Frigate pets do not need anything. They are fantastic as it is (speaking from use of the Elite Romulan Drone Ship, Elite Jem'Hadar Attack Ship and Elite Aquatic) and the standard pets need not a nerf, rather they need buffed hit points at the very least. The DPS output isn't horrible, persay, though it could use some love.
I fully support the OP on this matter. Cryptic is a business, and many of us do pay to play the game on the sole fact that we like the game and we would like to see it further, and the way that happens is throwing a few bucks into the game every now and then. As a paying player, I believe that we have the right to know how [the Devs and team] are affecting the game we love and play, and I believe that we need details, not necessarily of the change, rather WHY the change.
With my amount of time in the game, I've not noticed too much of why the player pets are being targeted as such, where the counterparts of the same pets (NPC fighters and frigates) are much more powerful than our own pets, and have a hull count much higher as well. I personally think that our hangar pets should be tantamount to which are in the game.
Like I've said before, I love this game, but coming from experience with business and sales, Cryptic and PW are going about these changes and this game entirely the wrong way. with a large influx of comments, feedback and recommendations, it is only logical for a business to take a serious look at the feedback (usually those that are mentioned the most, and so on and so forth moving down) and create possible changes to fix those or add a system in to support whatever the comments may entail. Once possible fixes are made, bring up many of them, post them in a forum, and let people tear them to pieces and find holes and possible detriments to proposed changes and let the fires of the forum refine the fixes and changes until the desired outcome comes out, and when introduced in game, the hatred and rants will be far less. Imagine how much better the game would be if this happened.
The reason why I put that hiatus there, is that it should be done in cases like this. They're going to shaft us on our hangar pets either way, they may or may not read this, but ultimately, Cryptic will do what they want and damage a player mechanic that we all love. If they adopt a more tactful system and actually use the Forums to the potential of which it is capable, their business will succeed and the quality of the game will skyrocket over anyone's wildest hopes.
TheGrateLordeCheesus Ship build coordinator for The Breakfast Club http://WWW.TBCSTO.COM Doesn't Owe AnyoneEC Kirks Prot
Pre-DR ISE: JHDC did 26k average, 2x Elite Scorpions did 5.6k average.
ISA: JHDC does 39k average, 2x Elite Scorpions do 8k average.
I've done Pre-DR ISE dozens of times, the standard deviation on that 5.6k is less than 10%.
I've only done ISA 3 times, but the hanger damage is fairly consistent. This was also done prior to me getting all my gear to Mk XIV.
I will note that a Fleet Support III's Typhoon does 6k DPS on average. I hope they're not conflating our hanger damage with those summons. Both are filed under "Pets" on our parsers, but obviously we can't repeatedly summon Typhoons at will.
Also, pre-DR ISA, all the Elite Drones I've run with parsed around 6k DPS.
I made a video discussing the most egregious bugs/mechanics of the week in STO, perhaps this new Nerf will make the grade for my next "Bugs of the Week."
I'm taking a page from the NFL's no more campaign. No More it's none of my business, No More they said they were sorry, No More it only happened once, No More why don't we just leave, No more they didn't mean it, No More by-standing, No More. No More ignoring bugs/broken mechanics Cryptic.
I feel very similarly: I have tried and am still trying to foster productive communication but I am getting more and more frustrated.
That is why I am demanding data. I do not, quite simply, have the trust to accept statements at their face value. I do not have the confidence to invest in game without the fear that like my Vesta may be soon, it will be nerfed into oblivion. I could accept the T5-U upgrade. But this...any money I spend or any Dil I grind out, I now have to fear it will absolutely go to waste.
My cost-analysis matrix is saying no, Cryptic. But fixing this is not a mystery as it is with the Hierarchy: we are giving you all of the information. If you keep cutting and merging instead of fixing and then trying to monetize every inch of what little is left, you will lose every bit as much as we will and I do not want to see that happen because I value the community and friendships I have here. But I cannot reward what is in the customer service sense bordering on abusive behavior.
Please, Cryptic, read this article on the product death spiral. This is very close to the course you have currently set, and the only way to get out is NOT to double down on nerfs and making every other feature inaccessible due to timegating, insane imbalances (and I do NOT mean my pets that blow up all the time), and huge dilithium costs. It is by fixing things, *communicating in a two-way manner,* and helping us maximize our time and value proposition, not by killing it away.
Read this carefully. That's the Ghost of Christmas Future if you don't turn from your ways, and it ends with STO and your profits in the ground.
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.
Great the gold sellers are spamming the forums too.
well if PWE promotes well known internet SCAMS as a means to earn "free" zen, its likely just a PWE auto-bot trying to sell "gold"... ever since DQ I cant log in without a couple of these now.
You aren't going to be shown any numbers, and in fact if they did, they would be 100% made up. All this is, is a ploy to take away some power from carrier pilots so they can sell it back to us later in the form of epic upgraded hangar pets.
well if PWE promotes well known internet SCAMS as a means to earn "free" zen, its likely just a PWE auto-bot trying to sell "gold"... ever since DQ I cant log in without a couple of these now.
PWE does not have to be colluding with the goldsellers for the sudden surge to be a direct result of their actions of late. The phenomenon of black-market economics, and what drives it, is well known. Whenever you drastically regulate or cut off supplies of key commodities--in this game the key examples would be dilithium and EC, both of which have been subject to severe nerfs of late while at the same time the demand has been driven up enormously--a black market will spring up to take advantage of the situation and illegally fill the unsatisfied need.
In all seriousness I believe we are seeing another symptom of the failings of Cryptic's business model. I will not support the goldsellers, mind you, but I point the finger right back at the economic decision-makers at Cryptic to take note of this and understand the real implications of it before it is too late.
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.
Moving this up now that we have a new dev who is looking at NPC scaling...I want it to be very evident to him/her how the whole picture fits together. The more transparency and dialogue we can get on this, the better for everyone.
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.
I have data on swarmers no stars at level 53 - 3009 hull - I estimate if linear progression swarmers started at 2058 (for some reason I remember 1885 pre DR no stars)
These numbers are pure data - but nowhere near the entire story. Data is just data and can be manipulated to draw all sorts of conclusions.
It looks like the hull of the Frigates and maybe the Runabouts is to high. But raw numbers should not be the measure...performance in a mission should be the measurment.
Since last nights post about changes - and the resulting firestorm...I decided to add facts to the discussion, not opinion.
Test: Aragala patrol, solo (single player) on normal. I'm not going to show the parses - the developers can look them up if they wish. I want a more casual players test result - but not just a "feel".
I ran each of the above pets several times - to get a ball park rough time to complete the mission. At no point did my ship ever get destroyed or ever badly damaged. Please not that I am an Engineer, not a Tact. I never once used a heal other than science team to clear my sensors. I did use DEM2.
If my pets are "out prefoming" my ship then you should see a significant drop in the time to complete and/or number of destructions, ease of mission etc.
Given no destructions and no repairs to ship during any mission - time to complete should be a telling factor on performance of pets.
As a control: I ran the same mission without ever launching pets.
Based strictly off time Tholians are the better pets. But is that all the story?
Pet losses;
one runabout and two shield drones per mission. (the aoe attacks) Runabouts died because they tractored Battleships and resulting hull breach did them in...even with that much hull.
Battle ship aoe attacks are one shotting drones through shields and 10k hull if within roughly 2 km.
26 Tholians
25 Scorpions
35 Swarmers
Roughly 60% of the fighters died due to hull breaches. Tholians faw would sometimes attract fire before I could get aggro on newly spawing arrivals. So they were closer to 50% hull breaches.
Frigates - averaged zero...I cound have easily healed the one that got caught in a gang hull breach but since I didn't repair anything else - I kept the test even.
Now the stated purpose of the upcoming adjustment was the developers discovery that pets are out preforming the player ship...8 secs improvement in time to complete a mission says that the data - proves otherwise. At least in this case.
Many players let their pets do the work...they just replace them as needed. Heal them sometimes. Use Gravity wells to support etc..
In that case it is EXTREMELY obvious that the "pets will out preform" the players ship.
Not everyone plays the same way. Or considers it fun to get right into the thick of things. In my case I dps and draw the aggro and let the "pets" add the most dps they can...for as long as they survive. Controlling the pets takes patience/ time and understanding of the pet AI.
Btw - with wingcommander trait and carrier mastery - I could keep most pets out 100% of the time.
With the drones - their cycle time is two long...needs about 10 secs shaved off.
Other issues: Sometimes when pets die - I loose one in both the top row and bottom...resummoning only fills the top space even when vacancies are less than 3.
Why can't I just launch a full deck at the start of a mission? I'm often in combat way before I can even make a second launch.
When there is a screen change during a mission...why do I have to resummon? Why do they start over at zero stars?
I do not recommend a sweeping across the board adjustment to pets. Developers should NOT balance players abilities/knowledge/ or play styles....with data pulls.
And you had this data on tribble...but not as much I'm sure.
If you need my build, I can include it after the timer lock out...
Great, thanks...hope the dev team will engage in discussing this.
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.
The big question we need to ask is if the scale downs on NPC's would be sufficient to account for the proposed pet nerf. If we carrier pilots come out as losers in that exchange I am going to be deeply disappointed. I cannot afford the investment on another ship and don't trust enough even if I could, that wherever I put money in next would not get nerfbatted into oblivion next.
Maybe if we got some numbers we would not have to guess and fear the worst anymore.
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.
The big question we need to ask is if the scale downs on NPC's would be sufficient to account for the proposed pet nerf. If we carrier pilots come out as losers in that exchange I am going to be deeply disappointed. I cannot afford the investment on another ship and don't trust enough even if I could, that wherever I put money in next would not get nerfbatted into oblivion next.
Maybe if we got some numbers we would not have to guess and fear the worst anymore.
Some stats I found before on shuttles showed that a Yellowstone with me (L53) in it was around 25000, a Danube from my Vesta L60 was around 58000, a Danube in Terran Empire was around 5000, and a Danube in Afhirr Nebula (KDF side) was around 36000. This is not the total of all potential Danubes in missions, etc. but at least provides a starting "range".
I didn't do DPS parsing for any of them, which is another (big) part of the puzzle.
What's interesting to me is that an NPC may be more, or may be less, than a Yellowstone (which is really a Heavy Danube) piloted by a player. Comparing to the ShiKhars in there too, they ranged from approx. 10000 to something like 97000. So an escort may be much less, or much more, than a pet.
And then, if this is related/linked to the overall NPC hitpoint increase, then lowering player shuttle NPC hitpoints separately from enemy NPC hitpoints may result in a double-whammy.
Finally, it looks like there is some welcome communication and news from Cryptic on a range of fronts. I thank them for paying attention to what's happened over the past couple of weeks and what are hopefully serious and active steps to address customer concerns. From what I can gather, it looks like both enemy HP and pet HP are being addressed, so I will wait until those are in position before making a decision as to whether I think that the change is a problem or not. I just wanted to get these things in beforehand, just in case it ends up still problematic after the patch.
I would love to see the actual numbers but let's be honest. I'd love evn more for them to you know.. fix pets to be more resilient vs AOE abilities, FAW, CSV, TS and all of those AOE Sci/Engineer abilities that just decimate them. I mean maybe if theyh were smart enough to even TRY to get out of the way of it but well that's not gonna happen. I mean they won't even avoid a warp core breach.. You killl a target while your pets are flying around it.. oh then the warp core kills your pets.. rock on now I get to wait to spawn all of them again because maybe 1 was lucky enough to not go boom instantly.
Another thing is the stupid long timer on a command you give a pet actually you know altering the tactics of the pet.. Pet Recalll should be instant! We can communicate from the delta quadrant to the alpha quadrant more quickly, easily and efficiently than a carrier sending orders to a fighter pilot... in what year? 2409? Are you sure I'm not launching P-51 Mustangs with a ham radio?
especially since the federation does not have frigate pets unless you manage to buy a Recluse. it's frustrating to run through mirror, and by some miracle your scorpions have survived to get 3 stars each, and the dreadnought wipes them in the "here I come" cutscene to reverting to gameplay
Comments
Let them spam here. Maybe they will finally leave Qo'noS zone chat
I fully support the OP on this matter. Cryptic is a business, and many of us do pay to play the game on the sole fact that we like the game and we would like to see it further, and the way that happens is throwing a few bucks into the game every now and then. As a paying player, I believe that we have the right to know how [the Devs and team] are affecting the game we love and play, and I believe that we need details, not necessarily of the change, rather WHY the change.
With my amount of time in the game, I've not noticed too much of why the player pets are being targeted as such, where the counterparts of the same pets (NPC fighters and frigates) are much more powerful than our own pets, and have a hull count much higher as well. I personally think that our hangar pets should be tantamount to which are in the game.
Like I've said before, I love this game, but coming from experience with business and sales, Cryptic and PW are going about these changes and this game entirely the wrong way. with a large influx of comments, feedback and recommendations, it is only logical for a business to take a serious look at the feedback (usually those that are mentioned the most, and so on and so forth moving down) and create possible changes to fix those or add a system in to support whatever the comments may entail. Once possible fixes are made, bring up many of them, post them in a forum, and let people tear them to pieces and find holes and possible detriments to proposed changes and let the fires of the forum refine the fixes and changes until the desired outcome comes out, and when introduced in game, the hatred and rants will be far less. Imagine how much better the game would be if this happened.
The reason why I put that hiatus there, is that it should be done in cases like this. They're going to shaft us on our hangar pets either way, they may or may not read this, but ultimately, Cryptic will do what they want and damage a player mechanic that we all love. If they adopt a more tactful system and actually use the Forums to the potential of which it is capable, their business will succeed and the quality of the game will skyrocket over anyone's wildest hopes.
Ship build coordinator for The Breakfast Club http://WWW.TBCSTO.COM
Doesn't Owe Anyone EC
Kirks Prot
ISA: JHDC does 39k average, 2x Elite Scorpions do 8k average.
I've done Pre-DR ISE dozens of times, the standard deviation on that 5.6k is less than 10%.
I've only done ISA 3 times, but the hanger damage is fairly consistent. This was also done prior to me getting all my gear to Mk XIV.
I will note that a Fleet Support III's Typhoon does 6k DPS on average. I hope they're not conflating our hanger damage with those summons. Both are filed under "Pets" on our parsers, but obviously we can't repeatedly summon Typhoons at will.
Also, pre-DR ISA, all the Elite Drones I've run with parsed around 6k DPS.
I feel very similarly: I have tried and am still trying to foster productive communication but I am getting more and more frustrated.
That is why I am demanding data. I do not, quite simply, have the trust to accept statements at their face value. I do not have the confidence to invest in game without the fear that like my Vesta may be soon, it will be nerfed into oblivion. I could accept the T5-U upgrade. But this...any money I spend or any Dil I grind out, I now have to fear it will absolutely go to waste.
My cost-analysis matrix is saying no, Cryptic. But fixing this is not a mystery as it is with the Hierarchy: we are giving you all of the information. If you keep cutting and merging instead of fixing and then trying to monetize every inch of what little is left, you will lose every bit as much as we will and I do not want to see that happen because I value the community and friendships I have here. But I cannot reward what is in the customer service sense bordering on abusive behavior.
Please, Cryptic, read this article on the product death spiral. This is very close to the course you have currently set, and the only way to get out is NOT to double down on nerfs and making every other feature inaccessible due to timegating, insane imbalances (and I do NOT mean my pets that blow up all the time), and huge dilithium costs. It is by fixing things, *communicating in a two-way manner,* and helping us maximize our time and value proposition, not by killing it away.
http://www.accountingcoach.com/blog/what-is-the-death-spiral
Read this carefully. That's the Ghost of Christmas Future if you don't turn from your ways, and it ends with STO and your profits in the ground.
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.
well if PWE promotes well known internet SCAMS as a means to earn "free" zen, its likely just a PWE auto-bot trying to sell "gold"... ever since DQ I cant log in without a couple of these now.
PWE does not have to be colluding with the goldsellers for the sudden surge to be a direct result of their actions of late. The phenomenon of black-market economics, and what drives it, is well known. Whenever you drastically regulate or cut off supplies of key commodities--in this game the key examples would be dilithium and EC, both of which have been subject to severe nerfs of late while at the same time the demand has been driven up enormously--a black market will spring up to take advantage of the situation and illegally fill the unsatisfied need.
In all seriousness I believe we are seeing another symptom of the failings of Cryptic's business model. I will not support the goldsellers, mind you, but I point the finger right back at the economic decision-makers at Cryptic to take note of this and understand the real implications of it before it is too late.
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.
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.
Elite Swarmer - 5228 hull / 6535 hull at 5 stars - 25% increase
Elite Scorpion - 7802 hull / 9752 hull at 5 stars - 25% increase
Elite Tholian - 7311 hull / 9139 hull at 5 stars - 25% increase
Elite Hangar Yellowstone Runabouts - 52,280 hull / 54371 hull at 5 stars - 4% increase
Very Rare Reinforced Shield Repair Drones - 10456 hull / 15684 hull at 5 stars - 5% increase
Elite Mobulai Frigate 87133 hull / 92942 hull at 5 stars. 6.6% increase
I have data on swarmers no stars at level 53 - 3009 hull - I estimate if linear progression swarmers started at 2058 (for some reason I remember 1885 pre DR no stars)
These numbers are pure data - but nowhere near the entire story. Data is just data and can be manipulated to draw all sorts of conclusions.
It looks like the hull of the Frigates and maybe the Runabouts is to high. But raw numbers should not be the measure...performance in a mission should be the measurment.
Since last nights post about changes - and the resulting firestorm...I decided to add facts to the discussion, not opinion.
Test: Aragala patrol, solo (single player) on normal. I'm not going to show the parses - the developers can look them up if they wish. I want a more casual players test result - but not just a "feel".
I ran each of the above pets several times - to get a ball park rough time to complete the mission. At no point did my ship ever get destroyed or ever badly damaged. Please not that I am an Engineer, not a Tact. I never once used a heal other than science team to clear my sensors. I did use DEM2.
If my pets are "out prefoming" my ship then you should see a significant drop in the time to complete and/or number of destructions, ease of mission etc.
Given no destructions and no repairs to ship during any mission - time to complete should be a telling factor on performance of pets.
As a control: I ran the same mission without ever launching pets.
No pets; shortest 4 minutes 29 secs, longest 5 minutes 8 secs.
Elite Runabouts and Shield drone combo (only have one of each) 4 minutes 43 secs.
Elite Tholians 4 minutes 21 secs.
Elite Scorpions 4 minutes 41 secs.
Elite Swarmers 4 minutes 58 secs.
Elite Mobulai Frigates 4 minutes 59 minutes.
Based strictly off time Tholians are the better pets. But is that all the story?
Pet losses;
one runabout and two shield drones per mission. (the aoe attacks) Runabouts died because they tractored Battleships and resulting hull breach did them in...even with that much hull.
Battle ship aoe attacks are one shotting drones through shields and 10k hull if within roughly 2 km.
26 Tholians
25 Scorpions
35 Swarmers
Roughly 60% of the fighters died due to hull breaches. Tholians faw would sometimes attract fire before I could get aggro on newly spawing arrivals. So they were closer to 50% hull breaches.
Frigates - averaged zero...I cound have easily healed the one that got caught in a gang hull breach but since I didn't repair anything else - I kept the test even.
Now the stated purpose of the upcoming adjustment was the developers discovery that pets are out preforming the player ship...8 secs improvement in time to complete a mission says that the data - proves otherwise. At least in this case.
Many players let their pets do the work...they just replace them as needed. Heal them sometimes. Use Gravity wells to support etc..
In that case it is EXTREMELY obvious that the "pets will out preform" the players ship.
Not everyone plays the same way. Or considers it fun to get right into the thick of things. In my case I dps and draw the aggro and let the "pets" add the most dps they can...for as long as they survive. Controlling the pets takes patience/ time and understanding of the pet AI.
Btw - with wingcommander trait and carrier mastery - I could keep most pets out 100% of the time.
With the drones - their cycle time is two long...needs about 10 secs shaved off.
Other issues: Sometimes when pets die - I loose one in both the top row and bottom...resummoning only fills the top space even when vacancies are less than 3.
Why can't I just launch a full deck at the start of a mission? I'm often in combat way before I can even make a second launch.
When there is a screen change during a mission...why do I have to resummon? Why do they start over at zero stars?
I do not recommend a sweeping across the board adjustment to pets. Developers should NOT balance players abilities/knowledge/ or play styles....with data pulls.
And you had this data on tribble...but not as much I'm sure.
If you need my build, I can include it after the timer lock out...
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.
Er, I have to correct myself.
JHDC did 37.7k average, two hangers of Elite Scorps did 10.9k average.
Prior to DR, it was 26.3k average and 5.9k average respectively.
So my ship and handful of spec points went up 11.4k, of which 5k were from the hangers improving.
Maybe if we got some numbers we would not have to guess and fear the worst anymore.
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.
Some stats I found before on shuttles showed that a Yellowstone with me (L53) in it was around 25000, a Danube from my Vesta L60 was around 58000, a Danube in Terran Empire was around 5000, and a Danube in Afhirr Nebula (KDF side) was around 36000. This is not the total of all potential Danubes in missions, etc. but at least provides a starting "range".
I didn't do DPS parsing for any of them, which is another (big) part of the puzzle.
What's interesting to me is that an NPC may be more, or may be less, than a Yellowstone (which is really a Heavy Danube) piloted by a player. Comparing to the ShiKhars in there too, they ranged from approx. 10000 to something like 97000. So an escort may be much less, or much more, than a pet.
And then, if this is related/linked to the overall NPC hitpoint increase, then lowering player shuttle NPC hitpoints separately from enemy NPC hitpoints may result in a double-whammy.
Finally, it looks like there is some welcome communication and news from Cryptic on a range of fronts. I thank them for paying attention to what's happened over the past couple of weeks and what are hopefully serious and active steps to address customer concerns. From what I can gather, it looks like both enemy HP and pet HP are being addressed, so I will wait until those are in position before making a decision as to whether I think that the change is a problem or not. I just wanted to get these things in beforehand, just in case it ends up still problematic after the patch.
especially since the federation does not have frigate pets unless you manage to buy a Recluse. it's frustrating to run through mirror, and by some miracle your scorpions have survived to get 3 stars each, and the dreadnought wipes them in the "here I come" cutscene to reverting to gameplay