier Pets. Seeing my Elite Scorps with 7-8k hull made them so much more useful. At least they finally, at least some, LIVE next to a breach. Felt good. But, that was only when set to "Elite" lvl 60 maps. Not on lvl 50 they still had the same garbage low sneeez at it and it dies hull.
I do agree seperating was kinda crazy. Seperate and my Pet has more hull then I do?
But the Fighters and Small pets. no, not at all, they were finally nice to have. With the end game content the way it is. and I mean advanced and elite settings they were good now. Removing that and I feel like an Idiot upgrading a couple carriers, like the one in my sig. I spent that money because DR made them good.
Hell at that point I'd rather have that extra 2 guns. Make them hangerbays an option for another fore or rear weapon. lol
My Elite Drones blow up right and left. There is nothing wrong with them, if anything they're not worth what I paid for them.
Honestly, the nerf won't effect me much since half the time I don't even launch my drones.
The whole thing is bull TRIBBLE. There is nothing wrong with pets, they're not powerful at all. Cryptic just loves to find things to nerf.
i honestly do not think that the damage needs to be nerfed at all, i do not see any difference there in any way.
but the hull of those drones ships should not be higher than the player this was never the case pre DR.
Got any additional plans what to "adjust" out of old numbers?
Why not take a look at the active DoFF system and remove the stacks out of the active space / ground tables. They are outdated already and running on old database tables.
A reduction of proc chances by 150% is overdue :rolleyes:
My Elite Drones blow up right and left. There is nothing wrong with them, if anything they're not worth what I paid for them.
Honestly, the nerf won't effect me much since half the time I don't even launch my drones.
The whole thing is bull TRIBBLE. There is nothing wrong with pets, they're not powerful at all. Cryptic just loves to find things to nerf.
Agreed... plus, if NPCs can only be made "better", to match players' abilities by giving them extra Hitpoints above and beyond player ships of the same size (e.g. Oddy NPC 200k vs Oddy player 80k pre-screwup)... then by the same logic, player pets should likewise have higher hitpoints than the same shuttle/fighter with a player in it.
So why wouldn't a player's fighter pets have higher HP, considering they are effectively an NPC? This nerf basically introduces further inconsistency.
My Elite Drones blow up right and left. There is nothing wrong with them, if anything they're not worth what I paid for them.
Honestly, the nerf won't effect me much since half the time I don't even launch my drones.
The whole thing is bull TRIBBLE. There is nothing wrong with pets, they're not powerful at all. Cryptic just loves to find things to nerf.
once again i reiterate it all boils down to tactics and strategy. My Caitian Sci's standard Stalkers are easy to destroy but I've figured out how to manage to keep from having to deploy new ones for 5 minutes at a time. Figure out how to do that with your drones that should, as they are elite, be much better than my Stalker Fighter Pets
I love this. Open and directness. They could of stealth nerfed to correct, but they did not. It was a bug a cryptic came out and fixed something and let players know. Keep this up, please!!!!!!!! Stuff like this will help keep players happy, they might not like the results but love the communication.
Although I think it would be better to use the Dev tracker portion of the forums.
Comments
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1285421
Only if we actually see hard proof in the numbers of a) how or if the current setup is out of whack or b) how severe, or maybe not quite as much, the actual proposal is, will we be in any kind of position to discuss this in a way that could actually help.
Yes, I will admit I am upset in that post but not blinded by rage.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
This all boils down to player strategy and tactics, not what the devs are doing. My opinion of the dev bash session is simple: if you have that much a problem the delete your damn account and shut up so those of us who want to play the game can without it being ruined by your garbage. I am sure that there are people, like me, who read the forums, but say little. I am finally speaking out because i am tired of seeing the constant rally cry of cryptic did this, cryptic did that. This is JUST A GAME, NOT LIFE! I have no idea what the whole Japori thing was because i was focused on nurturing my fledgling fleet at the time but i can see to an extent the need to scale down the hangar pets. I am set up to be supported by mine and they are outdoing me. That is a problem. I will agree there are bigger issues needing resolved but that is the way of things in ALL mmorpg's. I personally love my Atrox and plan to upgrade my pets and get the t5u upgrade for it. I am a science player with only one non-science alt. Cryptic has fixed a lot as things go. Holodeck is more stable than it has been in two years, the game takes up less than 15 GB of my hard drive (use to take over 40 gigs). Yes, there are issues needing resolved but there is a lot that has been fixed too. Calling for CBS and Paramount to pull the license is both childish and stupid as that means a lot of people will lose a lot of time and effort they put into the game. I have yet to see CBS or Paramount hand a license to a product over to another company and I know that even if they did, who is to say that they won't hand it to someone that will do a WORSE job of managing this game than Cryptic and PWE are? Think about that one people! I personally enjoy Star Trek Online and plan to continue to do so and continue to play it for the foreseeable future.
Vice Admiral Nova Snow S'Car, U.S.S. Caitian Fury-F (Multi-Vector Advanced Escort)
Lieutenant R'Maani Hunter, I.K.S. Teng'vek (B'rel Bird of Prey)
In some cases, why shouldn't the damage from pets be more than the carrier? I'm not being facetious there, asking a real question.
My Klingon girl has the free Vo'quv (nothing I really can upgrade her to except the fleet version, which is waaaaay down the fleet tree). She doesn't do a whole lot of damage herself, but she can zone control very well with officer abilities, consoles, and some special gear powers while her pets swarm around enemies (especially when they hit 3 or 4 stars).
Why shouldn't this be a genuine build option? I kind of enjoy it as a change of pace, feels more like a "general" commanding my squad, and breaks the monotony of "space bar until it dies."
Not to mention this is also more true to life of an actual "carrier." When an aircraft carrier arrives on your doorstep, it's not really the guns and missiles on the boat you need to worry about.
Good day sir.
In order to understand your goals, could you perhaps share with the playerbase the design philosophy of carrier pets to which you will balance these weapons? Topics that occurred to me include:
How survivable should a pet be? Hull, shields?
Pets are small and fast. Do they have meaningful defense stats that would help their survivability?
Is the AI working as you intend?
Is the pet User Interface and Commands working as you intend?
Should pet "pilots" linger in the midst of warp core breaches so often?
Should pets take advantage of gameplay concepts like raider flanking? Targeting exposed shield facings?
Are pet attack run pathing consistent with your design?
Are pets as "fast" as you intend? Should a fighter be fast enough to pursue an Escort?
Should beam firing pets be operating inside cannon ranges, resulting in frequent deaths?
What is the desired damage contribution for pets compared to total player damage?
In collecting and analyzing the data, have player approaches such as keeping carrier beyond 10k (and dealing no damage) been considered when comparing pet damage to total player damage?
Is this a balance pass on pets, rather than a nerf of survivability and damage across the board?
Is it possible that some pets may see higher hull/shields/defense and other pets reductions?
Is the pet leveling system working as you intend?
Does your data show large numbers of pets reaching 5 stars?
Should pets achieve 5 stars regularly or should they be fire/die/fire again gameplay concepts (more of a torpedo in a way)?
How will you design your dps testbed to evaluate the resulting performance of revised pets?
Will the target be stationary or moving?
Will the target have massive shields, diminishing the impact of pet torpedo weapons?
Will the target have minimal shields, impacting the effectiveness of energy weapons?
Will there be multiple targets?
Will the target be firing on the attackers?
Will the target use AOE attacks?
Will the targets include current NPC designs and AI approaches?
What is your mechanism for measurement? Damage per second (over a period of time) or spike?
How will your measurements account for dead pet respawn time? Clearly that will have a large impact on damage per second, since dead pets do no harm.
If there is some greater understanding of the design intent, it may make player testing more meaningful to help a smooth roll out of whatever changes you are planning to implement.
A two way street for sharing information on these changes COULD result in a stronger result with greater playerbase understanding and acceptance. This was attempted in a thread more than a year ago addressing the last pass on fighter adjustments, likely tied to the Orion Slaver discussion thread. It might be worth a shot again.
Respectfully.
Sulfrus
Yay! The non-combat content I was waiting for!
... wait...
DEV1: "Was it checked , verified and confirmed that nobody on Priority 1 uses carriers ?"
DEV2: "Whopppss ... Cookie ...."
GEKO: "Like I said in my last sentence ... . Next ! "
No it isn't . Everything is great !
... and besides , I thought cats always landed on their feet ...
You know theres a problem when even the White knights are upset
Two problems:
1) Geko sucks at math (but THE PLAYERS are the morons!)
2) Too many nerfs already
This isn't damage control; this is putting out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
Meanwhile, the game is falling apart, people are leaving right and left, ques are empty.. fleets are inactive.. but hey by all means.. lets nerf pets!!
What's wrong guys? Is the 30 minutes people are taking to complete Ques still too quick? Gotta scale back those pets and try and add another 10 minutes on?
I'm surprised you didn't 'fix' it the way you usually do.. by just multiplying enemy HP and Shields by 30.. again.
I'm just about at my end with this, every patch now makes the game worse and worse. I used to be one of the Cryptic Defenders, but now you guys deserve every bit of TRIBBLE you take on the forums.
I meant 'damage control', as opposed to having us find out via the patchnotes.
You are all clueless fools with no concept of how to make a good game anymore.
Sincerely,
Disgruntled Players
Quoted for Truth.
My Vesta can/could do a lot of disable, and really make an NPC have a miserable time, but the real firepower came from pets. Vesta's six weapons plus two little tac consoles doesn't give you massive DPS. I've built her with decent deflector phaser but that's once every four minutes and outside of massive (e.g. Unimatrix) enemies, it's useless.
This silly nerf (Hello! You know those multi-million HP NPC ships are the problem, right? Hello!!) simply means that my Vesta will now be incapable of being effective at all.
What on earth are they trying to achieve?
not a bad idea and one that could be viable too.
Vice Admiral Nova Snow S'Car, U.S.S. Caitian Fury-F (Multi-Vector Advanced Escort)
Lieutenant R'Maani Hunter, I.K.S. Teng'vek (B'rel Bird of Prey)
My Elite Drones blow up right and left. There is nothing wrong with them, if anything they're not worth what I paid for them.
Honestly, the nerf won't effect me much since half the time I don't even launch my drones.
The whole thing is bull TRIBBLE. There is nothing wrong with pets, they're not powerful at all. Cryptic just loves to find things to nerf.
and yet you responded
But, for the first time I was actually happy with Carrier Pets. Seeing my Elite Scorps with 7-8k hull made them so much more useful. At least they finally, at least some, LIVE next to a breach. Felt good. But, that was only when set to "Elite" lvl 60 maps. Not on lvl 50 they still had the same garbage low sneeez at it and it dies hull.
I do agree seperating was kinda crazy. Seperate and my Pet has more hull then I do?
But the Fighters and Small pets. no, not at all, they were finally nice to have. With the end game content the way it is. and I mean advanced and elite settings they were good now. Removing that and I feel like an Idiot upgrading a couple carriers, like the one in my sig. I spent that money because DR made them good.
Hell at that point I'd rather have that extra 2 guns. Make them hangerbays an option for another fore or rear weapon. lol
i honestly do not think that the damage needs to be nerfed at all, i do not see any difference there in any way.
but the hull of those drones ships should not be higher than the player this was never the case pre DR.
Got any additional plans what to "adjust" out of old numbers?
Why not take a look at the active DoFF system and remove the stacks out of the active space / ground tables. They are outdated already and running on old database tables.
A reduction of proc chances by 150% is overdue :rolleyes:
Star Trek Online Intro HD [3rd Fleet Anniversary]
Join Date: Jul 2009
Agreed... plus, if NPCs can only be made "better", to match players' abilities by giving them extra Hitpoints above and beyond player ships of the same size (e.g. Oddy NPC 200k vs Oddy player 80k pre-screwup)... then by the same logic, player pets should likewise have higher hitpoints than the same shuttle/fighter with a player in it.
So why wouldn't a player's fighter pets have higher HP, considering they are effectively an NPC? This nerf basically introduces further inconsistency.
once again i reiterate it all boils down to tactics and strategy. My Caitian Sci's standard Stalkers are easy to destroy but I've figured out how to manage to keep from having to deploy new ones for 5 minutes at a time. Figure out how to do that with your drones that should, as they are elite, be much better than my Stalker Fighter Pets
Vice Admiral Nova Snow S'Car, U.S.S. Caitian Fury-F (Multi-Vector Advanced Escort)
Lieutenant R'Maani Hunter, I.K.S. Teng'vek (B'rel Bird of Prey)
I know. I was just stating the obviousness of what Geko did to himself THIS time.
Although I think it would be better to use the Dev tracker portion of the forums.
kazon raider as well, meaning kazon carrier coming as well. :P
kazon ftw xD
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.