....But how many of those strategies are totally contigent on blocking movement or blocking weapons fire. IMO the thing to do would be to make cover shields totally passable and take the "melee enemies can now slap you down" side-effect as a rebalance which might be worth some other tweak (like a by-default AOE buff).
Definitely do NOT remove the power, but this whole situation is created by an aspect which I don't see as totally necessary for good strategic gameplay involving this ability.
Letting enemies walk through the covershield would be quite a substantial and unnecessary nerf. The suggestion that most people are going with - letting allies pass through the shield - seems like the most sensible option.
Letting enemies walk through the covershield would be quite a substantial and unnecessary nerf.
My point is how? What aspect is the more important one, blocking movement or blocking fire? In my experience the latter and it is a presumption after all to say that "it's most sensible that it only selectively blocks enemy movement" when that's merely the most ideal solution from our point of view.
Blocking objectives and other players has been a consistent issue with ground cover shields for as long as I've been playing STO. The Q present mini-game for example could be blocked with cover shields. There's even a few spots in the borg STF's where one shield could be inconvenient and two could totally block progress (and while the troll is a solitary creature in habit one can certainly imagine exceptions that would be worth developer attention.) And yet throughout that time we haven't seen the sensible change made, making it more reasonable to suppose that it isn't a practical option from a developer point of view.
So let's state what we're more interested in. Is it a movement block or a weapons-fire block? If Crpytic need only be concerned with one a fix to trolling may actually be forthcoming (and while this too is just a presumption, its a little more considerate of potential issues.)
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99% of the time any sort of nerf is the result of a lack of creativity. Nerfs are almost never the actual best solution, just the easy/fast solution.
Here, it is extremely obvious.
1) disable cover shield, nerfing players. OR
2) make the gap wider so it cannot be blocked (preferably, where it cannot be blocked even by as many as 3 jerks working as a team, should that come to pass).
Now seriously, whats the Problem with those shields?
If you are stuck in one there is the /stuck command that frees you. If its used out in the open, you can warlk around it
if its used to block the Door of the Room the Orb is kept in in the Undine Infiltration, guess what: THat actually useful because it keeps the undine out. And players can always jump in and out through the large windows/openings of the Room.
In other Missions they are useful too: i always use them to protect my medical generator, sheild generator or quantum mortar to assist my Teammates with healing abilities or mortar cover fire while making sure those gernators are not destroyed by enemies firing directly at them
But i admit i would like an Option to disable it becaue it can happen, on very rare occasions, that they block passageway but right now, i never had that problem so far, not even in UI
Now seriously, whats the Problem with those shields?
If you are stuck in one there is the /stuck command that frees you. If its used out in the open, you can warlk around it
if its used to block the Door of the Room the Orb is kept in in the Undine Infiltration, guess what: THat actually useful because it keeps the undine out. And players can always jump in and out through the large windows/openings of the Room.
In other Missions they are useful too: i always use them to protect my medical generator, sheild generator or quantum mortar to assist my Teammates with healing abilities or mortar cover fire while making sure those gernators are not destroyed by enemies firing directly at them
But i admit i would like an Option to disable it becaue it can happen, on very rare occasions, that they block passageway but right now, i never had that problem so far, not even in UI
You've missed the point completely.
A troll was using his cover shield to completely block the entrance to the final room in Undine Infiltration, meaning players could not get into this room to kill the final boss.
Or simple team vote kick. Kick troll and all his/her toys goes with him/her.
Or if you want to go the route of "group action" just make ground cover shield targetable to allies. That or [ultimate simple solution] reduce the duration and/or increase the cool down so that consecutive shields can't be placed without some gap period in between.
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Or simple team vote kick. Kick troll and all his/her toys goes with him/her.
4 trolls on a team, vote to kick the one non-troll. New players beams in and gets same treatment and again and again.
Meanwhile all the kicked players have to deal with mission cool down or worse.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
4 trolls on a team, vote to kick the one non-troll. New players beams in and gets same treatment and again and again.
Meanwhile all the kicked players have to deal with mission cool down or worse.
It wouldn't even take 4 trolls, just 1 with 4 computers running STO.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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Or if you want to go the route of "group action" just make ground cover shield targetable to allies. That or [ultimate simple solution] reduce the duration and/or increase the cool down so consecutive shields can't be placed without some gap period in between.
That way you open more troll options like destroying properly put shield. As it goes about duration and cooldown you suggest nerf for properly working skill just because some people don't know how to use it.
4 trolls on a team, vote to kick the one non-troll. New players beams in and gets same treatment and again and again.
Meanwhile all the kicked players have to deal with mission cool down or worse.
Chance of occur as low as chance that tomorrow you will be hit by asteroid. I played many different games with kick option, and never get or even hear about such situation. Whatever solution will be there is always option to abuse it, but question is how low is chance for such abuse.
That way you open more troll options like destroying properly put shield. As it goes about duration and cooldown you suggest nerf for properly working skill just because some people don't know how to use it.
You need to nerf a functional skill in just about all cases (barring total dysfunction) when some aspect of it isn't performing as intended. That's game development. You may complain on the point of "being unfair" that you're affected by the actions of bad people but in order for this whole thing to work those sorts of choices need to, and already have been, made.
Its an emotional/moral point you're making that can be thrown at any comparable situation regardless of circumstance. Its not a practical one (ie. something that can actually be used as an approach to fix problems in a video game for ANY fix will have its concievable collection of affected "innocents")
As for destroying shields, yes it could be used for trolling but between that and voting players out of the game there's less potential for abuse (especially considering how much HP cover shields have.) Hence the suggested alternative.
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You need to nerf a functional skill in just about all cases (barring total dysfunction) when some aspect of it isn't performing as intended. That's game development.
OK so with such thinking every skill, item and mechanic in STO should be nerfed or completely delete because everything in specific situation isn't performing as intended.
Punishing innocent players isn't solution, nor game development. Solution is giving tool to punish real trolls.
Someone just paint graffiti on the wall. Don't punish that specific person, shot down everyone who have paint.
Have you ever played anything with working team kick option that you are so much afraid of it? That you suggest that almost every queue will end with 4 trolls kicking random players. Lets see how big chance there is to get 4 trolls in one team with thousands of players at the server? Less then 0,0001%.
A troll was using his cover shield to completely block the entrance to the final room in Undine Infiltration, meaning players could not get into this room to kill the final boss.
Welcome to the conversation.
THe OP wrote: "Sadly in this game we have idiot trolls who spoil it for other players.
Cover shields are being used to block players progress in Undine Infiltration.
Cryptic/pwe can you please scrap the use of these shields in this mission?
Also if progress is blocked by these trolls,then the 1hr ban should be applied to these trolls,and not genuine players of the mission."
From that post i can´t see that its about the final room. THat was mentioned in post #9 first. Or there are posts i can´t see
Now seriously, whats the Problem with those shields?
If you are stuck in one there is the /stuck command that frees you. If its used out in the open, you can warlk around it
if its used to block the Door of the Room the Orb is kept in in the Undine Infiltration, guess what: THat actually useful because it keeps the undine out. And players can always jump in and out through the large windows/openings of the Room.
In other Missions they are useful too: i always use them to protect my medical generator, sheild generator or quantum mortar to assist my Teammates with healing abilities or mortar cover fire while making sure those gernators are not destroyed by enemies firing directly at them
But i admit i would like an Option to disable it becaue it can happen, on very rare occasions, that they block passageway but right now, i never had that problem so far, not even in UI
stuck command does not always work. It might,but the whole team (minus mr troll) would have to manage to slip thru the shield to the other side using /stuck. Stuck is about as likely to put them on the original side as the goal side -- it probably will not work for all team members to get past it.
And stuck does not always work anyway. I have put them up in nukara planet to mine, intentionally blocking myself from all access, and /stuck can't always get me out of it. Ive had to beam out and back in to get free, which is fine for solo play.
And all that is an aside to the intentional misuse of the skill. Which is, again, easily solved by making a larger door.
Easy Fix without getting rid of it is to make the cover shield targetable and attackable to party members. I happen to like my cover shield and this should solve the problem of them being missused
Easy Fix without getting rid of it is to make the cover shield targetable and attackable to party members. I happen to like my cover shield and this should solve the problem of them being missused
If the cover shiled is targetable and you are in a mission with many enemies i guarantee you that people will attack and destroy the shield becuse they shoot at everything they can target. Especially with weapons like Pulsewave and Full-Auto Rifles or Splitbeams and their 2nd fire modes
i dont think removing cover shields which are actually useful is the solution here lol. I use them to keep my generators and turrets from taking damage and they are useful for like hiding behind.
Fix the hole so it cant be blocked seems like a better solution to me then removing gear that is useful.
Perhaps if engineers were excluded from this mission. they are not needed for it.
The point is people playing it because they need it, not because they are needed for it. That would basically lock ⅓ of the population out, in favor of JUST Sci and Tac, just because of a few trolls.
"Fixing" hole is only preventing symptoms and not the cause. Will you later call to wider all narrow passages in every possible mission/location?
If they won't be able to troll at this specific point, they will go and troll some other aspect of mission.
Easy fix? Remove character collision while retaining the fire-blocking function.
Slightly better but probably more complex would be to remove collision only with player characters, since removing collision entirely ends up killing their limited use in containing enemy movement (which they can only really do in the same situations they can be abused to block players).
Easy fix? Remove collision while retaining the fire-blocking function.
Slightly better but probably more complex would be to remove collision only with player characters, since removing collision entirely ends up killing their limited use in containing enemy movement (which they can only really do in the same situations they can be abused to block players).
This would get my vote. The only useful function I can think of for the player collision blocking of Cover Shields is to prevent your own Engineer from being pushed back by those Voth forcefield mechs. A small price to pay IMO.
"Fixing" hole is only preventing symptoms and not the cause. Will you later call to wider all narrow passages in every possible mission/location?
If they won't be able to troll at this specific point, they will go and troll some other aspect of mission.
passages should not be blockable by a single player on any map this is a design flaw they did not take into account when creating the map. If a player can stand and impede the progress of an entire group in a narrow passage either with his body (since its not a pvp game) or a cover shield which is only slightly larger then a single player which does expire over time by the way they aren't permanent. (unlike the player who can play wall) then the hall needs to be widened.
There should not be things in such a game since team mates are not killable to cause any single player to block progress on these maps. Removing the shield may fix it in that instance but it wont fix it where a player can actually do the blocking in other instances and I guarantee you that would be what they would do next.
This would get my vote. The only useful function I can think of for the player collision blocking of Cover Shields is to prevent your own Engineer from being pushed back by those Voth forcefield mechs. A small price to pay IMO.
+1
this is easy enough to do as long as its still viable in pvp which i am not sure but they could remove the collision mesh or reduce its size but it would need to block npc's still otherwise its useless so not sure if it would work. Because npc's attack the shield and not the people behind it because its targettable by enemies.
Easy fix? Remove character collision while retaining the fire-blocking function.
Slightly better but probably more complex would be to remove collision only with player characters, since removing collision entirely ends up killing their limited use in containing enemy movement (which they can only really do in the same situations they can be abused to block players).
I always felt the cover shield should be like a tholian web, allies should be able to shoot and pass through it while enemys can't
In no terms am I proposing that "innocent" players recieve negative reinforcement (please review definition of punishment). They may not benefit from or be entirely unaffected by changes made to the cover shield, but under no circumstances are they being treated as if they had done something wrong. Even trolls aren't recieving any direct attention with a CD/Duration tweak.
The ability would simply be rebalanced so that you could not create a perpetual cover shield. Ie. the CD would be longer than the duration of the ability, which BTW is par for the course with STO powers. There's even an avoidable gap with cloaking, DSD modes, and ship scanning. Its very unusual indeed to have something which you can deploy continuously and more than those other abilities it has the serious potential to literally break the game if used in a certain way. Mechanical problem -> simple fix which as a further BTW would NOT affect how the cover shield is generally used (since not one strategy/use I've seen is contingent on the shield being continuously deployed.)
You haven't a leg to stand on in this respect. It may be a very self-satisfying thing to say, that "people shouldn't suffer because of the actions of a few bad apples" but the sentiment (besides its generally fallibility) is especially not applicable here.
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Comments
Letting enemies walk through the covershield would be quite a substantial and unnecessary nerf. The suggestion that most people are going with - letting allies pass through the shield - seems like the most sensible option.
Free Tibet!
That can already be done sideways with a cover shield
My point is how? What aspect is the more important one, blocking movement or blocking fire? In my experience the latter and it is a presumption after all to say that "it's most sensible that it only selectively blocks enemy movement" when that's merely the most ideal solution from our point of view.
Blocking objectives and other players has been a consistent issue with ground cover shields for as long as I've been playing STO. The Q present mini-game for example could be blocked with cover shields. There's even a few spots in the borg STF's where one shield could be inconvenient and two could totally block progress (and while the troll is a solitary creature in habit one can certainly imagine exceptions that would be worth developer attention.) And yet throughout that time we haven't seen the sensible change made, making it more reasonable to suppose that it isn't a practical option from a developer point of view.
So let's state what we're more interested in. Is it a movement block or a weapons-fire block? If Crpytic need only be concerned with one a fix to trolling may actually be forthcoming (and while this too is just a presumption, its a little more considerate of potential issues.)
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Best reply ever!
99% of the time any sort of nerf is the result of a lack of creativity. Nerfs are almost never the actual best solution, just the easy/fast solution.
Here, it is extremely obvious.
1) disable cover shield, nerfing players. OR
2) make the gap wider so it cannot be blocked (preferably, where it cannot be blocked even by as many as 3 jerks working as a team, should that come to pass).
If you are stuck in one there is the /stuck command that frees you. If its used out in the open, you can warlk around it
if its used to block the Door of the Room the Orb is kept in in the Undine Infiltration, guess what: THat actually useful because it keeps the undine out. And players can always jump in and out through the large windows/openings of the Room.
In other Missions they are useful too: i always use them to protect my medical generator, sheild generator or quantum mortar to assist my Teammates with healing abilities or mortar cover fire while making sure those gernators are not destroyed by enemies firing directly at them
But i admit i would like an Option to disable it becaue it can happen, on very rare occasions, that they block passageway but right now, i never had that problem so far, not even in UI
You've missed the point completely.
A troll was using his cover shield to completely block the entrance to the final room in Undine Infiltration, meaning players could not get into this room to kill the final boss.
Welcome to the conversation.
Free Tibet!
Or simple team vote kick. Kick troll and all his/her toys goes with him/her.
Or if you want to go the route of "group action" just make ground cover shield targetable to allies. That or [ultimate simple solution] reduce the duration and/or increase the cool down so that consecutive shields can't be placed without some gap period in between.
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4 trolls on a team, vote to kick the one non-troll. New players beams in and gets same treatment and again and again.
Meanwhile all the kicked players have to deal with mission cool down or worse.
It wouldn't even take 4 trolls, just 1 with 4 computers running STO.
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Chance of occur as low as chance that tomorrow you will be hit by asteroid. I played many different games with kick option, and never get or even hear about such situation. Whatever solution will be there is always option to abuse it, but question is how low is chance for such abuse.
You need to nerf a functional skill in just about all cases (barring total dysfunction) when some aspect of it isn't performing as intended. That's game development. You may complain on the point of "being unfair" that you're affected by the actions of bad people but in order for this whole thing to work those sorts of choices need to, and already have been, made.
Its an emotional/moral point you're making that can be thrown at any comparable situation regardless of circumstance. Its not a practical one (ie. something that can actually be used as an approach to fix problems in a video game for ANY fix will have its concievable collection of affected "innocents")
As for destroying shields, yes it could be used for trolling but between that and voting players out of the game there's less potential for abuse (especially considering how much HP cover shields have.) Hence the suggested alternative.
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OK so with such thinking every skill, item and mechanic in STO should be nerfed or completely delete because everything in specific situation isn't performing as intended.
Punishing innocent players isn't solution, nor game development. Solution is giving tool to punish real trolls.
Someone just paint graffiti on the wall. Don't punish that specific person, shot down everyone who have paint.
Have you ever played anything with working team kick option that you are so much afraid of it? That you suggest that almost every queue will end with 4 trolls kicking random players. Lets see how big chance there is to get 4 trolls in one team with thousands of players at the server? Less then 0,0001%.
THe OP wrote: "Sadly in this game we have idiot trolls who spoil it for other players.
Cover shields are being used to block players progress in Undine Infiltration.
Cryptic/pwe can you please scrap the use of these shields in this mission?
Also if progress is blocked by these trolls,then the 1hr ban should be applied to these trolls,and not genuine players of the mission."
From that post i can´t see that its about the final room. THat was mentioned in post #9 first. Or there are posts i can´t see
stuck command does not always work. It might,but the whole team (minus mr troll) would have to manage to slip thru the shield to the other side using /stuck. Stuck is about as likely to put them on the original side as the goal side -- it probably will not work for all team members to get past it.
And stuck does not always work anyway. I have put them up in nukara planet to mine, intentionally blocking myself from all access, and /stuck can't always get me out of it. Ive had to beam out and back in to get free, which is fine for solo play.
And all that is an aside to the intentional misuse of the skill. Which is, again, easily solved by making a larger door.
If the cover shiled is targetable and you are in a mission with many enemies i guarantee you that people will attack and destroy the shield becuse they shoot at everything they can target. Especially with weapons like Pulsewave and Full-Auto Rifles or Splitbeams and their 2nd fire modes
Fix the hole so it cant be blocked seems like a better solution to me then removing gear that is useful.
You DO see the flaw in that idea, right?
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If they won't be able to troll at this specific point, they will go and troll some other aspect of mission.
Slightly better but probably more complex would be to remove collision only with player characters, since removing collision entirely ends up killing their limited use in containing enemy movement (which they can only really do in the same situations they can be abused to block players).
+1
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passages should not be blockable by a single player on any map this is a design flaw they did not take into account when creating the map. If a player can stand and impede the progress of an entire group in a narrow passage either with his body (since its not a pvp game) or a cover shield which is only slightly larger then a single player which does expire over time by the way they aren't permanent. (unlike the player who can play wall) then the hall needs to be widened.
There should not be things in such a game since team mates are not killable to cause any single player to block progress on these maps. Removing the shield may fix it in that instance but it wont fix it where a player can actually do the blocking in other instances and I guarantee you that would be what they would do next.
this is easy enough to do as long as its still viable in pvp which i am not sure but they could remove the collision mesh or reduce its size but it would need to block npc's still otherwise its useless so not sure if it would work. Because npc's attack the shield and not the people behind it because its targettable by enemies.
I always felt the cover shield should be like a tholian web, allies should be able to shoot and pass through it while enemys can't
Its also not in question.
In no terms am I proposing that "innocent" players recieve negative reinforcement (please review definition of punishment). They may not benefit from or be entirely unaffected by changes made to the cover shield, but under no circumstances are they being treated as if they had done something wrong. Even trolls aren't recieving any direct attention with a CD/Duration tweak.
The ability would simply be rebalanced so that you could not create a perpetual cover shield. Ie. the CD would be longer than the duration of the ability, which BTW is par for the course with STO powers. There's even an avoidable gap with cloaking, DSD modes, and ship scanning. Its very unusual indeed to have something which you can deploy continuously and more than those other abilities it has the serious potential to literally break the game if used in a certain way. Mechanical problem -> simple fix which as a further BTW would NOT affect how the cover shield is generally used (since not one strategy/use I've seen is contingent on the shield being continuously deployed.)
You haven't a leg to stand on in this respect. It may be a very self-satisfying thing to say, that "people shouldn't suffer because of the actions of a few bad apples" but the sentiment (besides its generally fallibility) is especially not applicable here.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!