Hi,
Although not mentioned in the current tribble notes, we have noticed that critical hits have been disabled with Beam Fire at Will on the Plasma explosion consoles. Our initial (and I admit limited testing) shows that overall attack effectiveness is reduced anywhere between 55% and 70% based on the current holodeck builds for that individual attack.
I understand that currently the explosion console proc and crits are only WAI on BFAW. Therefore, I have to ask why is this being disabled just because they do not crit with any type of beam and cannon buff? Apart from upsetting a large portion of the player base who have put a significant amount of resources into these consoles, you intentionally break the weapon buff that is currently working correctly!
As I understand it, there is the intention to fix them so they crit with everything, however, there are many players that believe this will never happen. Or at the very least will not happen any time soon. If your intention is to push the player base toward the Lab consoles, please bare in mind that these require a completely different activation method not optimized for many tactical ship builds and bridge officer layouts and they just received a ~40% nerf in the last patch.
It is of my humble opinion that this change is completely unnecessary. Fundamentally, this change does:
1) Not addressing what is currently broken
2) Breaks something that is WAI
3) Not address the core issues from a PVP standpoint of an energy attack that does not reduce damage over distance and is 100% shield penetrating
Respectfully, all this change will do is extremely upset a large number of players. If you can see the rhetoric spoken in many channels you would see where I am coming from. A small majority accept the change, those in the PVP crowd see it as a temporary respite only seeing as what is wrong with the proc at its core hasn't changed, many more are extremely annoyed and some are even talking about quitting the game over this decision.
If this is not your intention, it would be helpful if you could communicate your final goal for these consoles. You would have a tonne of metrics on BFAW by now, was the change from Plasma burn (doping) achieved from your viewpoint? Is the 50-60k DPS we are seeing with BFAW and these console acceptable to you? These and other things you have to say about these consoles that you can share will be well received by the community if your decision to proceed as you have on tribble can be understood should they be a part of a bigger plan.
Please don't silently break a WAI state without some kind of communication with us. As you can see from recent posts (one large and highly visible one started by me), the community isn't in the best mood right now and I fear any move by you on these consoles that the player base does not understand will push many people to the tipping point.
I hope this is well received and understood.
Regards,
Snipey47a
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Comments
Crits were disabled in order to bring parity, and there should definitely have been a patch note (I'm investigating why it may not have been included). If we had all the time in the world, we'd make it so these powers had the opportunity to land a Critical Hit regardless of your firing mode. But that is not the reality in which we live.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Would it not be worthwhile, in future, to make the consoles work before releasing them? Then you don't need to worry about rebuild time, cause they won't be broken.
(Now to sit back and wait on the cries of 'Nerf'.)
All I can ask is that you please consider what I have said because it will upset a lot of people. I can understand you wanting to bring parity to the ability, however, it has been like this for many months now and people on the PVE side has structured their builds completely around it. While this will make some PVP'ers happy in the short term, it doesn't address the fundamental issues of balance across the game's spectrum.
I understand that you are resource poor right now and I'm sure the community would understand that IF the status quo was maintained. Anyway, I hope you guys take a look at this course of action again and truly consider the magnitude of such a move to the player community.
Snipey47a
I hope you will reconsider this approach. I agree that many will be truly upset by this.
People have spent months slowly improving their ships buying this and that and farming endlessly and you're going to pull the rug out from under them with this
totally unnecessary too, cannon users and torpedo users werent balanced in the first place with beam users and represent a much smaller group. is parity for this small group worth angering your most dedicated players?
What bug are they creating? They're fixing a OP console which only was OP on the affect of one weapon buff...the one that rules them all...the all might FaW.
They fixed a bug by eliminating it critting for only one weapon buff...maybe not the fix you'd like but a fix none the less.
It never ceases to amaze me...some player discovers a broken OP way to inflate their dps...everyone migrates to it...it eventually gets fixed...and people complain up a storm because their broken OP crutch that they used to get decent DPS numbers is taken away.
It has happened many times before...it happened even before I played the game...and it's probably going to happen again...maybe people need to learn how to play better instead of just jumping on the exploit broken mechanics bandwagon every time something broken is discovered...best way not to get nerfed
They were working as intended with faw, but because they are incapable or unwilling to make them work as intended with everything else they are breaking them with faw. That is creating bugs.
WAI? Lets see...why were the plasma consoles changed in the first place? Because people were plasma doping to get big numbers...then they changed these consoles and only crit with FaW...doing even more damage than plasma doping...yeah...really WAI.
Well, if you have the money to donate to Cryptic to hire extra programmers, then by all means.
But if their intention is to bring back everything crit'ing, why not leave the status quo until then?
Except this was the fix to the embassy consoles. They have already been fixed to the plasma explosion from plasma fire. Were you unaware of this? So, the way the console works now was actually the compromise from how it worked before. Except now, it's being busted again. Do keep up
Try to know wtf your talking about before you open your mouth. Borticus himself said they should be critting with everything, the only reason they are getting nerfed with bfaw is because they can't be bothered to make them crit with everything like they should.
For a tac, the research lab consoles won't be a replacement. Maybe on a heal heavy sci or engy.
As an educated guess, I'd say because the lack of balance was having a significant effect on PvP and usage of FAW.
Even with this temporary "nerf" I do not see the new research consoles at par with these.
I am open towards this change. However, I have to admit I am somewhat biased because I have never gained much from these plasma explosions.
I am open to the change because I want to see if we'll get a resurgence of other builds other than BFAW. I hope to see more cannons and canon builds.
If parity will bring more build diversity then so be it.
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I beg you folks to take a step back and start fixing issues... put new releases on hold and allocate time to fixing things. No one wants the uber T6 Defiant and more gadgets that wont work properly. I just had yet another horrible Infected run where nothing would work. That is a steady state since January. It is plain unacceptable for your standards and your customers.
this is just my thoughts on where the real issue is.
Hum cynical side of me starts to think that maybe these changes are to drum up sales for the new Research consoles. Why shortly after Command Tree and Ships got released we saw a nerf to some Intel powers
Really wish I could say this to clients and customers in my job. Sorry, can't fix that trade on your pension, it'll just take too long. Oh, to make it fair, I've taken some money out your general investments, to balance it all up. Have a good one!
That is a HELL of alot of Dil / EC / FC down the drain.
...#LLAP...
It's having deleterious effects on PvE, too. Strings of massive Crits are not balanced, and they will only lead to even bigger HP values on NPCs in the future.
Here is how I see the major argument against this decision:
If you can't get a crit, the consoles are not worth it.
That doesn't sound like a good defense for the status quo. I agree that fixing the plasma crit chance for everything would have been preferred. Given that Bort has removed that as a viable option, I prefer this fix to the status quo.
Yeah...still doesn't negate the fact that the fix is even worse than the problem it *fixed*...that for a simple proc it was rampantly over powered...plus it could be stacked...where plasma doping required you to use this console and specific damage consoles all you have to do is stack a few of these...but you know what...
I'm sorry...I'm completely wrong...I'm sorry that your 50 - 100k crits from a single console which is easy obtainable are gone...I'm sorry that many of you wont be able to stand without your crutch.
Yikes. So, all those consoles got a 70% nerf, just like that?! Would it surprise you to learn that this upsets me?! You already fixed them before, and it's only after that, that I started making mine all Epic.
I was inclined to blame the poster who started this whole 'I want plasma consoles nerfed', but, in all fairness, I don't think even he had this in mind.
Yes, the Tactical Scimitar will return to being the top DPS ship.