1. An inherent skill anyone could use regardless of Boff skill choice, and
2. A skill that doesn't affect every weapon.
Making FAW an inherent captain skill (only one copy, ever!) would open up a ton of build possibilities, IMO. And having it affect all weapons, even torpedoes, would do so even more.
I'm not sure we're playing the same game, and granted I've taken a break but the argument when I took my hiatus was all abotu how OP canon's were compared to beams.
And as far as DHC vs DC... as far as I remember it was nevere about running one or the other, but both to offset the weapons of same type causing a delay in the firing cycle, as well as arc of fire. DHC's and DC's were on different timers and so didn't interfere with each otherwhen firing in unison, the way having say a third DHC did.
If they've changed that mechanic, then throw this all out.
That saiid the far more grievous deficiency is the poor performance of rapid fire and beam overload compared to their AoE couterparts. There never seams to be a point where using the single target ability does more damage to a single target than spamming the AoE ability would do to the same target. Rapid fire has it better as at least it's a state like scatter volley.
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!
Your right there... it would need a balance pass no doubt. Perhaps turrets should be included in a reworking of range fall off as well. I know at a point they just become a Beam with a different GFX... really though would that be so bad in the end.
If they've changed that mechanic, then throw this all out.
Yes that info is 3+ years out of date... even back then though DC where pointless. One single canon with 3 DHC was the way to go. Still ya Canons are only any good in PvP. In PvE land there sub optimal because Cryptic answer to difficulty always involves more targets. Which has 2 issues.... one Scatter has an arc, and two canon range fall off is terrible. CSV can do great if you have a SCI with you that has a good GW style build that will pull all those targets together. Still when beams can pump 80% of there dmg out to 8k or so in a complete 360 with no arcs to worry about... well it may be the most boring game play imaginable, still its a lot more effective, if you can stay awake.
What's amusing to me about this thread and other threads like it is that faw used to be a joke. All the escorts with scatter volley laughing at all the cruiser jocks with their tickly beams.
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...
Heh, nah - there are just certain things I won't test and will rely on the stuff other folks have provided. I can't remember what the +/-% range on the listed damage is for hitting a target, to go through and figure out at which point one would consider it to be range.
Say the tooltip listed 1000, it could be 9xxx/1xxx damage per shot with nothing changing.
So one would need to account for the possible range of damage - and - take it from there.
Would be a whole bunch of shots fired...some heinous testing there.
Hrmm, I thought I'd linked the spreadsheet that bareel linked that maelwys did...course, I've got been awake 2 minutes eyes going on - so maybe I did, lol. That was from 2012.
Can see they've got their average going sort of thing in trying to get a grasp on the damage. Doesn't look to be far off the other, eh?
But yeah, not the kind of testing I'd do. I'd figure one would want either thousands of hits per distance or to have the devs state what that +/-% range is.
What's amusing to me about this thread and other threads like it is that faw used to be a joke. All the escorts with scatter volley laughing at all the cruiser jocks with their tickly beams.
Would be nifty if Cryptic could do something different than go to extremes when looking into tweaking something...
Your right there... it would need a balance pass no doubt. Perhaps turrets should be included in a reworking of range fall off as well. I know at a point they just become a Beam with a different GFX... really though would that be so bad in the end.
Agreed, the fall off makes sense in a somewhat perspective, to the fact escort class vessels are quick/agile but, for them to remain that way they need keep moving which can tend to ruin their dps effectiveness at times.
To overcome the drop off, escorts are meant to close the gap quickly, turn quickly but, the moment they lose their frontal arc, their dps begins suffering.
So, we find people parking and shooting point blank but, we all know how what happens when they become the primary target of a powerful npc, it tends to force them to move once again!
While full out beams can sustain constant fire from any angle pretty much.
The range fall off for beams, was initially intended for keeping enemies at longer ranges, giving vessels either time to maneuver due to slower TR's and/or, better chances at analyzing their target(s) intents and, possibly make a hasty escape if need be.
And, we haven't even hit up on the beam/cannon skills yet!
As an aside there, in discussing the range and park 'n shoot thing with Cannons (cause strafing is a DPS loss and all)...how many folks have tried that in that Herald Sphere queue over on Tribble? Fun stuff, wink, wink, nudge, nudge...
What's amusing to me about this thread and other threads like it is that faw used to be a joke. All the escorts with scatter volley laughing at all the cruiser jocks with their tickly beams.
As I said before the forums are biased towards cannons, when cannons were the kings of DPS no one seemed to complain. As I said in another thread cannons are NOT meant to be the kings of DPS cannons are meant to be weapons for burst damage not sustained damage.
As I said before the forums are biased towards cannons, when cannons were the kings of DPS no one seemed to complain. As I said in another thread cannons are NOT meant to be the kings of DPS cannons are meant to be weapons for burst damage not sustained damage.
While I mostly agree, the fact of the matter is, any weapon that continuously fires, is sustaining damage is it not?
It shouldn't, they should each be effective but unfortunately it's usually Either Cannons or Beams that rule STO and if I had to choose I'd rather have beams considering they are the most prevalent weapon in the star trek franchise.
I'd like to use canon beam builds on my ships instead of duck taping Dual Heavy cannons to the hull and spamming scatter volley, plus in terms of looks beams beat cannons any day every day :rolleyes:
Have any desire to play in the elite STFs? Want to get into a private channel to minimize anonymous pug fail?
Take a look at the DPS club leaderboards. How many are *not* using FAW? 5%? 8%? (I could ask the same thing about AP vs other energy types :P) Go look at the reddit builds - note how amazingly similar they all are...
I gave up - my main is now the same faw ap beam boat with nothing in torps/mines. I cycle ATB/FAW1/FAW2 with the best of them, tossing in the occasional EptW when I really want to live dangerously and step out there.
Yes, FAW is working as designed and it is designed broken. There is not enough threat on it to force balancing decisions. Double the threat on it if it really is in all other respect WAD. Folks want to take on the entire armada? They can add a load of -Th and give up something else.
And there is nothing iconic or Star Trekky about FAW. The vast majority of the time the shows and series It was used as a last resort at best, the overwhelming majority of the time are using precision targeting on specific targets. (yeah I know, silly to appeal to theme authority. )
I may be imagining things but over the last month or less it seems my cannons are doing better. My DR recruit seemed to do well with them leveling up to 50 anyway. Torps remain near useless in the L60 end game episodes.
I hadn't taken a new toon through the episode in a loooooong time, so for my delta dude I took the escort at every level and put 2 faws, 2 apbs, 2 tts, and 2 eptws - in that order if there wasn't room - and pew pewed my way through the content with white beam arrays from the ESD vendor. Seriously, I was finishing off swarms of npcs so much in advance that a couple of times I had to wait a minute for the battle to officially "end" so I could leave the map.
As opposed to when I first started playing and was trying to make nice builds and was getting creamed by the npcs. What a difference understanding the game makes even if you don't have any cash to back it up.
Anyway, the issue isn't so much FAW but the fact that lots of players don't know the game's basic mechanics, will fly something that can't kill the npcs, and then complain that the content is too hard so cryptic dumbs it down.
And voila, we're left in a place where some abilities, used properly, can make a joke out of the game's content, and nothing can be done that won't anger thousands of players who are used to beating the game without trying.
It shouldn't, they should each be effective but unfortunately it's usually Either Cannons or Beams that rule STO and if I had to choose I'd rather have beams considering they are the most prevalent weapon in the star trek franchise.
I'd like to use canon beam builds on my ships instead of duck taping Dual Heavy cannons to the hull and spamming scatter volley, plus in terms of looks beams beat cannons any day every day :rolleyes:
Yes unfortunately it seems!
And, while I like both cannons and beams visually, I definitely give it to beams audio wise, as cannons in this game sound horrid IMO [except the new Vaadwaur polarons]
Now, if I can just figure out, wth do they mount 2 360* omni arrays, to make them 360*?
Effectively, you would need 4 to get full 360*, 2 on top and, 2 on bottom!
Of course the same could be said with 1 Omni array, actually requiring 2, 1 on top and, 1 on bottom.
Have any desire to play in the elite STFs? Want to get into a private channel to minimize anonymous pug fail?
Take a look at the DPS club leaderboards. How many are *not* using FAW? 5%? 8%? (I could ask the same thing about AP vs other energy types :P) Go look at the reddit builds - note how amazingly similar they all are...
The top DPS run at the moment was done with phasers, iirc. The top cannon build, to my knowledge, got in the 70,000's, but it's true that most of those builds are using FAW.
I gave up - my main is now the same faw ap beam boat with nothing in torps/mines. I cycle ATB/FAW1/FAW2 with the best of them, tossing in the occasional EptW when I really want to live dangerously and step out there.
Now, finding a player who is getting above 30k without EPTW would be *really* hard. Since EPTW buffs both beams and cannons (and doesn't take any tac ability slots) and has 100% uptime, it's probably used even more than FAW by people in DPS channels.
Yes, FAW is working as designed and it is designed broken. There is not enough threat on it to force balancing decisions. Double the threat on it if it really is in all other respect WAD. Folks want to take on the entire armada? They can add a load of -Th and give up something else.
It's my understanding that threat is based on damage (modified by skills, consoles, etc.), not ability type. When I run an STF in my FAW-boat with people who get far lower DPS than me, I'm getting shot at by everything on the map.
The vast majority of the time the shows and series It was used as a last resort at best, the overwhelming majority of the time are using precision targeting on specific targets. (yeah I know, silly to appeal to theme authority. )
Voyager would usually target subsystems (also an in-game ability), and that also appeared a lot in Enterprise. BO was also used in Enterprise. I don't remember a single time that FAW or something like it was referenced as a "last resort"; only that time in DS9 and it was pretty much the first attack in the battle.
But it's true that the majority of the time they weren't using FAW. Also, the majority of the time they were avoiding fighting at all in Star Trek, so....
I may be imagining things but over the last month or less it seems my cannons are doing better. My DR recruit seemed to do well with them leveling up to 50 anyway. Torps remain near useless in the L60 end game episodes.
Cannon builds can beat any content in this game. It's just that they do less damage than FAW, which means that getting enough damage out of them is that much harder. But still they're a totally viable option.
There are torp boats that can do the same, but they're even harder to get enough damage out of that most players would do better to stay away from them.
Gamers will be gamers. What does that mean? A portion of gamers will always find the absolute most destructive BFG they can find and use it to is maximum potential. Nerf FAW? They will find something else. It doesn't matter. Some players will always play that way.
STO is the only computer game I play, my other indulgence is NBA 2K on XBOX and its the same thing. The vast majority of players run zone defense double teams and full court pressure the entire game to take advantage of the "live ball" mechanic introduced in its latest iteration meaning there are more lose balls and turnovers. A percentage of gamers, usually the largest majority, will always gravitate towards the easiest route.
That's fine for them. You can't change it. You can't nerf that out. It's human nature. So be it. The solution is simple and requires no nerf/programming changes - find the players who play the game that you do and play with them.
There is absolutely no reason to faceroll content as fast as possible, even if it is possible. And there really isn't anything wrong with players who spend the time to learn the mechanics and specialize in their builds. You can play slow and tactical if you choose. The masses will be the masses.
Now saying that, I would like to see a reduction in the amount of beams fired from the beam bank. Maybe instead of 4 hits in one cycle 2 hits in once cycle. Increase the length of each hit and spread the equivalent damage across those 2 hits so the damage is exactly the same - just changing the visual. At least then FAW boats won't be as visibly annoying as they are (and probably a resource drain).
Have any desire to play in the elite STFs? Want to get into a private channel to minimize anonymous pug fail?
Take a look at the DPS club leaderboards. How many are *not* using FAW? 5%? 8%? (I could ask the same thing about AP vs other energy types :P) Go look at the reddit builds - note how amazingly similar they all are...
It is an amazing suprise to some people that there are those of us interested in pushing ourselves to our limit somewhere. As such, we happen to use what's optimal. And yet, for whatever reason, we're made fun of for it. And I really don't get why.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
FAW means, the tact officer is simply firing on everything out there, not realy focusing on anything, just shoot all weapons in hope to hit something.
to represent this, I think FAW should have a hugh accuracy penalty, lets say by -30% or so. for balance reasons the weapon power drain can be slightly decreased while its active.
BO:
BO means, the tact officer overloads the power and puts everything in a single beam. he wants to make a perfect hit on a single target.
to represent this, I think BO should always crit (it does already) and it should have increased accuracy, lets say by +30%. BUT it also should drain weapon power again, maybe 50% of available weapon power; to balance the drain its dmg should be increased.
my 2 cents. and btw, that percentage numbers should be balanced, I have no idea what values would be good.
oh, and now that you got me started...
1. amount of dual beams should be limited. maybe 1 per escort, and 2 per cruisers. that would make ships more star trek like, and not that TRIBBLE like they are atm.
2. Torpedos must be able to shoot simultaneously, just like beams and cannons. atm they have a global cooldown of like 1,7 secs or so, thats not accaptable.
If it ever happens that torpedoes do get a makeover and then outperform cannons/beams I expect nothing else but endless new threads spam about nerf this buff that.
If it ever happens that torpedoes do get a makeover and then outperform cannons/beams I expect nothing else but endless new threads spam about nerf this buff that.
I long for a day when Cannons, Beams and torpedoes are all balanced.
I long for a day when Cannons, Beams and torpedoes are all balanced.
5 years and nothing in this game has ever been balanced, they aren't about to start now.
So let's say they nerf FAW, then the 2nd best ability will pop up as the meta and everyone will use that. If they aren't going to balance things then nerfing one ability is only going to replace one OP power with another. At least now FAW is something everyone can use. What happens when the meta becomes a command or intel ability? That would be allot worse.
It is an amazing suprise to some people that there are those of us interested in pushing ourselves to our limit somewhere. As such, we happen to use what's optimal. And yet, for whatever reason, we're made fun of for it. And I really don't get why.
Let me try to explain. I have to say it is a guess, but it is the way how I look at a hardcore gamer here. For me STO is a very casual game. Meaning, made for casuals by casuals. People should not read offense in this statement. It is not meant that way. I am very fond of this game. Take notice of that.
A casual gamer here is someone that was more or less a fan of the series and is here to have a feeling of home. That contrast with a hardcore gamer. Indeed, someone that pushes himself to the limit, merely a number.
I repeat myself from another post. Here is Gene Roddenberry and here is a TV Producer. Hey, Gene, what is that? It is a starship, the U.S.S. Enterprise. It has a crew and they explore the universe. They go boldly where no man has gone before. Good. What is that number? That is the DPS, the damage per second. When the starship and the crew encounter some baddies, they can shoot them to the other side of the galaxy. Wow! Great material for a TV show. Who is the guy with the funny ears? That is Spock. He is the science officer. Oh,.. eh, is he good for DPS? Do we need him?
It is an amazing suprise to some people that there are those of us interested in pushing ourselves to our limit somewhere. As such, we happen to use what's optimal. And yet, for whatever reason, we're made fun of for it. And I really don't get why.
I don't think that's entirely the case. For those who have taken the time and effort to create builds in this manner, you are a small subset of the population. Like the group of players who fly canon only, or those that try to maximize science, or role play, or other specialized groups or players. Like the guy who builds his old school car from the ground up with an eye of maximizing performance.
That takes hard work, dedication and wisdom. Where it becomes a problem is your specialization just happens to be the more often desired method for the masses who want to get as much, be as strong, twice as fast as the next guy and cherry pick the currently in style super bad BFG build. Put another way it's viewed as "cooler" than some of the other specialized groups of players. Like the hacker who just downloads someone else's hard worked code to claim they can be a hacker too.
Let me try to explain. I have to say it is a guess, but it is the way how I look at a hardcore gamer here. For me STO is a very casual game. Meaning, made for casuals by casuals. People should not read offense in this statement. It is not meant that way. I am very fond of this game. Take notice of that.
A casual gamer here is someone that was more or less a fan of the series and is here to have a feeling of home. That contrast with a hardcore gamer. Indeed, someone that pushes himself to the limit, merely a number.
I repeat myself from another post. Here is Gene Roddenberry and here is a TV Producer. Hey, Gene, what is that? It is a starship, the U.S.S. Enterprise. It has a crew and they explore the universe. They go boldly where no man has gone before. Good. What is that number? That is the DPS, the damage per second. When the starship and the crew encounter some baddies, they can shoot them to the other side of the galaxy. Wow! Great material for a TV show. Who is the guy with the funny ears? That is Spock. He is the science officer. Oh,.. eh, is he good for DPS? Do we need him?
Spock is not a superior romulan operative, so get rid of him!
Comments
1. An inherent skill anyone could use regardless of Boff skill choice, and
2. A skill that doesn't affect every weapon.
Making FAW an inherent captain skill (only one copy, ever!) would open up a ton of build possibilities, IMO. And having it affect all weapons, even torpedoes, would do so even more.
And as far as DHC vs DC... as far as I remember it was nevere about running one or the other, but both to offset the weapons of same type causing a delay in the firing cycle, as well as arc of fire. DHC's and DC's were on different timers and so didn't interfere with each otherwhen firing in unison, the way having say a third DHC did.
If they've changed that mechanic, then throw this all out.
That saiid the far more grievous deficiency is the poor performance of rapid fire and beam overload compared to their AoE couterparts. There never seams to be a point where using the single target ability does more damage to a single target than spamming the AoE ability would do to the same target. Rapid fire has it better as at least it's a state like scatter volley.
Your right there... it would need a balance pass no doubt. Perhaps turrets should be included in a reworking of range fall off as well. I know at a point they just become a Beam with a different GFX... really though would that be so bad in the end.
Yes that info is 3+ years out of date... even back then though DC where pointless. One single canon with 3 DHC was the way to go. Still ya Canons are only any good in PvP. In PvE land there sub optimal because Cryptic answer to difficulty always involves more targets. Which has 2 issues.... one Scatter has an arc, and two canon range fall off is terrible. CSV can do great if you have a SCI with you that has a good GW style build that will pull all those targets together. Still when beams can pump 80% of there dmg out to 8k or so in a complete 360 with no arcs to worry about... well it may be the most boring game play imaginable, still its a lot more effective, if you can stay awake.
Heh, nah - there are just certain things I won't test and will rely on the stuff other folks have provided. I can't remember what the +/-% range on the listed damage is for hitting a target, to go through and figure out at which point one would consider it to be range.
Say the tooltip listed 1000, it could be 9xxx/1xxx damage per shot with nothing changing.
So one would need to account for the possible range of damage - and - take it from there.
Would be a whole bunch of shots fired...some heinous testing there.
Hrmm, I thought I'd linked the spreadsheet that bareel linked that maelwys did...course, I've got been awake 2 minutes eyes going on - so maybe I did, lol. That was from 2012.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asu87Jb5VCBgdFFQLVQtdENLUVE0dlBOZnZPQ09DUHc#gid=0
Can see they've got their average going sort of thing in trying to get a grasp on the damage. Doesn't look to be far off the other, eh?
But yeah, not the kind of testing I'd do. I'd figure one would want either thousands of hits per distance or to have the devs state what that +/-% range is.
Would be nifty if Cryptic could do something different than go to extremes when looking into tweaking something...
Agreed, the fall off makes sense in a somewhat perspective, to the fact escort class vessels are quick/agile but, for them to remain that way they need keep moving which can tend to ruin their dps effectiveness at times.
To overcome the drop off, escorts are meant to close the gap quickly, turn quickly but, the moment they lose their frontal arc, their dps begins suffering.
So, we find people parking and shooting point blank but, we all know how what happens when they become the primary target of a powerful npc, it tends to force them to move once again!
While full out beams can sustain constant fire from any angle pretty much.
The range fall off for beams, was initially intended for keeping enemies at longer ranges, giving vessels either time to maneuver due to slower TR's and/or, better chances at analyzing their target(s) intents and, possibly make a hasty escape if need be.
And, we haven't even hit up on the beam/cannon skills yet!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
At the same time one target with stupid HP doesn't hurt it either.
As I said before the forums are biased towards cannons, when cannons were the kings of DPS no one seemed to complain. As I said in another thread cannons are NOT meant to be the kings of DPS cannons are meant to be weapons for burst damage not sustained damage.
While I mostly agree, the fact of the matter is, any weapon that continuously fires, is sustaining damage is it not?
Why should cannons vs beams make any difference?
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
It shouldn't, they should each be effective but unfortunately it's usually Either Cannons or Beams that rule STO and if I had to choose I'd rather have beams considering they are the most prevalent weapon in the star trek franchise.
I'd like to use canon beam builds on my ships instead of duck taping Dual Heavy cannons to the hull and spamming scatter volley, plus in terms of looks beams beat cannons any day every day :rolleyes:
Take a look at the DPS club leaderboards. How many are *not* using FAW? 5%? 8%? (I could ask the same thing about AP vs other energy types :P) Go look at the reddit builds - note how amazingly similar they all are...
I gave up - my main is now the same faw ap beam boat with nothing in torps/mines. I cycle ATB/FAW1/FAW2 with the best of them, tossing in the occasional EptW when I really want to live dangerously and step out there.
Yes, FAW is working as designed and it is designed broken. There is not enough threat on it to force balancing decisions. Double the threat on it if it really is in all other respect WAD. Folks want to take on the entire armada? They can add a load of -Th and give up something else.
And there is nothing iconic or Star Trekky about FAW. The vast majority of the time the shows and series It was used as a last resort at best, the overwhelming majority of the time are using precision targeting on specific targets. (yeah I know, silly to appeal to theme authority.
I may be imagining things but over the last month or less it seems my cannons are doing better. My DR recruit seemed to do well with them leveling up to 50 anyway. Torps remain near useless in the L60 end game episodes.
As opposed to when I first started playing and was trying to make nice builds and was getting creamed by the npcs. What a difference understanding the game makes even if you don't have any cash to back it up.
Anyway, the issue isn't so much FAW but the fact that lots of players don't know the game's basic mechanics, will fly something that can't kill the npcs, and then complain that the content is too hard so cryptic dumbs it down.
And voila, we're left in a place where some abilities, used properly, can make a joke out of the game's content, and nothing can be done that won't anger thousands of players who are used to beating the game without trying.
Yes unfortunately it seems!
And, while I like both cannons and beams visually, I definitely give it to beams audio wise, as cannons in this game sound horrid IMO [except the new Vaadwaur polarons]
Now, if I can just figure out, wth do they mount 2 360* omni arrays, to make them 360*?
Effectively, you would need 4 to get full 360*, 2 on top and, 2 on bottom!
Of course the same could be said with 1 Omni array, actually requiring 2, 1 on top and, 1 on bottom.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The top DPS run at the moment was done with phasers, iirc. The top cannon build, to my knowledge, got in the 70,000's, but it's true that most of those builds are using FAW.
Now, finding a player who is getting above 30k without EPTW would be *really* hard. Since EPTW buffs both beams and cannons (and doesn't take any tac ability slots) and has 100% uptime, it's probably used even more than FAW by people in DPS channels.
It's my understanding that threat is based on damage (modified by skills, consoles, etc.), not ability type. When I run an STF in my FAW-boat with people who get far lower DPS than me, I'm getting shot at by everything on the map.
In DS9, when the Klingon armada attacks DS9, Sisko tells Worf to "fire at will." And Worf did pretty much what FAW does in-game.
Voyager would usually target subsystems (also an in-game ability), and that also appeared a lot in Enterprise. BO was also used in Enterprise. I don't remember a single time that FAW or something like it was referenced as a "last resort"; only that time in DS9 and it was pretty much the first attack in the battle.
But it's true that the majority of the time they weren't using FAW. Also, the majority of the time they were avoiding fighting at all in Star Trek, so....
Cannon builds can beat any content in this game. It's just that they do less damage than FAW, which means that getting enough damage out of them is that much harder. But still they're a totally viable option.
There are torp boats that can do the same, but they're even harder to get enough damage out of that most players would do better to stay away from them.
Fleet Patrol Escort Retrofit using phaser dual beam banks. You pretty much have to run phasers on the FPER due to the tail gun and Nadion Bomb.
STO is the only computer game I play, my other indulgence is NBA 2K on XBOX and its the same thing. The vast majority of players run zone defense double teams and full court pressure the entire game to take advantage of the "live ball" mechanic introduced in its latest iteration meaning there are more lose balls and turnovers. A percentage of gamers, usually the largest majority, will always gravitate towards the easiest route.
That's fine for them. You can't change it. You can't nerf that out. It's human nature. So be it. The solution is simple and requires no nerf/programming changes - find the players who play the game that you do and play with them.
There is absolutely no reason to faceroll content as fast as possible, even if it is possible. And there really isn't anything wrong with players who spend the time to learn the mechanics and specialize in their builds. You can play slow and tactical if you choose. The masses will be the masses.
Now saying that, I would like to see a reduction in the amount of beams fired from the beam bank. Maybe instead of 4 hits in one cycle 2 hits in once cycle. Increase the length of each hit and spread the equivalent damage across those 2 hits so the damage is exactly the same - just changing the visual. At least then FAW boats won't be as visibly annoying as they are (and probably a resource drain).
It is an amazing suprise to some people that there are those of us interested in pushing ourselves to our limit somewhere. As such, we happen to use what's optimal. And yet, for whatever reason, we're made fun of for it. And I really don't get why.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
FAW:
FAW means, the tact officer is simply firing on everything out there, not realy focusing on anything, just shoot all weapons in hope to hit something.
to represent this, I think FAW should have a hugh accuracy penalty, lets say by -30% or so. for balance reasons the weapon power drain can be slightly decreased while its active.
BO:
BO means, the tact officer overloads the power and puts everything in a single beam. he wants to make a perfect hit on a single target.
to represent this, I think BO should always crit (it does already) and it should have increased accuracy, lets say by +30%. BUT it also should drain weapon power again, maybe 50% of available weapon power; to balance the drain its dmg should be increased.
my 2 cents. and btw, that percentage numbers should be balanced, I have no idea what values would be good.
oh, and now that you got me started...
1. amount of dual beams should be limited. maybe 1 per escort, and 2 per cruisers. that would make ships more star trek like, and not that TRIBBLE like they are atm.
2. Torpedos must be able to shoot simultaneously, just like beams and cannons. atm they have a global cooldown of like 1,7 secs or so, thats not accaptable.
FAW is what got you into that mess to start with. :eek:
I long for a day when Cannons, Beams and torpedoes are all balanced.
5 years and nothing in this game has ever been balanced, they aren't about to start now.
So let's say they nerf FAW, then the 2nd best ability will pop up as the meta and everyone will use that. If they aren't going to balance things then nerfing one ability is only going to replace one OP power with another. At least now FAW is something everyone can use. What happens when the meta becomes a command or intel ability? That would be allot worse.
Let me try to explain. I have to say it is a guess, but it is the way how I look at a hardcore gamer here. For me STO is a very casual game. Meaning, made for casuals by casuals. People should not read offense in this statement. It is not meant that way. I am very fond of this game. Take notice of that.
A casual gamer here is someone that was more or less a fan of the series and is here to have a feeling of home. That contrast with a hardcore gamer. Indeed, someone that pushes himself to the limit, merely a number.
I repeat myself from another post. Here is Gene Roddenberry and here is a TV Producer. Hey, Gene, what is that? It is a starship, the U.S.S. Enterprise. It has a crew and they explore the universe. They go boldly where no man has gone before. Good. What is that number? That is the DPS, the damage per second. When the starship and the crew encounter some baddies, they can shoot them to the other side of the galaxy. Wow! Great material for a TV show. Who is the guy with the funny ears? That is Spock. He is the science officer. Oh,.. eh, is he good for DPS? Do we need him?
That would require content changes...unless everything was just homogenized and the only difference were the pretty FX.
I don't think that's entirely the case. For those who have taken the time and effort to create builds in this manner, you are a small subset of the population. Like the group of players who fly canon only, or those that try to maximize science, or role play, or other specialized groups or players. Like the guy who builds his old school car from the ground up with an eye of maximizing performance.
That takes hard work, dedication and wisdom. Where it becomes a problem is your specialization just happens to be the more often desired method for the masses who want to get as much, be as strong, twice as fast as the next guy and cherry pick the currently in style super bad BFG build. Put another way it's viewed as "cooler" than some of the other specialized groups of players. Like the hacker who just downloads someone else's hard worked code to claim they can be a hacker too.
Override Subsystem Safeties, brah. :cool:
I hear you on that one, which is why I have constantly stated that Cryptic needs to have a better look at the way Aggro/Threat is generated.
Spock is not a superior romulan operative, so get rid of him!