Well, I was going to ask just what was the rationale behind putting cannon skills a promotion higher than beam skills.
To keep them out of the hands of cruiser and science ship captains. Don't forget, original T5 cruisers and science ships did not have access to any tactical skills higher than lieutenant level, meaning those ships could have at most only one copy of any one cannon skill, and then were also restricted to using single cannons (unless you were Klingon, and originally Klingons were a PvP-only faction) while being hampered by slow turn rates.
If the devs were to move the cannon skills down, as suggested, what replacements would there be at commander level?
Also, they would have to balance things out. The simple solution to that equation would be to reduce the base hull amounts of all escorts by 50% and cap the shield multiplier of all escorts at 0.5. Hull base points and shield multipliers should scale to turn rate. Actually, those are things that should be done anyway.
Bottom line: the OP's idea is fail. Cannon skills should not be moved to ensign/lieutenant/lieutenant commander levels. Escorts are supposed to deal burst damage, not constant pressure damage. Learn to play the game, mmkay?
To keep them out of the hands of cruiser and science ship captains. Don't forget, original T5 cruisers and science ships did not have access to any tactical skills higher than lieutenant level, meaning those ships could have at most only one copy of any one cannon skill, and then were also restricted to using single cannons (unless you were Klingon, and originally Klingons were a PvP-only faction) while being hampered by slow turn rates.
If the devs were to move the cannon skills down, as suggested, what replacements would there be at commander level?
Also, they would have to balance things out. The simple solution to that equation would be to reduce the base hull amounts of all escorts by 50% and cap the shield multiplier of all escorts at 0.5. Hull base points and shield multipliers should scale to turn rate. Actually, those are things that should be done anyway.
Bottom line: the OP's idea is fail. Cannon skills should not be moved to ensign/lieutenant/lieutenant commander levels. Escorts are supposed to deal burst damage, not constant pressure damage. Learn to play the game, mmkay?
Oh, honey.
If you move the skills down, there are still plenty of options at Cmdr level; Beta, Omega, Delta, Dispersal Pattern Alpha, Beta. They are also adding new skills in. It's not too hard to imagine they could do that again if they perceive a lack of useful Cmdr-level abilities.
Those were the original intentions of the restrictions, yes. But we've moved so far beyond the original game design and meta that they're hardly even the same game. The fact that Leech and +75 consoles exist is proof of that alone; +7 Power consoles were nerfed to half relatively soon after launch because +7 power gave "too much power, too easily" (to a single subsystem, mind you), as were +30 Sci consoles because they were also deemed OP.
Escorts can, do, and will continue to do burst damage. If they're meant to do burst damage (as I will agree with), don't you find it odd that so many Escorts nowadays are using Dual Beams and FAW (outside of PvP), for high pressure damage? Dual (Heavy) Cannons are the highest burst weapons in the game, and they're still tied to Escorts. As are 5 forward weapons (minus a few exceptions like the Avenger and Scimi). Scis and Cruisers are still hampered by all of the same restrictions you mentioned; low turn rate and Single Cannons only.
This change actually has the least to do with Escorts; it's more about Sci and Cruisers. Will they benefit from it? Sure, but not as much as everyone else. Plus it'll even throw a wrench into some builds, require some work, as evidence by Virus' post below this.
Before telling someone to L2P, maybe L2Comprehend, mmkay?
but I am unfamiliar with the finer points of the game on damage, only that FAW rules now. it may be that moving everything down a seat would just reverse things (cannons might rule) instead of balance it.
To keep them out of the hands of cruiser and science ship captains. Don't forget, original T5 cruisers and science ships did not have access to any tactical skills higher than lieutenant level, meaning those ships could have at most only one copy of any one cannon skill, and then were also restricted to using single cannons (unless you were Klingon, and originally Klingons were a PvP-only faction) while being hampered by slow turn rates.
If the devs were to move the cannon skills down, as suggested, what replacements would there be at commander level?
Also, they would have to balance things out. The simple solution to that equation would be to reduce the base hull amounts of all escorts by 50% and cap the shield multiplier of all escorts at 0.5. Hull base points and shield multipliers should scale to turn rate. Actually, those are things that should be done anyway.
Bottom line: the OP's idea is fail. Cannon skills should not be moved to ensign/lieutenant/lieutenant commander levels. Escorts are supposed to deal burst damage, not constant pressure damage. Learn to play the game, mmkay?
So we should let Escorts do as much damage as FAWROFLSTOMP cruisers but in return nerf the ever loving F*** out of their health!? I don't like to resort to this too often but i believe in this instance its warranted...
but I am unfamiliar with the finer points of the game on damage, only that FAW rules now. it may be that moving everything down a seat would just reverse things (cannons might rule) instead of balance it.
Nothing to do with balance. It has been proven that higher optimal capabilities doesn't mean dominance or popularity. While ease of use can make a weapon dominant or popular.
Due to its better optimal damage capabilities, FPER should be more popular and more dominant now than scimitar which hasn't happened due to the scimitars ease of use compared to FPER.
You can apply the same premise with cannon and beams. even if you can make cannons more poweful than beams in damage, if there is a gap of ease of use, beams will be still more popular.
So we should let Escorts do as much damage as FAWROFLSTOMP cruisers but in return nerf the ever loving F*** out of their health!? I don't like to resort to this too often but i believe in this instance its warranted...
Escorts do more damage than cruisers. Cruisers haven't held the damage King for quite sometime.
But this isn't about escort or cruisers, all about cannons.
I support it and, have been asking for it myself, as it seems dumb how a ensign tac boff can be like "Sir, I am fully trained in beam weaponry and torpedoes but, I don't know diddly about cannons!"
He can perform bfaw/beam overload/subsystem targeting/torpedo spread/torpedo high yield but, can't do squat in regards to cannons, is really dumb imo.
I agree with the OP's request, also I would like to propose giving FAW a 30 second cooldown and a 15 second shared cooldown.
edit: just so there's no confusion, the damage could be scaled down slightly to compensate for the increased uptime and reduced cooldowns.
Wait, lol, you want to buff FAW even more?
It's a 10s up/10s down with the 20s shared CD. They just changed Beam Barrage so folks could stack it with FAW. You want it to be a 10s up/5s down with a 15s shared CD...with just a slight decrease to offset what that would mean?
Just nerf BFAW, and CSV and CRF become more interesting.
Give NPCs more healing, and untargeted AOE damage becomes less viable as any damage not capitalized on immediately is healed away. (And the low DPS people can't beat NPCs anymore. Ooops.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The weapons system and the weapon abilities need a serious look.
They both are obviously not equal in efficiency, a bunch of abilities makes no sense and certain weapon types are completely obsolete.
BFAW makes no sense - why does it increase damage (not because it's counted two or three times hitting multiple targets, it gives a flat damage boost as well) in the first place, even against single targets?
CSV makes no sense - why are targets in the cone all hit equally, with increased damage? While a beam cone could reasonably hit all targets, cannon shots can't.
Why are cannon skills Lt and up? Why are there dual cannons while dual heavy cannons come with absolutely no restrictions and are plain better? Why aren't there heavy beam weapons? What's the point of single cannons?
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
The weapons system and the weapon abilities need a serious look.
They both are obviously not equal in efficiency, a bunch of abilities makes no sense and certain weapon types are completely obsolete.
BFAW makes no sense - why does it increase damage (not because it's counted two or three times hitting multiple targets, it gives a flat damage boost as well) in the first place, even against single targets?
CSV makes no sense - why are targets in the cone all hit equally, with increased damage? While a beam cone could reasonably hit all targets, cannon shots can't.
Fundamentally... They're buffs. So they are supposed to improve your damage output. BFAW specifically was altered the way it is now because they never wanted it to be a drawback to use BFAW, so it has both a damage and an extra target bonus. It went through many itereations to get to the point where it is now.
Why are cannon skills Lt and up?
Because they were originally giving you more of a BOFF than the beam skills, and it is also a bit of a niche protection - Escorts can use DHCs and are one of the few ships that can also use the cannon buffs to full extent. (Since that requires Lt. and higher tactical slots, and it took to Tier 3 until any other ship than an Escort originally could use cannon buffs in the first place.
Why are there dual cannons while dual heavy cannons come with absolutely no restrictions and are plain better?
Unintended consequence of the energy drain system.
Why aren't there heavy beam weapons?
Why would there? The weapon balance for energy weapons is in a large part based on fire arc vs damage output. Beam weapons in Star Trek, and particular phaser beams - were always depicted as wide arc weapons and the type of emitter (banks) associated with beams also makes them feel more like wide arc weapons. Within the Star Trek aesthetics, there just aren't that many narrow arc beam weapons. The narrow arc type weapons are mostly limited to one-off special effects (like the deflector beam the Enterprise D tries to use against the Borg) or cannons.
Star Trek Online reflects this type of aesthetics quite well.
For narrow arc purposes with phasers, they created dual beams - were the narrow arc makes mostly sense because the "dual beam" tends to use beam bank on two sides of the ship and there is only a limited arc overlap.
What's the point of single cannons?
To have a wider arc type of cannon?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Just nerf BFAW, and CSV and CRF become more interesting.
Give NPCs more healing, and untargeted AOE damage becomes less viable as any damage not capitalized on immediately is healed away. (And the low DPS people can't beat NPCs anymore. Ooops.)
I don't think that BFAW needs a nerf, but rather enemy NPCs need a change. I've been thinking of the same route:
Less NPC density
Lower NPC HP
Higher NPC damage resist
More frequent/powerful NPC hull and shield heals
Higher threat generation from AOE abilities
If I were to change BFAW, it would be to add weapon power drain to each shot. Not equal to individual shots, but slightly less. It would also be nice if beams were best against shields, less for hull, torpedos weakest against shields, best for hull and cannons/turrets somewhere in between.
I think it would immensely improve PvE gameplay if the game moved from AOE spam to burst focused fire. AoE can be used to soften up NPCs, but the finishing blow should be burst/spike damage to overwhelm an NPC's heal. We already have the tools to fire off huge damage spikes, it's just that popular since AOE abilities currently trump them.
If burst/spike damage becomes important again, then I think cannons and torps will become more popular. But then again, it would mean that PvE will require a little more piloting skill....
The point of single cannons is to let a build go to waste :cool:
As for the point about BFAW, I have never, ever seen in any multiplayer game where you have a single ability do all this:
- Likely enable hitting targets in a 360 degree "arc" around the player.
- Enabling a chance to land critical hits with this same ability.
- Maintain 100% damage effectiveness
- Short cooldown
- Good uptime; great combo with the short cooldown
Other games have multiple target/AOE abilities. That's a no-brainer. They'll have some or many of the characteristics I just listed. But none of them had ALL the characteristics I listed, all in one ability. Usually when you had a multiple target/AOE ability that maintained good or very high damage output, it was balanced by having a very long recharge. That isn't so with STO's BFAW.
Hell, even on single targets, BFAW will annihilate the performance of the Single-Target capability of Beam Overload. BO has a spike, but BFAW will just keep spamming attacks and with better players and builds, just Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit... Even more hilarious if you have Kemocite Weaponry.
The point of single cannons is to let a build go to waste :cool:
As for the point about BFAW, I have never, ever seen in any multiplayer game where you have a single ability do all this:
- Likely enable hitting targets in a 360 degree "arc" around the player.
- Enabling a chance to land critical hits with this same ability.
- Maintain 100% damage effectiveness
- Short cooldown
- Good uptime; great combo with the short cooldown
Other games have multiple target/AOE abilities. That's a no-brainer. They'll have some or many of the characteristics I just listed. But none of them had ALL the characteristics I listed, all in one ability. Usually when you had a multiple target/AOE ability that maintained good or very high damage output, it was balanced by having a very long recharge. That isn't so with STO's BFAW.
Hell, even on single targets, BFAW will annihilate the performance of the Single-Target capability of Beam Overload. BO has a spike, but BFAW will just keep spamming attacks and with better players and builds, just Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit... Even more hilarious if you have Kemocite Weaponry.
I don't care for the dps race. I will always fit my escorts with cannons because that's how it's supposed to be.
Beamscorts are abominations.
Would you force your son to wear a dress?
As to ideas for changes, I'd make BFAW more of a utillity power, focused on threat generation, debuffing and point defense.
So, decrease the overall damage potential and add a strong accuracy buff to make it more effective in dealing with incoming small stuff.
Yopu could also add a small sensory overload debuff that weakens anyone hit by BFAW.
I still remember scowering the exchange for a BOFF that could train skills in what I thought would be ideal...and only later found out that they didn't exist. It's like only being able to train in a II, when a DOFF exists with a III...annoying.
If burst/spike damage becomes important again, then I think cannons and torps will become more popular. But then again, it would mean that PvE will require a little more piloting skill....
No. Torps and Cannons can still kill stuff in the current mechanics. So changing HP has nothing to do with cannons and torps nor beams
Main difference of weapon types, is ease of use. You can kill stuff with beams with least amount of effort, than cannons or torps. Although you still need effort to do all three three weapons.
If you want stuff to lower HP, it only means you restricted your cannon or torp builds into vapes rather than sustained DPS.
The point of single cannons is to let a build go to waste :cool:
As for the point about BFAW, I have never, ever seen in any multiplayer game where you have a single ability do all this:
- Likely enable hitting targets in a 360 degree "arc" around the player.
- Enabling a chance to land critical hits with this same ability.
- Maintain 100% damage effectiveness
- Short cooldown
- Good uptime; great combo with the short cooldown
You dont get all your weapons 360 degree arc if you are trying to optimize beams damage. You can do cannon based weapons with 360 degree arc for all weapons but it doesnt optimize the use of your cannons the same premise as getting a 360 arc for your beam arrays.
What make beams have advantage is ease of use. Once you guys start seeing, cannon boats or torps boat deal higher damage than beam array parses you wont see dominance or popularity with torps or cannon boat due to ease of use of beam arrays.
So far, Ease of use trumps optimal capability when it comes to popularity and dominance.
cryptic doesn't help matters by pushing out content with hordes of enemys to face tailor made for BfaW instead of fewer quality enemys
when your cruiser faces a NPC cruiser you should be in for a fight.....Not a roll over like now
If the NPCs were of a better quality and fewer of them BfaW would not be OP like it is now
With so many NPC's to face in current content its too annoying for most people to give up BfaW ( kill them All ) to a cannon build that makes a player work a LOT harder to do the same thing
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
No. Torps and Cannons can still kill stuff in the current mechanics. So changing HP has nothing to do with cannons and torps nor beams
That's just it. My suggestion was to change the current mechanics. Giving NPCs enough heal and resists to outheal normal sustained DPS levels from average players but with low enough HP where sudden spike damage (from basic abilities such as CRF, BO or HY or specials such as Isokinetic Cannon, Phaser Lances, etc.) can kill it would change things. Some single target abilities may need a buff.
I also like the suggestion of adding to the CD of AOE weapon abilities. Single target weapon buffs should also receive a lower CD.
I think less focus on AOE and more on spike will vastly help the playability of cannons and torpedoes. You no longer need to maintain sustained DPS so fast strafing runs with high powered single target attacks can be a viable alternative. Right now, the focus on AOE sustained DPS hurts these weapons due to their limited arc and range drop-off (in the case of cannons).
cryptic doesn't help matters by pushing out content with hordes of enemys to face tailor made for BfaW instead of fewer quality enemys
when your cruiser faces a NPC cruiser you should be in for a fight.....Not a roll over like now
If the NPCs were of a better quality and fewer of them BfaW would not be OP like it is now
With so many NPC's to face in current content its too annoying for most people to give up BfaW ( kill them All ) to a cannon build that makes a player work a LOT harder to do the same thing
I dont understand you. On the other thread, you want to nerf the advance mission so you can play it.
If you cant do stuff in the current mechanics and want a nerf to do it, why do you expect to do it when stuffs are harder? Because Mission have no fail? How can succeed when harder NPCs will pawn you and prevent you from doing stuff?
Mark my words, dont whine when the harder NPCs come. Once that day comes, I expect you will be one of those players whining at the forums about too hard of a mission even at normal.
That's just it. My suggestion was to change the current mechanics. Giving NPCs enough heal and resists to outheal normal sustained DPS levels from average players but with low enough HP where sudden spike damage (from basic abilities such as CRF, BO or HY or specials such as Isokinetic Cannon, Phaser Lances, etc.) can kill it would change things. Some single target abilities may need a buff.
Your basis is an average player. If an Average player remains at normal. If go to harder difficulty or elite stuff, NPCs there self heal and are difficulty beyond what normal players are capable of dealing damage or taking damage. The only time you will feel NPCs arent difficult enough is the time you can wipe off the hardest elite STFs with no sweat which is not an average player.
Also, you have no basis whatsoever that beams are more popular or more dominant to average players. The only available stat we got is the 75k+ channel parses which is public record. 75k+ DPS channel are not average players. You dont have average player stat Not unless you TRIBBLE cryptic and got their stat or TRIBBLE everyones account.
I also like the suggestion of adding to the CD of AOE weapon abilities. Single target weapon buffs should also receive a lower CD.
I think less focus on AOE and more on spike will vastly help the playability of cannons and torpedoes. You no longer need to maintain sustained DPS so fast strafing runs with high powered single target attacks can be a viable alternative. Right now, the focus on AOE sustained DPS hurts these weapons due to their limited arc and range drop-off (in the case of cannons).
With regards to your change mechanic, it has nothing to do with this thread which is Cannons abilities reducing to ens level. For me your change mechanics only means, PvP vape builds get to conserve their resources so instead of buying a separate stuff for PvP and PvE you basically buy the same stuff for pvp and pve regardless if you are using cannons, torps or beams.
Main Difference cannons vs beams is ease of use. Players will always prefer easier to use. I already gave the sample on FPER vs Scimitar parses as a basis. Even if you can somehow outDamage beams with cannons, beams will still dominate and outpopulate cannons due to ease of use outtrumping optimal capability
Optimal damage beams and Optimal damage cannons have both limited arc. Dont compare DHCs vs Beam Arrays/Omni Beams. They are not apple to apple comparisons.
Both have range drop off except Cannons have shorter drop off. This is covered by Beams is better in ease of use. With optimal piloting capability, you can negate this for both beams and cannons.
I like your idea. It would be a good first pass at trying to address the disparity between beams and cannons. One shouldn't be radically better than the other; They just need to be different.
I dont understand you. On the other thread, you want to nerf the advance mission so you can play it.
If you cant do stuff in the current mechanics and want a nerf to do it, why do you expect to do it when stuffs are harder? Because Mission have no fail? How can succeed when harder NPCs will pawn you and prevent you from doing stuff?
Mark my words, dont whine when the harder NPCs come. Once that day comes, I expect you will be one of those players whining at the forums about too hard of a mission even at normal.
Your basis is an average player. If an Average player remains at normal. If go to harder difficulty or elite stuff, NPCs there self heal and are difficulty beyond what normal players are capable of dealing damage or taking damage. The only time you will feel NPCs arent difficult enough is the time you can wipe off the hardest elite STFs with no sweat which is not an average player.
Also, you have no basis whatsoever that beams are more popular or more dominant to average players. The only available stat we got is the 75k+ channel parses which is public record. 75k+ DPS channel are not average players. You dont have average player stat Not unless you TRIBBLE cryptic and got their stat or TRIBBLE everyones account.
your problem you Assume too much and Do too little
I have only asked for Fails to be removed period
I never said I cant do DPS
I have never said the NPS were too hard
You assume everyone in a scimitar or be a romulan in order to do content and you assume everyone is ......so you assume your play style is the only way to play...That's your problem and its cryptics problem as well
In my fleet team advanced content is fun and easy....no problems ...We actually do it with human characters a lot of them in cruisers ! and a few in science ships there are Klingons in our sister fleet who join us in raptors and carriers
We even have romulans too :P
Try pugging a few STFs in a human or a Klingon in a Fed or Klingon ship...maybe a little light might shine in your eyes
from all of your posts you appear to be very safe and protected in your private match teams and don't have a clue what is going on in pugs pretty much like cryptic
Clueless and blind describes you in a nutshell
If you did normal and advanced content outside of your protected little world you would know what is and is not popular
You don't even know about normal Npcs healing here is a tip... The don't heal themselves unless your shifting to ground content ..that's separate cause you don't do 75k dps on the ground in a scimitar or whatever your flying in space
Most posters here already know how out of touch you are about normal and advanced content and totally out of touch you are about non romulan races
and completely out of touch with what happens and goes on in Pugs
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
No we wouldn't.. we have been complaining for 5+ years that there are no abilities for an all cannon escort at ens except for TT1. However, all beam boats may not be so bold in the future when it comes to challenges if these changes are completed.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
No we wouldn't.. we have been complaining for 5+ years that there are no abilities for an all cannon escort at ens except for TT1. However, all beam boats may not be so bold in the future when it comes to challenges if these changes are completed.
You mean the TT1 that non-doffed cruisers and sci-boats aren't running so they can chain up FAW?
Though I do thank you for making another checkmark in the 'Its All About Resentment Against Filthy Cruiser Casuals(tm)' column.
In my fleet team advanced content is fun and easy....no problems ...We actually do it with human characters a lot of them in cruisers ! and a few in science ships there are Klingons in our sister fleet who join us in raptors and carriers
We even have romulans too :P
Try pugging a few STFs in a human or a Klingon in a Fed or Klingon ship...maybe a little light might shine in your eyes
Oh I have, many times. My highest tac romulan recorded parse is my min/max alt. Go look at my fed eng parse at the DPS channel forums.
You also assume too much.
from all of your posts you appear to be very safe and protected in your private match teams and don't have a clue what is going on in pugs pretty much like cryptic
Again, that is your assumption that I dont do PuGs. I do PuG. I actually had PuG with you in BHE when we three mannned it. I literally carried the whole team while you were doing 100 DPS and in my view you were just leeching. But I am sure in your view you were doing well beyond what is needed for contribution. And that wasnt Romulan, it was a fed toon.
Clueless and blind describes you in a nutshell
If you did normal and advanced content outside of your protected little world you would know what is and is not popular
You don't even know about normal Npcs healing here is a tip... The don't heal themselves unless your shifting to ground content ..that's separate cause you don't do 75k dps on the ground in a scimitar or whatever your flying in space
Most posters here already know how out of touch you are about normal and advanced content and totally out of touch you are about non romulan races
and completely out of touch with what happens and goes on in Pugs
Again, You go look in the mirror. You assume that I dont do PuGs. You assume also that PuGs are the majority. You also assume that I only do Romulans.
Besides doing Romulans and non Romulans are basically the same thing. The only difference is how competent a player is. In fact, the top DPSer aint Romulan. Who is out of touch again?
The only same players who have the same opinion as you that I am out of touch are basically the same mindset as you, Incompetent players who hides behind nerfs but are making up stuff to justify leeching which I just happen to expose their hidden agendas.
Comments
If the devs were to move the cannon skills down, as suggested, what replacements would there be at commander level?
Also, they would have to balance things out. The simple solution to that equation would be to reduce the base hull amounts of all escorts by 50% and cap the shield multiplier of all escorts at 0.5. Hull base points and shield multipliers should scale to turn rate. Actually, those are things that should be done anyway.
Bottom line: the OP's idea is fail. Cannon skills should not be moved to ensign/lieutenant/lieutenant commander levels. Escorts are supposed to deal burst damage, not constant pressure damage. Learn to play the game, mmkay?
Oh, honey.
If you move the skills down, there are still plenty of options at Cmdr level; Beta, Omega, Delta, Dispersal Pattern Alpha, Beta. They are also adding new skills in. It's not too hard to imagine they could do that again if they perceive a lack of useful Cmdr-level abilities.
Those were the original intentions of the restrictions, yes. But we've moved so far beyond the original game design and meta that they're hardly even the same game. The fact that Leech and +75 consoles exist is proof of that alone; +7 Power consoles were nerfed to half relatively soon after launch because +7 power gave "too much power, too easily" (to a single subsystem, mind you), as were +30 Sci consoles because they were also deemed OP.
Escorts can, do, and will continue to do burst damage. If they're meant to do burst damage (as I will agree with), don't you find it odd that so many Escorts nowadays are using Dual Beams and FAW (outside of PvP), for high pressure damage? Dual (Heavy) Cannons are the highest burst weapons in the game, and they're still tied to Escorts. As are 5 forward weapons (minus a few exceptions like the Avenger and Scimi). Scis and Cruisers are still hampered by all of the same restrictions you mentioned; low turn rate and Single Cannons only.
This change actually has the least to do with Escorts; it's more about Sci and Cruisers. Will they benefit from it? Sure, but not as much as everyone else. Plus it'll even throw a wrench into some builds, require some work, as evidence by Virus' post below this.
Before telling someone to L2P, maybe L2Comprehend, mmkay?
It would actually suck for me...
TT1, TS2, KLW3, CSV3
...killing the build completely, since I have no use for any Dispersal and am not using an Attack Pattern.
Maybe if they added an Ensign with a T6 BoP...could suck up having a CSV2 while dropping down to TS1 and slotting APB3 or APO3...hrmm.
this is a fascinating idea
it might be very good
but I am unfamiliar with the finer points of the game on damage, only that FAW rules now. it may be that moving everything down a seat would just reverse things (cannons might rule) instead of balance it.
So we should let Escorts do as much damage as FAWROFLSTOMP cruisers but in return nerf the ever loving F*** out of their health!? I don't like to resort to this too often but i believe in this instance its warranted...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPZuYwYxnL4
Nothing to do with balance. It has been proven that higher optimal capabilities doesn't mean dominance or popularity. While ease of use can make a weapon dominant or popular.
Due to its better optimal damage capabilities, FPER should be more popular and more dominant now than scimitar which hasn't happened due to the scimitars ease of use compared to FPER.
You can apply the same premise with cannon and beams. even if you can make cannons more poweful than beams in damage, if there is a gap of ease of use, beams will be still more popular.
Escorts do more damage than cruisers. Cruisers haven't held the damage King for quite sometime.
But this isn't about escort or cruisers, all about cannons.
He can perform bfaw/beam overload/subsystem targeting/torpedo spread/torpedo high yield but, can't do squat in regards to cannons, is really dumb imo.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
edit: just so there's no confusion, the damage could be scaled down slightly to compensate for the increased uptime and reduced cooldowns.
Wait, lol, you want to buff FAW even more?
It's a 10s up/10s down with the 20s shared CD. They just changed Beam Barrage so folks could stack it with FAW. You want it to be a 10s up/5s down with a 15s shared CD...with just a slight decrease to offset what that would mean?
Every post of zathri83 has a sad face. It's up to us to turn that frown, UPSIDE DOWN!
(With more PVP of course)
Give NPCs more healing, and untargeted AOE damage becomes less viable as any damage not capitalized on immediately is healed away. (And the low DPS people can't beat NPCs anymore. Ooops.)
They both are obviously not equal in efficiency, a bunch of abilities makes no sense and certain weapon types are completely obsolete.
BFAW makes no sense - why does it increase damage (not because it's counted two or three times hitting multiple targets, it gives a flat damage boost as well) in the first place, even against single targets?
CSV makes no sense - why are targets in the cone all hit equally, with increased damage? While a beam cone could reasonably hit all targets, cannon shots can't.
Why are cannon skills Lt and up? Why are there dual cannons while dual heavy cannons come with absolutely no restrictions and are plain better? Why aren't there heavy beam weapons? What's the point of single cannons?
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Because they were originally giving you more of a BOFF than the beam skills, and it is also a bit of a niche protection - Escorts can use DHCs and are one of the few ships that can also use the cannon buffs to full extent. (Since that requires Lt. and higher tactical slots, and it took to Tier 3 until any other ship than an Escort originally could use cannon buffs in the first place.
Unintended consequence of the energy drain system.
Why would there? The weapon balance for energy weapons is in a large part based on fire arc vs damage output. Beam weapons in Star Trek, and particular phaser beams - were always depicted as wide arc weapons and the type of emitter (banks) associated with beams also makes them feel more like wide arc weapons. Within the Star Trek aesthetics, there just aren't that many narrow arc beam weapons. The narrow arc type weapons are mostly limited to one-off special effects (like the deflector beam the Enterprise D tries to use against the Borg) or cannons.
Star Trek Online reflects this type of aesthetics quite well.
For narrow arc purposes with phasers, they created dual beams - were the narrow arc makes mostly sense because the "dual beam" tends to use beam bank on two sides of the ship and there is only a limited arc overlap.
To have a wider arc type of cannon?
I don't think that BFAW needs a nerf, but rather enemy NPCs need a change. I've been thinking of the same route:
If I were to change BFAW, it would be to add weapon power drain to each shot. Not equal to individual shots, but slightly less. It would also be nice if beams were best against shields, less for hull, torpedos weakest against shields, best for hull and cannons/turrets somewhere in between.
I think it would immensely improve PvE gameplay if the game moved from AOE spam to burst focused fire. AoE can be used to soften up NPCs, but the finishing blow should be burst/spike damage to overwhelm an NPC's heal. We already have the tools to fire off huge damage spikes, it's just that popular since AOE abilities currently trump them.
If burst/spike damage becomes important again, then I think cannons and torps will become more popular. But then again, it would mean that PvE will require a little more piloting skill....
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As for the point about BFAW, I have never, ever seen in any multiplayer game where you have a single ability do all this:
- Likely enable hitting targets in a 360 degree "arc" around the player.
- Enabling a chance to land critical hits with this same ability.
- Maintain 100% damage effectiveness
- Short cooldown
- Good uptime; great combo with the short cooldown
Other games have multiple target/AOE abilities. That's a no-brainer. They'll have some or many of the characteristics I just listed. But none of them had ALL the characteristics I listed, all in one ability. Usually when you had a multiple target/AOE ability that maintained good or very high damage output, it was balanced by having a very long recharge. That isn't so with STO's BFAW.
Hell, even on single targets, BFAW will annihilate the performance of the Single-Target capability of Beam Overload. BO has a spike, but BFAW will just keep spamming attacks and with better players and builds, just Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit and Crit... Even more hilarious if you have Kemocite Weaponry.
Did you try rotating your screen?
Yeah, its the age of the BF@W zombies.
Beamscorts are abominations.
Would you force your son to wear a dress?
As to ideas for changes, I'd make BFAW more of a utillity power, focused on threat generation, debuffing and point defense.
So, decrease the overall damage potential and add a strong accuracy buff to make it more effective in dealing with incoming small stuff.
Yopu could also add a small sensory overload debuff that weakens anyone hit by BFAW.
No. Torps and Cannons can still kill stuff in the current mechanics. So changing HP has nothing to do with cannons and torps nor beams
Main difference of weapon types, is ease of use. You can kill stuff with beams with least amount of effort, than cannons or torps. Although you still need effort to do all three three weapons.
If you want stuff to lower HP, it only means you restricted your cannon or torp builds into vapes rather than sustained DPS.
You dont get all your weapons 360 degree arc if you are trying to optimize beams damage. You can do cannon based weapons with 360 degree arc for all weapons but it doesnt optimize the use of your cannons the same premise as getting a 360 arc for your beam arrays.
What make beams have advantage is ease of use. Once you guys start seeing, cannon boats or torps boat deal higher damage than beam array parses you wont see dominance or popularity with torps or cannon boat due to ease of use of beam arrays.
So far, Ease of use trumps optimal capability when it comes to popularity and dominance.
when your cruiser faces a NPC cruiser you should be in for a fight.....Not a roll over like now
If the NPCs were of a better quality and fewer of them BfaW would not be OP like it is now
With so many NPC's to face in current content its too annoying for most people to give up BfaW ( kill them All ) to a cannon build that makes a player work a LOT harder to do the same thing
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
That's just it. My suggestion was to change the current mechanics. Giving NPCs enough heal and resists to outheal normal sustained DPS levels from average players but with low enough HP where sudden spike damage (from basic abilities such as CRF, BO or HY or specials such as Isokinetic Cannon, Phaser Lances, etc.) can kill it would change things. Some single target abilities may need a buff.
I also like the suggestion of adding to the CD of AOE weapon abilities. Single target weapon buffs should also receive a lower CD.
I think less focus on AOE and more on spike will vastly help the playability of cannons and torpedoes. You no longer need to maintain sustained DPS so fast strafing runs with high powered single target attacks can be a viable alternative. Right now, the focus on AOE sustained DPS hurts these weapons due to their limited arc and range drop-off (in the case of cannons).
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I dont understand you. On the other thread, you want to nerf the advance mission so you can play it.
If you cant do stuff in the current mechanics and want a nerf to do it, why do you expect to do it when stuffs are harder? Because Mission have no fail? How can succeed when harder NPCs will pawn you and prevent you from doing stuff?
Mark my words, dont whine when the harder NPCs come. Once that day comes, I expect you will be one of those players whining at the forums about too hard of a mission even at normal.
Your basis is an average player. If an Average player remains at normal. If go to harder difficulty or elite stuff, NPCs there self heal and are difficulty beyond what normal players are capable of dealing damage or taking damage. The only time you will feel NPCs arent difficult enough is the time you can wipe off the hardest elite STFs with no sweat which is not an average player.
Also, you have no basis whatsoever that beams are more popular or more dominant to average players. The only available stat we got is the 75k+ channel parses which is public record. 75k+ DPS channel are not average players. You dont have average player stat Not unless you TRIBBLE cryptic and got their stat or TRIBBLE everyones account.
With regards to your change mechanic, it has nothing to do with this thread which is Cannons abilities reducing to ens level. For me your change mechanics only means, PvP vape builds get to conserve their resources so instead of buying a separate stuff for PvP and PvE you basically buy the same stuff for pvp and pve regardless if you are using cannons, torps or beams.
Main Difference cannons vs beams is ease of use. Players will always prefer easier to use. I already gave the sample on FPER vs Scimitar parses as a basis. Even if you can somehow outDamage beams with cannons, beams will still dominate and outpopulate cannons due to ease of use outtrumping optimal capability
Optimal damage beams and Optimal damage cannons have both limited arc. Dont compare DHCs vs Beam Arrays/Omni Beams. They are not apple to apple comparisons.
Both have range drop off except Cannons have shorter drop off. This is covered by Beams is better in ease of use. With optimal piloting capability, you can negate this for both beams and cannons.
The words you are looking for are 'paying customers who help keep the game afloat'.
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
No we wouldn't.. we have been complaining for 5+ years that there are no abilities for an all cannon escort at ens except for TT1. However, all beam boats may not be so bold in the future when it comes to challenges if these changes are completed.
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MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
You mean the TT1 that non-doffed cruisers and sci-boats aren't running so they can chain up FAW?
Though I do thank you for making another checkmark in the 'Its All About Resentment Against Filthy Cruiser Casuals(tm)' column.
Don't you think that if they could double up on Cannon abilities, they might not jump to Beams by default so readily?
You also assume too much.
Again, that is your assumption that I dont do PuGs. I do PuG. I actually had PuG with you in BHE when we three mannned it. I literally carried the whole team while you were doing 100 DPS and in my view you were just leeching. But I am sure in your view you were doing well beyond what is needed for contribution. And that wasnt Romulan, it was a fed toon.
Again, You go look in the mirror. You assume that I dont do PuGs. You assume also that PuGs are the majority. You also assume that I only do Romulans.
Besides doing Romulans and non Romulans are basically the same thing. The only difference is how competent a player is. In fact, the top DPSer aint Romulan. Who is out of touch again?
The only same players who have the same opinion as you that I am out of touch are basically the same mindset as you, Incompetent players who hides behind nerfs but are making up stuff to justify leeching which I just happen to expose their hidden agendas.