There is a reason that in every other MMO ever made you don't find AOE skills that increase single target DPS by more then any other skill. (as others have pointed out overload is spike but lowered DPS even with the change compared to a FAW cycle).
Truly FAW is such a badly designed skill that I have heard with my own ears, developers from other AAA games laugh out lout when they read the skills mechanics.
-snip-
I mean think about it its the worst game design in the history of MMOs.
It has held this game back for 5 years.
I think that's a slight exaggeration.
But FAW really does need a re-do.
Beyond being omni-present, there's no reason that an AoE (especially with that high of an uptime) should have no downside, nor be the best single target solution.
The answer to everything shouldn't be FAW.
"Oh no, it's a Dreadnought!"
"Looks like there's a large group ahead."
"Hmmm, this guy is using some sort of Sci trickery on me. Should I counter it with Sci?"
Cryptic should make an abillity 'Fire Decoys' for players and non-players. On activating your ship launches a number of decoy targets. Those can absorb FAW damage.
Don't know if we something like this already in the game, since I am not up-to-date with the latest mechanics, intell and command.
Decoys work for missiles, not beams. Which are guided by multiple sensors of energy and visual arrays. Could work against torps...
Cryptic should make an abillity 'Fire Decoys' for players and non-players. On activating your ship launches a number of decoy targets. Those can absorb FAW damage.
Don't know if we something like this already in the game, since I am not up-to-date with the latest mechanics, intell and command.
Photonic Fleet...various other pets...mines...targetable torps...all sorts of things one can drop out that potentially could absorb FAW fire.
Photonic Fleet...various other pets...mines...targetable torps...all sorts of things one can drop out that potentially could absorb FAW fire.
And the bane of most out there:
ACETON ASSIMILATORS
I'm confident in saying most STO players wouldn't know what to do against Aceton Assimilators even if a Popup ingame comes telling you how to easily defeat it.
I'm confident in saying most STO players wouldn't know what to do against Aceton Assimilators even if a Popup ingame comes telling you how to easily defeat it.
Hell you don't even need to defeat it... since it's a 5 km range and your beams are 10 km with a minimal drop off, you can simply fly out beyond 5 km and ignore it.
Why people seem to think you need to be right on someones aft with beams is beyond me.
But to the OP... the thing is the FAW fix was done simply because at one point CRF and cannons in general were so OP that beams were literally useless.
So in typical Cryptic fashion the way they fixed it wasn't to balance beams and cannon... no the way in typical Cryptic fashion was to both nerf cannon and buff FAW so that now cannon are the lesser of the two.
So does FAW need fixed... yes
Can I expect Cryptic to balance it... hell no... they'll TRIBBLE it up somehow and make cannon or torps the next OP thing...
You'd think after 5 years they'd have figured out how to work balance... but since their is no money in it... forget about it.
At least FAW works, how many other broken or completely useless abilities are there? When was the last time anyone used boarding party for anything but LOLs. You want to talk about OP abilities? how about APA? That ability is so silly OP it's not even funny. Sure tacs should do more dps but APA makes them double or more other classes. And since classes aren't pigeon holed into trinity roles then that is just broken any way you look at it. Sure FAW may be powerful but there are far bigger issues in therms of ability balance. Maybe cryptic should fix abilities and balance classes before tossing new powers at us. But fixing old abilities won't sell new ships so I doubt they will ever even try.
At least FAW works, how many other broken or completely useless abilities are there? When was the last time anyone used boarding party for anything but LOLs. You want to talk about OP abilities? how about APA? That ability is so silly OP it's not even funny. Sure tacs should do more dps but APA makes them double or more other classes. And since classes aren't pigeon holed into trinity roles then that is just broken any way you look at it. Sure FAW may be powerful but there are far bigger issues in therms of ability balance. Maybe cryptic should fix abilities and balance classes before tossing new powers at us. But fixing old abilities won't sell new ships so I doubt they will ever even try.
Yeah there's a laundry list of abilities that are just underpowered or just plain worthless.. even on paper and metrics it's obvious that they're broken.
And then there are any number of abilities that are OP... generally anything that is a) Tactical space related or b) Energy weapon related... specifically beams more then cannon but even cannon to a degree.
Which is why STO has been giving the moniker by so many as DPS Online... because that's all it is. healing... tanking... CC... all of that is nice but so far in the background of the DPS race it's not even funny... and Cryptic simply doesn't care.... in fact they will constantly come out with new stuff that is even more OP DPS just to continue the DPS race.
Which is a shame... but I expect nothing less from Cryptic. They're either totally incompetant or simply don't care... or it's "too hard" for them to do (translation lazy). My bet is on all three.
That being said, FAW is bugged for certain weapons and they're underperforming - heh. Seriously, with some weapons FAW ignores the Rarity, ignores [Dmg] mods, or even ignores both. Like those VR10 [CrtD][CrtH][Dmg] Disruptor Arrays the Derpy Recruits get...for FAW, they might as well be Common Mk X weapons without the Very Rare and [Dmg] - cause FAW doesn't include either in the calculations. Can't recall off-hand all the weapons that are one or the other or both as well as those that work fine.
Not everybody's getting the correct damage from FAW. FAW's broken. They need to fix it so all the weapons apply their Rarity and [Dmg] mods to the FAW damage. Folks shouldn't be penalized when using FAW because they're running one of the countless weapons that don't work right.
I notice everyone likes to point out all the counters to faw ect when talking about faw.
Lets be clear though... Faw is NOT an issue in PvP. It really isn't... perhaps it does well against people that don't know what they are doing. In real PvP matches though faw boats are a joke, Faw dmg isn't anything a real PvP team needs to worry much about. Its just sustained pressure that is very easy to heal though... sustained Particle pressure is much more effective in PvP.
The main issue with FAW is how it behaves in PvE. Where it makes a joke of every other skill. (accept for that window of time when Surgical was even more silly... and even then it took a completely out to lunch version of Surgical to even be considered viable, in almost all cases FAW was still better)
It isn't that every other skill is weak. Its clearly that FAW is out of it pretty much always has been with a few periods where it was broken (more). lol The current game has been balanced around faw which is just plain stupid. The devs instead growing a pair and fixing FAW despite the QQ that would happen instead decided to super buff the NPCs. It makes for a pretty bad mess of a game where every map has its difficulty increased by making it more AOE friendly (and single target unfriendly, single target skills vs groups of trash mobs with millions of hitpoints is just terrible). Its bad game design, and FAW is the worst of the worst.
While I myself will admit, that bfaw is a little crazy, it seems the biggest doop regarding cannon skills, is their reliance on turrets!
Turrets are the great doop equalizer, when paring them up with DHC's massive spike dmg and, dps capabilities.
On one hand, you have the DHC's dealing out massive dmg, while the turrets are simple plopping out meh dmg/dps, effectively contributing to lowered dps #'s overall.
Than, granting cannon skills a very limited range of target #'s capabilities, plus throw on top of it range fall off even further killing the turrets dmg/dps capability and, it's no wonder beams seemingly come on smelling like roses in pve scenarios involving huge groups of enemy npc clusters.
Personally I would support a mayor weapon system revamp. We have beams, cannons and torpedoes/mines. Cannons and beams are both energy. What is the point of having two systems? From afar cannons do less damage than beams, but close by they do more. Any idea why it is this way. Does it really add something to the game?
Torpedoes and mines. Two very different weapon mechanics. Both kinetic, torpedoes are fired upon a target, yet can miss and are mostly not self-seeking. Mines are, funny though. Make these weapons always hitting, but also targetable and destructable.
So one basic idea would be. Beams are the shield killers, torpedoes are hull killers and cannons can do both. Cannons become hybrids; you fire bullets with energy pulses.
It isn't that every other skill is weak. Its clearly that FAW is out of it pretty much always has been with a few periods where it was broken (more). lol The current game has been balanced around faw which is just plain stupid. The devs instead growing a pair and fixing FAW despite the QQ that would happen instead decided to super buff the NPCs. It makes for a pretty bad mess of a game where every map has its difficulty increased by making it more AOE friendly (and single target unfriendly, single target skills vs groups of trash mobs with millions of hitpoints is just terrible). Its bad game design, and FAW is the worst of the worst.
Well, missions are always harder if you got multiple tac Cubes trying to hit you than 1 tac cube assuming the npcs are equal in difficulty quality.
The issue with this so called "trash mobs" is most players only do advanced or normal wherein glass cannons can easily take the damages and base their experiences on level of difficulty of npcs on advance or normal missions. Go to certain elite missions where mobs can one hit you from 100k to 1m and you will see the picture differently. One of the reasons that these kinds of missions are unpopular to certain players is the level of difficulty of the mission from amount of Dps, healing, support, tanking, coordination your group needs just to finish the mission.
You can say that it is the players fault that we base our pve experiences on normal and advanced missions rather than elite missions because of the amount of kills the npc will do to the group.
Hate FAW so much. I'm not even a big cannon guy I just want to use beams in a focused manner without being forced into an intel ship. The worst thing is that its AOE potential is being factored into PVE content design as if that's what everyone uses.
Well, missions are always harder if you got multiple tac Cubes trying to hit you than 1 tac cube assuming the npcs are equal in difficulty quality.
The issue with this so called "trash mobs" is most players only do advanced or normal wherein glass cannons can easily take the damages and base their experiences on level of difficulty of npcs on advance or normal missions. Go to certain elite missions where mobs can one hit you from 100k to 1m and you will see the picture differently. One of the reasons that these kinds of missions are unpopular to certain players is the level of difficulty of the mission from amount of Dps, healing, support, tanking, coordination your group needs just to finish the mission.
You can say that it is the players fault that we base our pve experiences on normal and advanced missions rather than elite missions because of the amount of kills the npc will do to the group.
You have proved the point I was making about Cryptics wrong headed game design.
Healing is still pointless in Elite. Heal what as you just said some hits are going to be 100+k one shots. You can't resist someone enough to not die on that one. As for support on those missions... lets get real the fastest way to finish them is still to brute force it, just as it always has been. Even the E ques don't require heavy support... and even then depends what you call "Support" I mean if you call a PGen 50kDPS Sci ship a support ship I guess it makes life easier.
It isn't the players fault at all. Its Cryptics horrible game design. They are incapable of doing real work and increasing the quality of the NPCs. The hit points should have went up 20-30% instead of 200-300%. they should have gotten more weapon hardpoints, more skills, and proper system to allow them to use there skills instead of just dumb firing them on a terrible 1,2,3 style set rotation. After that they should have Deleted FAW forever... and renamed Cannon Rapid fire... simply to Rapid fire and allowed it to work with any energy weapon... and ditto for CSV... naming it simply scatter fire. (although I love the idea of other developers being able to get a chuckle, it would be sad for them to do anything logical)
They had an issue before DR. There Content was a joke.... end game raids that take 2 min !!! are you kidding that is the worst MMO ever made clearly. So there solution was to increase the number of trash mobs and increase there hit points by a factor of 10. Gates and Cubes really didn't change all that much, they created a situation where FAW is almost required.
Hate FAW so much. I'm not even a big cannon guy I just want to use beams in a focused manner without being forced into an intel ship. The worst thing is that its AOE potential is being factored into PVE content design as if that's what everyone uses.
Well said. Exactly right the biggest issue right now is the missions are balanced assuming a team is going to have 4-5 faw boats all the time.
The easy way to 'fix' this issue is to set NPC health low (as in under 100k for most mobs) because to get the high dps figures, they need lots of damage output, give each engagement 4 or more enemies as this spreads FAW in such a way that the damage is worthless, they'll get their stupid dps but they'll struggle to kill anything, the final nail in the FAW coffin would be to add about 50% resist to all enemies (except those designed to be killed by AOE, e.g. KASA probes), in the interests of not nerfing science, this should be energy resist (with limited kinetic resist buffing) and mostly to shields rather than hull. Perhaps the best way to do this is to give permanent doffed Aux2SIF rotation and EPtS3 to all NPCs as this also gives Subnuke a use in pve.
In doing the above FAW's effectiveness is reduced to the point where one ship designed for focus damage will burn through a group of enemies in the time it takes multiple FAW builds, on the other hand science should be left almost untouched.
Frankly, the reason they're not going to nerf beams (ie. FAW) back into the old days of obsolescence is likely because it sells better. Escorts Online is not Star Trek, but Cruisers Online is Star Trek.
The main setting and stars of the shows were the Constitution-class Enterprise, the Galaxy-class (and later Sovereign-class) Enterprise, the uridium ore refinery Deep Space Nine, the Intrepid-Class Voyager, and the NX-class Enterprise.
...you just linked an article that was UPDATED in 2010... dude, it's 2015 and even then in the drop off section the guy warns that it's theorycraft and not hard data.
Unless there is new information, or even an indication that it has changed, date doesn't invalidate their research.
They do, from the perspective that they suffer less from dropoff than cannons.
Eh, stating that beams have the advantage in a lower drop off penalty disingenuously ignore the fact that (dual) cannons have higher base damage to compensate.
And as far as I know - and this is where I might be mistaken - such interruption does not affect beams, even while using faw, or does not affect them quite as hard.
I don't know if it affects them "quite as hard", but beams are not unaffected.
The easy way to 'fix' this issue is to set NPC health low (as in under 100k for most mobs) because to get the high dps figures, they need lots of damage output, give each engagement 4 or more enemies as this spreads FAW in such a way that the damage is worthless, they'll get their stupid dps but they'll struggle to kill anything, the final nail in the FAW coffin would be to add about 50% resist to all enemies (except those designed to be killed by AOE, e.g. KASA probes), in the interests of not nerfing science, this should be energy resist (with limited kinetic resist buffing) and mostly to shields rather than hull. Perhaps the best way to do this is to give permanent doffed Aux2SIF rotation and EPtS3 to all NPCs as this also gives Subnuke a use in pve.
In doing the above FAW's effectiveness is reduced to the point where one ship designed for focus damage will burn through a group of enemies in the time it takes multiple FAW builds, on the other hand science should be left almost untouched.
Half of this makes no sense.
Low health with more targets favors FAW. High health with one target would favor BO/SS, since they're higher damage but single-target abilitiess.
Higher resists (effectively increasing health) would make the difference.
Maybe it's time we buffed up other things, to make them more desirable? Drains (both power and shield), disables, tanks, etc.
Behold the solution to all of our problems.
But of course Cryptic would never do such a thing. Look at all the nerfs to come along in the last 2 years alone. Think of all the instances when buffing everything else was the obvious correct decision.
All weapon systems should be equally good: whether Tactical, Science or Engineered.
Defenses as well.
Right now, it looks that there is a single most powerful build, where others have been put in the corner and forgotten about.
Rebalancing (actual balance, not nerfing the current into oblivion and replace it with the next weapon builds) so that everything is equally desirable, would IMHO be the only solution.
Frankly, the reason they're not going to nerf beams (ie. FAW) back into the old days of obsolescence is likely because it sells better. Escorts Online is not Star Trek, but Cruisers Online is Star Trek.
The main setting and stars of the shows were the Constitution-class Enterprise, the Galaxy-class (and later Sovereign-class) Enterprise, the uridium ore refinery Deep Space Nine, the Intrepid-Class Voyager, and the NX-class Enterprise.
Unless there is new information, or even an indication that it has changed, date doesn't invalidate their research.
The NX is actually listed as an escort in sto but star trek was typically about cruisers up until DS9.
As for the data from a month after release being irrelevant, yeah it is. There have been multiple tweaks and even full out reworks of the weapons system since then.
Ignorance is an obstacle not an excuse
Let the stupid suffer
Low health with more targets favors FAW. High health with one target would favor BO/SS, since they're higher damage but single-target abilitiess.
Higher resists (effectively increasing health) would make the difference.
The higher resists along with extra targets is the part that is designed to negate FAW builds partly by reducing the amount of damage each hit does and partly by increasing the spread of the damage done, thereby reducing it's effectiveness. The reason for reducing the HP down is to not render the game DHCs online again or to push beam users even further into FAW usage in order to maintain some form of usefulness.
Hmm, yeah things need to change.
I put a couple toons back into Escorts because FAWing in every toon is boring. Alot of fun when you've been FAWing all the time. But less effecient for sure.
I too wish you could focus with Beams without having to run the 1 intel ship for each faction that can run SS. And again as I said before all these new Specialization Boffs skills shoulda simply been mixed into what we already had.
OSS shoulda been a Engineering skill. Woulda fixed all the Engeneering heavy cruisers.
SS shoulda been a Tac skill, Attack Pattern Lambda? thats a tac skill written all over it.
Ionic Turbulance, Sci skill, etc.
But, FAW is the one skill to rule them all. And I finally takin a backseat, Bought the new T6 Galaxy, Knew I shouldn't I was already bored. But it was the Galaxy!. Haven't even finished mastering it and I logged off.
Taking another break from the game. Hope they do something to make the classes mean more when I come back. And make some kinda balance to it.
FAW online is getting boring. As is TAC Supremacy in everything you do. Then to release AHOD? lol.
I vote for much lesser distance drop-off instead what is now on a cannons, and dual tactical consoles (f.e. +Pha, +QuP) to hybrid builds which are most often is Star Trek ships. And some extra damage bonus to turrets, they are a lot weaker than the omni-beams. What about a better cannon trait?
Well, this won't make huge strides but, maybe if they limit BFAW to an AOE cone similar to CSV, where only the beams will fire in that direction provided there is a primary target achieved, instead of the massive AOE capability is has currently.
Well, this won't make huge strides but, maybe if they limit BFAW to an AOE cone similar to CSV, where only the beams will fire in that direction provided there is a primary target achieved, instead of the massive AOE capability is has currently.
That has always been the fix.
Delete FAW as it exists. Change Cannon Rapid fire and Cannons scatter to Rapid fire and Scatter Volley, and make them work with any energy weapon slotted.
As for canons... Singles and Dual Canons should get the same drop on distance as beams to make them viable options, DHC can remain unchanged. Turrets should ALL become the heavy variety Loosing some firing speed (which would reduce some of the silly proc RNG they can cause), and it would increase there dmg and make them worth slotting over or with 360 omni beams. Heck our ships would start looking like real trek ships, if escorts starting shooting beams and canons more often.
I am not sure any one working there would have a clue how to do that though. Really it seems the code is a mess anytime they try to make small changes to skills they get borked.
Well, this won't make huge strides but, maybe if they limit BFAW to an AOE cone similar to CSV, where only the beams will fire in that direction provided there is a primary target achieved, instead of the massive AOE capability is has currently.
Yes. Beam scatter volley and beam rapid fire.
Just do it already. Single target dps or aoe cone dps. Choose your preferred weapon type, but the working principle should be the same.
The higher resists along with extra targets is the part that is designed to negate FAW builds partly by reducing the amount of damage each hit does and partly by increasing the spread of the damage done, thereby reducing it's effectiveness. The reason for reducing the HP down is to not render the game DHCs online again or to push beam users even further into FAW usage in order to maintain some form of usefulness.
I'm trying to point out that increasing the spread of damage done in no way negatively impacts FAW.
It's the same flawed thinking that makes people think CRF > CSV against groups because they think CRF at double the damage of CSV but 1 target instead of 3 will "kill faster". It doesn't. In the vast majority of cases, CSV3 will kill a group of 3 or more enemies faster than CRF3. Each individual sphere takes less time to kill with CRF3, but the group as a whole will die faster with CSV3.
This is true for every situation of low group damage vs high single damage, because you're less likely to "waste" damage (and thus time) on something that only needs a fraction of your attack to kill.
If you want to reduce the effectiveness of FAW vs BO/SS, either increasing resists or decreasing enemies alone would do it.
This won't happen though, not because of any particular developer bias, but because we'd get even more ignorant/unskilled/incompetent players complaining about how they've been nerfed and can't do anything anymore.
Just do it already. Single target dps or aoe cone dps. Choose your preferred weapon type, but the working principle should be the same.
Man, we've suggested this for years, even back during Escort Online days as a way to buff beams.
Weapon Volley (replicating CSV), Rapid Fire (replicating CRF), Weapon Overload (replicating BO). That would mean Beams vs Cannons can be simply balanced along arc vs damage. All as Ens/Lt/LCdr abilities, which handily removes the "3rd Tac Ens" syndrome and makes a bunch of ships more desirable for purchase. Everybody wins!
As for drop off, high base damage on cannons should balance it out. Last I heard (from a source other than site I linked earlier (and I've yet to see someone provide contradictory data)), they balance out at 5km anyway.
Delete FAW as it exists. Change Cannon Rapid fire and Cannons scatter to Rapid fire and Scatter Volley, and make them work with any energy weapon slotted.
As for canons... Singles and Dual Canons should get the same drop on distance as beams to make them viable options, DHC can remain unchanged. Turrets should ALL become the heavy variety Loosing some firing speed (which would reduce some of the silly proc RNG they can cause), and it would increase there dmg and make them worth slotting over or with 360 omni beams. Heck our ships would start looking like real trek ships, if escorts starting shooting beams and canons more often.
I am not sure any one working there would have a clue how to do that though. Really it seems the code is a mess anytime they try to make small changes to skills they get borked.
This was already attempted with the CC heavy turret but, the problem with that, is that the lowered fire rate vs dmg=the same as a standard turret!
Comments
I think that's a slight exaggeration.
But FAW really does need a re-do.
Beyond being omni-present, there's no reason that an AoE (especially with that high of an uptime) should have no downside, nor be the best single target solution.
The answer to everything shouldn't be FAW.
"Oh no, it's a Dreadnought!"
"Looks like there's a large group ahead."
"Hmmm, this guy is using some sort of Sci trickery on me. Should I counter it with Sci?"
The answer to all of this is FAW.
Let me re-phrase. It's not as if they're using FAW in any actually threatening means against you.
Decoys work for missiles, not beams. Which are guided by multiple sensors of energy and visual arrays. Could work against torps...
Photonic Fleet...various other pets...mines...targetable torps...all sorts of things one can drop out that potentially could absorb FAW fire.
And the bane of most out there:
ACETON ASSIMILATORS
I'm confident in saying most STO players wouldn't know what to do against Aceton Assimilators even if a Popup ingame comes telling you how to easily defeat it.
Hell you don't even need to defeat it... since it's a 5 km range and your beams are 10 km with a minimal drop off, you can simply fly out beyond 5 km and ignore it.
Why people seem to think you need to be right on someones aft with beams is beyond me.
But to the OP... the thing is the FAW fix was done simply because at one point CRF and cannons in general were so OP that beams were literally useless.
So in typical Cryptic fashion the way they fixed it wasn't to balance beams and cannon... no the way in typical Cryptic fashion was to both nerf cannon and buff FAW so that now cannon are the lesser of the two.
So does FAW need fixed... yes
Can I expect Cryptic to balance it... hell no... they'll TRIBBLE it up somehow and make cannon or torps the next OP thing...
You'd think after 5 years they'd have figured out how to work balance... but since their is no money in it... forget about it.
Yeah there's a laundry list of abilities that are just underpowered or just plain worthless.. even on paper and metrics it's obvious that they're broken.
And then there are any number of abilities that are OP... generally anything that is a) Tactical space related or b) Energy weapon related... specifically beams more then cannon but even cannon to a degree.
Which is why STO has been giving the moniker by so many as DPS Online... because that's all it is. healing... tanking... CC... all of that is nice but so far in the background of the DPS race it's not even funny... and Cryptic simply doesn't care.... in fact they will constantly come out with new stuff that is even more OP DPS just to continue the DPS race.
Which is a shame... but I expect nothing less from Cryptic. They're either totally incompetant or simply don't care... or it's "too hard" for them to do (translation lazy). My bet is on all three.
Except it doesn't...heh.
Not everybody's getting the correct damage from FAW. FAW's broken. They need to fix it so all the weapons apply their Rarity and [Dmg] mods to the FAW damage. Folks shouldn't be penalized when using FAW because they're running one of the countless weapons that don't work right.
Lets be clear though... Faw is NOT an issue in PvP. It really isn't... perhaps it does well against people that don't know what they are doing. In real PvP matches though faw boats are a joke, Faw dmg isn't anything a real PvP team needs to worry much about. Its just sustained pressure that is very easy to heal though... sustained Particle pressure is much more effective in PvP.
The main issue with FAW is how it behaves in PvE. Where it makes a joke of every other skill. (accept for that window of time when Surgical was even more silly... and even then it took a completely out to lunch version of Surgical to even be considered viable, in almost all cases FAW was still better)
It isn't that every other skill is weak. Its clearly that FAW is out of it pretty much always has been with a few periods where it was broken (more). lol The current game has been balanced around faw which is just plain stupid. The devs instead growing a pair and fixing FAW despite the QQ that would happen instead decided to super buff the NPCs. It makes for a pretty bad mess of a game where every map has its difficulty increased by making it more AOE friendly (and single target unfriendly, single target skills vs groups of trash mobs with millions of hitpoints is just terrible). Its bad game design, and FAW is the worst of the worst.
Turrets are the great doop equalizer, when paring them up with DHC's massive spike dmg and, dps capabilities.
On one hand, you have the DHC's dealing out massive dmg, while the turrets are simple plopping out meh dmg/dps, effectively contributing to lowered dps #'s overall.
Than, granting cannon skills a very limited range of target #'s capabilities, plus throw on top of it range fall off even further killing the turrets dmg/dps capability and, it's no wonder beams seemingly come on smelling like roses in pve scenarios involving huge groups of enemy npc clusters.
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Torpedoes and mines. Two very different weapon mechanics. Both kinetic, torpedoes are fired upon a target, yet can miss and are mostly not self-seeking. Mines are, funny though. Make these weapons always hitting, but also targetable and destructable.
So one basic idea would be. Beams are the shield killers, torpedoes are hull killers and cannons can do both. Cannons become hybrids; you fire bullets with energy pulses.
Well, just some thoughts.
equalize the powers. We know arrays can rapid fire, Best of both worlds clearly demonstrated.
We know hey can scatter shoot, because thats what the E did in nemesis. Shoot wildly until something stuck.
FAW in STO is a magic 360° attack.
Beam rapid fire, when you need to pummel a target. Beam scatter volley when there is a group that needs beamin.
Well, missions are always harder if you got multiple tac Cubes trying to hit you than 1 tac cube assuming the npcs are equal in difficulty quality.
The issue with this so called "trash mobs" is most players only do advanced or normal wherein glass cannons can easily take the damages and base their experiences on level of difficulty of npcs on advance or normal missions. Go to certain elite missions where mobs can one hit you from 100k to 1m and you will see the picture differently. One of the reasons that these kinds of missions are unpopular to certain players is the level of difficulty of the mission from amount of Dps, healing, support, tanking, coordination your group needs just to finish the mission.
You can say that it is the players fault that we base our pve experiences on normal and advanced missions rather than elite missions because of the amount of kills the npc will do to the group.
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You have proved the point I was making about Cryptics wrong headed game design.
Healing is still pointless in Elite. Heal what as you just said some hits are going to be 100+k one shots. You can't resist someone enough to not die on that one. As for support on those missions... lets get real the fastest way to finish them is still to brute force it, just as it always has been. Even the E ques don't require heavy support... and even then depends what you call "Support" I mean if you call a PGen 50kDPS Sci ship a support ship I guess it makes life easier.
It isn't the players fault at all. Its Cryptics horrible game design. They are incapable of doing real work and increasing the quality of the NPCs. The hit points should have went up 20-30% instead of 200-300%. they should have gotten more weapon hardpoints, more skills, and proper system to allow them to use there skills instead of just dumb firing them on a terrible 1,2,3 style set rotation. After that they should have Deleted FAW forever... and renamed Cannon Rapid fire... simply to Rapid fire and allowed it to work with any energy weapon... and ditto for CSV... naming it simply scatter fire. (although I love the idea of other developers being able to get a chuckle, it would be sad for them to do anything logical)
They had an issue before DR. There Content was a joke.... end game raids that take 2 min !!! are you kidding that is the worst MMO ever made clearly. So there solution was to increase the number of trash mobs and increase there hit points by a factor of 10. Gates and Cubes really didn't change all that much, they created a situation where FAW is almost required.
Well said. Exactly right the biggest issue right now is the missions are balanced assuming a team is going to have 4-5 faw boats all the time.
In doing the above FAW's effectiveness is reduced to the point where one ship designed for focus damage will burn through a group of enemies in the time it takes multiple FAW builds, on the other hand science should be left almost untouched.
The main setting and stars of the shows were the Constitution-class Enterprise, the Galaxy-class (and later Sovereign-class) Enterprise, the uridium ore refinery Deep Space Nine, the Intrepid-Class Voyager, and the NX-class Enterprise.
Unless there is new information, or even an indication that it has changed, date doesn't invalidate their research.
I don't suppose you'd have any updated drop-off data? Out of all the people on the forums, you're the most likely to have some...
Eh, stating that beams have the advantage in a lower drop off penalty disingenuously ignore the fact that (dual) cannons have higher base damage to compensate.
I don't know if it affects them "quite as hard", but beams are not unaffected.
...because of damage drop off over range.
Half of this makes no sense.
Low health with more targets favors FAW. High health with one target would favor BO/SS, since they're higher damage but single-target abilitiess.
Higher resists (effectively increasing health) would make the difference.
Behold the solution to all of our problems.
But of course Cryptic would never do such a thing. Look at all the nerfs to come along in the last 2 years alone. Think of all the instances when buffing everything else was the obvious correct decision.
Defenses as well.
Right now, it looks that there is a single most powerful build, where others have been put in the corner and forgotten about.
Rebalancing (actual balance, not nerfing the current into oblivion and replace it with the next weapon builds) so that everything is equally desirable, would IMHO be the only solution.
But that's me...
The NX is actually listed as an escort in sto but star trek was typically about cruisers up until DS9.
As for the data from a month after release being irrelevant, yeah it is. There have been multiple tweaks and even full out reworks of the weapons system since then.
Let the stupid suffer
The higher resists along with extra targets is the part that is designed to negate FAW builds partly by reducing the amount of damage each hit does and partly by increasing the spread of the damage done, thereby reducing it's effectiveness. The reason for reducing the HP down is to not render the game DHCs online again or to push beam users even further into FAW usage in order to maintain some form of usefulness.
I put a couple toons back into Escorts because FAWing in every toon is boring. Alot of fun when you've been FAWing all the time. But less effecient for sure.
I too wish you could focus with Beams without having to run the 1 intel ship for each faction that can run SS. And again as I said before all these new Specialization Boffs skills shoulda simply been mixed into what we already had.
OSS shoulda been a Engineering skill. Woulda fixed all the Engeneering heavy cruisers.
SS shoulda been a Tac skill, Attack Pattern Lambda? thats a tac skill written all over it.
Ionic Turbulance, Sci skill, etc.
But, FAW is the one skill to rule them all. And I finally takin a backseat, Bought the new T6 Galaxy, Knew I shouldn't I was already bored. But it was the Galaxy!. Haven't even finished mastering it and I logged off.
Taking another break from the game. Hope they do something to make the classes mean more when I come back. And make some kinda balance to it.
FAW online is getting boring. As is TAC Supremacy in everything you do. Then to release AHOD? lol.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
That has always been the fix.
Delete FAW as it exists. Change Cannon Rapid fire and Cannons scatter to Rapid fire and Scatter Volley, and make them work with any energy weapon slotted.
As for canons... Singles and Dual Canons should get the same drop on distance as beams to make them viable options, DHC can remain unchanged. Turrets should ALL become the heavy variety Loosing some firing speed (which would reduce some of the silly proc RNG they can cause), and it would increase there dmg and make them worth slotting over or with 360 omni beams. Heck our ships would start looking like real trek ships, if escorts starting shooting beams and canons more often.
I am not sure any one working there would have a clue how to do that though. Really it seems the code is a mess anytime they try to make small changes to skills they get borked.
Yes. Beam scatter volley and beam rapid fire.
Just do it already. Single target dps or aoe cone dps. Choose your preferred weapon type, but the working principle should be the same.
I'm trying to point out that increasing the spread of damage done in no way negatively impacts FAW.
It's the same flawed thinking that makes people think CRF > CSV against groups because they think CRF at double the damage of CSV but 1 target instead of 3 will "kill faster". It doesn't. In the vast majority of cases, CSV3 will kill a group of 3 or more enemies faster than CRF3. Each individual sphere takes less time to kill with CRF3, but the group as a whole will die faster with CSV3.
This is true for every situation of low group damage vs high single damage, because you're less likely to "waste" damage (and thus time) on something that only needs a fraction of your attack to kill.
If you want to reduce the effectiveness of FAW vs BO/SS, either increasing resists or decreasing enemies alone would do it.
This won't happen though, not because of any particular developer bias, but because we'd get even more ignorant/unskilled/incompetent players complaining about how they've been nerfed and can't do anything anymore.
Man, we've suggested this for years, even back during Escort Online days as a way to buff beams.
Weapon Volley (replicating CSV), Rapid Fire (replicating CRF), Weapon Overload (replicating BO). That would mean Beams vs Cannons can be simply balanced along arc vs damage. All as Ens/Lt/LCdr abilities, which handily removes the "3rd Tac Ens" syndrome and makes a bunch of ships more desirable for purchase. Everybody wins!
As for drop off, high base damage on cannons should balance it out. Last I heard (from a source other than site I linked earlier (and I've yet to see someone provide contradictory data)), they balance out at 5km anyway.
This was already attempted with the CC heavy turret but, the problem with that, is that the lowered fire rate vs dmg=the same as a standard turret!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!