I don't really have a dog in this fight since i never used the plasma doping, but @borticuscryptic , if they were only critting on FAW, and this was causing an imbalance, couldn't you disable the crit, and then raise the base damage across the board?
It seems like that would give parity to all attack modes.
Now this would have been the logical approach to the problem, even as a temporary measure. As for the way the consoles were originally "painting" players into a corner, with attack/weapons types. Sorry but Cryptic did that long ago. You've only got to look at the damage to distance drop off between beams and cannons. Or is the nerf bat getting swung against beams or Fire at will next time? Because Cryptic sure has hell wont actually buff anything.
To those complaining, just compare the plasma console to the other same consoles from the embassy (hull heal and shield heal). The damage proc from the plasma ones should be balanced against the hull heal and shield heal ones. The plasma ones have always completely outperformed the other two by several orders of magnitude.
You have a point but, Broken or working as intended, everyone who upgraded theirs during the event has every right to be totally pissed, feel cheated and complain as they just spent a shed load of dil, ec and money on making these go epic, only to find out the day the event ends those consoles are not only getting a nerf bat, they are getting a very TRIBBLE BIG NERF BAT. Not only is Crit being disabled, but the base damage of these consoles is also being reduced. Double whammy.
Now do you think thats fair ? and do you honestly believe it was a honest mistake by Cryptic before this event to omit this detail about the embassy consoles from the Tribble patch notes. I def don't think it was a oversight they knew exactly what they were doing, its how this company operates
But... you didnt lost anything... Everything you spent on the upgrades its still there. Did your epic consoles downgraded? I hardly think so. The stats Flow or PrtG are still there. The +th or -th, whatever floats ur boat, is still there, isnt it? Ohh, you mean that "little extra dmg" from explosions its actually on par with other consoles/skills/weapon types? Well... thats wonderful, imho. In fact one would be happy if, any, balance passes are given. More of them for the better. When that "little extra dmg" could crit for 50k-100k it was clearly something wrong. And so it upgrading them just for that reason. The consoles allready gives so much, stats and +th/-th, wich can make ur reciprocity build work better or be a life saver if you dont want aggro.
And not mentioning in the patch note? Dunno about that, but probably they are pretty busy also (on top of their regular stuff) with the STLV thingy. Promo materials, videos and stuff...
In the end, if this is temporary, then it'll be back to normal, except Cannons will be more competitive again.
BFAW's superiority to cannons has nothing to do with the Plasma explosions, and everything to do with it taking a lower level BOff ability slot, and beams having both a wider arc and less drop off.
It's clear that Cryptic has no idea the answer to that question. But in PvE, with mobs having insane amounts of Hull HP thanks to Delta Rising, a console that was very useful in overcoming such lack of logic, has now been heavily nerfed (and far more than Bort admits to).
It's very clear that Cryptic has no idea what they're doing anymore.
I said ages ago that They should make all consoles so that the players can only load one of each type onto their ship.
Would have curtailed a lot of the pizzin' & moanin' about how great a loss it would be when They changed one of them for the worse. (for whatever "reasons")
Would also have saved a lot of folks from spending (wasting) gobs of the resources to upgrade multiple copies.
Might even have kept the DPS race from completely taking over the game.
Anyway, I'll bet right about now Bort sometimes wishes he were back doing those wonderful STO'kd podcasts with Chris about the game, rather then putting up with the outrage from folks who disagree with how he has to implement the game as one of it's designers.
<smh>
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
It's clear that Cryptic has no idea the answer to that question. But in PvE, with mobs having insane amounts of Hull HP thanks to Delta Rising, a console that was very useful in overcoming such lack of logic, has now been heavily nerfed (and far more than Bort admits to).
It's very clear that Cryptic has no idea what they're doing anymore.
The hyperinflated NPC HP was based around artificially inflated perceived DPS by a 'large' group of people by the Devs, thanks to things like EAP and the Plasma Explosion/Burn.
Now that they've removed or 'fixed' those heavy sources of DPS "padding", the massive HP pools of NPCs makes even less sense than it did before.
Disclaimer: Obviously people can (and do) achieve high amounts of DPS without EAP/Plasma Doping That's not my point - I'm simply stating that the balancing factor of high HP was based around DPS sources that don't exist anymore.
If we find out just exactly what the Devs intentions for these consoles are, we'll be able to make significantly better suggestions and judgements about them.
Are they intended to be replacements for Tac consoles?
Are they supposed to be "supplemental" sources of damage, like the procs from Plasmatic Biomatter or Bio-Molecular weapons?
Are they intended to be the equivalent of Tac consoles, for non-Tac heavy ships?
What is the intended damage range?
Are they supposed to be significant sources of damage on their own?
But... you didnt lost anything... Everything you spent on the upgrades its still there. Did your epic consoles downgraded? I hardly think so. The stats Flow or PrtG are still there. The +th or -th, whatever floats ur boat, is still there, isnt it? Ohh, you mean that "little extra dmg" from explosions its actually on par with other consoles/skills/weapon types? Well... thats wonderful, imho. In fact one would be happy if, any, balance passes are given. More of them for the better. When that "little extra dmg" could crit for 50k-100k it was clearly something wrong. And so it upgrading them just for that reason. The consoles allready gives so much, stats and +th/-th, wich can make ur reciprocity build work better or be a life saver if you dont want aggro.
And not mentioning in the patch note? Dunno about that, but probably they are pretty busy also (on top of their regular stuff) with the STLV thingy. Promo materials, videos and stuff...
Anyway, Kudos to Cryptic for this change.[/quote]
The plasma explosions is the exact reason i and everyone else who uses these consoles upgraded them. Now that has been taken away after money was exchanged to make use of them. Money only spent because there was an event making upgrading them enticing, and then event ends rug pulled from under feet. Money spent for a proc being removed. If i wanted Flow or PrtG there are other science consoles to go to, Science consoles i could craft that would do the job. +th/-th meh who cares, if i take aggro i tank it as best i can or get out of NPC range
Its like that scene from National Lampoons vacation. Clark buys a new car, goes to pick it up, the dealer pulls a swindle on him by crushing his old car and makes him take something he doesn't want or paid for, no refund offered, he can;t have hs old car back so is forced into taking something he neither paid for nor wanted.
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further
Kudos to Cryptic for changing something left to run rampant for many months, allow people to spend money on them, use them as part of the build, let players think they were working as intended. Have a event to make upgrading enticing and then decide right after nah we are going to change these now. Kudos indeed.
Tell me wouldn't you feel a little hard done by spending money to find within 72hrs that money was wasted on a product you spent it on in good faith only to have it changed after the transaction was made.
Whether the consoles are right or wrong in how they work its the way once again Cryptic have gone about doing things, and tbh the attitude of some people saying well good its changed, tough you spent money on it, it was broken you got what you deserve,
If they can do this to one part of the customer base what makes you think something or anything you use in the game is not subject to the same treatment. As customers whether these consoles are broken or not we should be banding together and telling Cryptic no you don't pull a stunt like this. What you do is fix the consoles 1st then make the correct changes to Holodeck. Not break the consoles completely
Its been stated and i agree with others this so called temp fix/change will be permanent.
We already had a plasma nerf that hit the players hard.
Then you released the new plasma consoles and told us "EVERYTHING is working as intented".
And now that we did believe you guys you come up with this TRIBBLE?
Nerfing the consoles again... after we had just enough time to spend our money to buy these consoles for all our toons and invest into upgrades.
And the worst is... you are not nerfing these consoles because they are not working as intended... you nerf them because they are the ones that are working while others dont work... because you cant do you job right?
You punish us players because YOU have made mistakes while developing the game.
You easily could have worked on a fix and rolled that one out when its done. The plasma consoles worked with crits as long we can think back with FAW. Why all of a sudden such a nerf is needed?
It was working as intended with FAW.
Instead of fixing the crit stuff you practically did the opposite... you broke it even more by removing stuff that was correctly working, leaving pretty much ALL the attack abilities in a bugged state now.
That is your solution?
That is how you treat paying customers?
I thought that Cryptic has learned from its past mistakes... but it looks like the players didnt rage enough yet.
Release potentially OP abilities coinciding with new expensive game items (SS3), then 'balance' them shortly before something new comes up (Command). Repeat the process. - Interesting pattern & timing.
Working as intended, many use them for a long time, fix the plasma doping, release 2x Bonus Tech Upgrades weekend, I replace and upgrade (+Pla) embassy consoles on two main toons, buy and upgrade beams to MK14 UR and Gold (I prefer Cannon or DBB but now rounded out the boring BFAW for tanks (ships, another expensive game item) that can't turn) ...... No release notes on these changes - Interesting timing.
Reduce base damage output as well - Interesting timing.
Promise it is temporary until the crit gets re-applied to other weapon firing modes after its coding mechanics is 're-worked' from the ground up for the purpose of making other ship builds equally attractive. - O.K., why no heads up from the very start all this time if you and most players knew and used the system as it was given your O.K. WAI two times now.
Why was it not left in place as it has been all this time and finally get to 're-working' the code, so that other ship builds become equally attractive as a natural extension of this fix? Why not let us maintain our WAI items now that we know other ship builds will get the same boost?
My answer based on the observations, patterns, and timing is that there will never be a 'fix' for other build types, it is not temporary but permanent, and part of a wider marketing technique of favoring one aspect of gameplay for a long time until enough people buy and upgrade into it before scaling it way back until the next cycle of OP gets in for a "fix."
This is about PR, marketing tactics, and I hate to say it but bait and switch - Not the wider problem of everything getting totally out of hand with gameplay dynamics (all immunities, auto-debuffs, off the scale power creep for movement, DPS, shield penetrating damage, shield & hull regens), repetitive predictable end-game scenarios, melting pot half-factions limiting even RP opportunities, and other more severe issues of lag and bugs that's affecting everyone so that there aren't even fleet mates to play or queue with anymore.
Devs: Provide the option to Turn OFF full screen flashes from enemy ship explosions
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To those complaining, just compare the plasma console to the other same consoles from the embassy (hull heal and shield heal). The damage proc from the plasma ones should be balanced against the hull heal and shield heal ones. The plasma ones have always completely outperformed the other two by several orders of magnitude.
I agree with you on that. Just like cannons, torpedos and beams all should be capable to put out similar damage numbers. But that balancing should happen way before things go to the live server. Not on the actual game server and not after items have been in game for months and years and people invested a big chunk of dil/ec into buying and upgrading them. It's this constant releasing of unbalanced items/powers, letting it in the game forever only to suddenly nerf the TRIBBLE out of said item that is annoying to most players. People did spend either playingtime or money to earn those consoles. Why should they now spend again to replace those consoles? And those consoles were just fixed a couple of months ago. At what point should i as customer feel safe to buy anything at this point?
When you get something that is too OP, assume it will be nerfed somehow since it's obviously either unbalanced or broken. The list of OP stuff that has been nerfed is pretty long so you should know better than to use broken stuff as a crutch.
I have three embassy consoles that I use to buff my gravity well and the plasma damage was just a bonus, To be frank it's the players own fault for relying solely on a mechanic that was clearly broken. If they had a more balanced build this wouldn't be the massive issue the more dramatic players are making out it is.
Before this "fix" was introduced the crits on weapon enhancing abilities were partly broken.
After this "fix" the crits on the weapon enhancing abilities are completely broken.
That is an improvement? That is necessary? Thats how you want it to be ... completely broken?
And you guys didnt even have the balls to inform the players about this nerf.
Thanks for adding your comments everyone. Please see below a table of the original set of tests I did updated with what is currently on Tribble and is what I discuss on The SHOW with Odenknight and crew live stream:
Short version: Because it can't work the other way. Not with the time our software engineers have to spend on rebuilding powers of this nature.
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.
Im again so disappointed in Cryptic, breaking consoles so they don't need to fix them is a new low.
I don't even know if a company like this is worth my time..
As a science officer Chasing the DPS carrot which is what this game has become , im greatly disappointed in the LACK of judgement on the systems team , rather than a BALANCED pass to the creep , they once again go after what works to make dedicated Sci decent at DPS . how many times are they going to effect changes to these consoles ?? ive spent plenty of resources on these consoles to boost my DPS , now first they took the bonus to plasma damage made it a bonus to the proc effect and to a explosion now they took the crit option completely out of it , this is nuts , this doesn't hurt the high dps parsers it hurts those in the lower tiers of this DPS elitist BS , is cryptic planning on reimbursing the resources spent on these builds ???? NO so this is serious BS on there part , DO A COMPLETE PASS OR TOUCH NOTHING . this one sided nerf thing has to stop .
Well, if you have the money to donate to Cryptic to hire extra programmers, then by all means.
Oh please stop this "Cryptic needs money" argumenting because this must be a joke given the fact that you talk about a company with a market cap. of over ONE BILLION US$.
And this is why I should stop attempting logical conversation here.
Ah i see It is illogical that the money you talking about is flowing to PWE and not into extra programmers. Sure.
Bolding and caps locking one billion dollars without any regard for revenue, expenses, the differences between spending capital in the Chinese market versus America, and any other basic and advanced accounting that I'm missing. Just for starters.
Funny. So tell me - where is all the "basic and advanced" in the statement which you made at the start of this conversation? Well... i'll stop this here. Have fun!
It's clear that Cryptic has no idea the answer to that question. But in PvE, with mobs having insane amounts of Hull HP thanks to Delta Rising, a console that was very useful in overcoming such lack of logic, has now been heavily nerfed (and far more than Bort admits to).
It's very clear that Cryptic has no idea what they're doing anymore.
And that, praxi5, is why you should not have asked for a nerf. Like the video says: in PvP, a 100k hit is pretty much deadly. In PvE, however, with NPC's having millions of HP, a 100k beating means nothing.
To be frank it's the players own fault for relying solely on a mechanic that was clearly broken. If they had a more balanced build this wouldn't be the massive issue the more dramatic players are making out it is.
clearly broken?
It was confirmed that crits on FAW and these consoles were working as intended.
Nothing was broken with these consoles.
Plasma consoles have been nerfed when there was the issue with the plasma doping... and our fellow devs created these new plasma consoles and told us that this is exactly how they are supposed to work now.
They proudly presented us how these new plasma consoles work and let us believe that everything is ok with them.
And recently it was confirmed that the crits are also WAI.
So if everything is shiny and WAI then why is there a need for such an idiotic nerf?
Do the devs think that now all players will switch to cannons (which also remain bugged) and upgrade them for no obvious reason?
Doing such a nerf right after such an upgrade event is an impressive timing btw.
Waiting for player to do their upgrades and then nerf the upgraded consoles. Thats impressive PR job.
Having so-called "over the top DPS" is a product of those of us who enjoy having the best builds in the game. We are DPS scientists.
The content is built for it.
It always amazes me when we get responses from people who seethe with jealousy at those of us who have worked for months to build a great ship that can do fantastic DPS.
It seems as though they have nothing better to do then whine and whine about so-called OP Ships that can't be OP without the knowing how game mechanics work in the first place. Said game mechanics weren't learned overnight. They were learned after playing for many months and asking questions of others who understood such mechanics. Those of us did so, so we could ENJOY the game further in an area we like.
Whining and claiming DPS'ers are "Elitist" is a way of "criminalizing" great players because they are either afraid to ask or are just a plain cry baby.
I am not a criminal, never have been, and I refuse to be treated as such.
How you play the game is none of my business. I must say that I enjoy the irony of you judging how I play, since somehow you perceive me judging how you play when all I said was this stuff ain't needed. You could play and win in Elite content before these consoles showed up, you can still do so after. So what is the point of them?
I assume you have never played some of the elite space maps (specifically Hive, Herald Sphere and Gates to Grehtor). You actually need all the damage you can get for those maps and this nerf will only cause that an already small amount of people being able to play and complete those getting even smaller.
Sure I have. Take a normal mission, add heaping tablespoons of HP, shave off some optional timers and sprinkle some alternate entity spawning (like a cube replacing a sphere and so on) and hey presto! An elite mission. It's all the same script.
Nothing was broken with these consoles.
Plasma consoles have been nerfed when there was the issue with the plasma doping... and our fellow devs created these new plasma consoles and told us that this is exactly how they are supposed to work now.
They proudly presented us how these new plasma consoles work and let us believe that everything is ok with them.
That makes this nerf a wee more egregious than others. /understatement
If we're going to rant, rage or protest about something - we should protest about the entire problem as a community. About yet another 'bait & switch' by Cryptic. About the laughable fact that not only this made it live in a broken state, not only it has been left live for ages, but the excuse given that they just can't do it for now.
People should protest about Cryptic not fixing it across the board, so non-FAW/beam users can benefit as well. Instead they're not protesting against Cryptic's general incompetence - they're protesting in order to keep their advantage over players with other choices, completely disregarding the other parts of the community in the process. So that protest gains no traction with non-FAW/beam users because FAW/beam users are telling the rest to bugger off.
Result: divided community, petty arguments between PvE & PvP, between DPS & non-DPS, between beam users and the rest. Instead of focusing our rage at Cryptic who are responsible for this mess united as a community, we divide and segregate amongst ourselves, then rage at each other while the ones responsible for the mess go have a beer. That's all I'm saying.
My "reading between the lines" was fine mate. While your intentions may be noble there is the thing called " bad timing" that will result in other effects. Lets put it like this: one sons (scammed players) have a "heated" discussion with parents (cryptic) ... then the daughter comes and tell the sons to "behave" and they are wrong ... doesn't matter about what ... its 2 against 1 now ... and u did exactly what u claimed u did not want - divide/distract player base. Road to hell is paved with good intentions it seems ...
The consoles ware op yes but they had the green light from devs. Players invested based on that green light ... does not matter if u are a pvp or pve guy, if u think they are OP or not or if u use them or not, its all about player being lied multiple times about this and made to invest lots of resources into what will become a "mehh" investment if this goes live.
My "reading between the lines" was fine mate. While your intentions may be noble there is the thing called " bad timing" that will result in other effects. Lets put it like this: one sons (scammed players) have a "heated" discussion with parents (cryptic) ... then the daughter comes and tell the sons to "behave" and they are wrong ... doesn't matter about what ... its 2 against 1 now ... and u did exactly what u claimed u did not want - divide/distract player base. Road to hell is paved with good intentions it seems ...
The consoles ware op yes but they had the green light from devs. Players invested based on that green light ... does not matter if u are a pvp or pve guy, if u think they are OP or not or if u use them or not, its all about player being lied multiple times about this and made to invest lots of resources into what will become a "mehh" investment if this goes live.
I didn't tell anyone to behave, I don't care who behaves or not. By all means, rage on. Cryptic deserved it on more than one ocassion. I just told people to rage for the right reasons and not for the wrong or selfish reasons.
You know, I have an idea. Why not just make a season dedicated to fixing bugs and updating the engine? If you keep applying 'quick fixes' instead of taking the time to properly fix things, the game will suffer. And in the long run, profits will suffer.
Also, the engine is really showing it's limits. Why not give it some love so you can grow STO even further?
Sure, it isn't an exiting thing to advertise (which will cause the marketing department to go into hell-mode probably), but it will benefit the game in the long run.
The consoles ware op yes but they had the green light from devs. Players invested based on that green light ... does not matter if u are a pvp or pve guy, if u think they are OP or not or if u use them or not, its all about player being lied multiple times about this and made to invest lots of resources into what will become a "mehh" investment if this goes live.
I feel deceived in the most despicable way, nickled and dimed, spat upon and treated like dirt overall. And NO it is not about the damned DPS it is solely about being lead to "invest" my resources on something effectively useless. It is crystal clear to me that it was made on purpose and not by some "honest mistake".
On top of that i am still trying to soak in the most outrageous developer response of all time. I guess my mental capacity is not enough to conceive the sheer amount of rudeness, arrogance and stupidity that it embodies.
The only thing i am sure of is that I will have my pay back.... times change...
I wonder if those that bought zen via paypal have a case to try to have that transaction reversed under the pretence that the upgrade event was misleading. shame i didn't use paypal i'd given it a whirl
It's clear that Cryptic has no idea the answer to that question. But in PvE, with mobs having insane amounts of Hull HP thanks to Delta Rising, a console that was very useful in overcoming such lack of logic, has now been heavily nerfed (and far more than Bort admits to).
It's very clear that Cryptic has no idea what they're doing anymore.
And that, praxi5, is why you should not have asked for a nerf. Like the video says: in PvP, a 100k hit is pretty much deadly. In PvE, however, with NPC's having millions of HP, a 100k beating means nothing.
Why did I call for a nerf? They were obviously OP. Yes, they were WAI by Critting with FAW, and I fully admit that. However, I don't think that the sheer magnitude of the damage they were getting was WAI.
I think that much is evidenced by the fact that they nerfed the base damage of the Explosions (for the record, I was calling attention to the massive Crits and the improper scaling that Consoles themselves have).
Further, why do the NPCs have millions of HP? Because they were balanced around artificially inflated DPS numbers from things like the original Plasma Burn and EAP. Then things got even crazier with Plasma Explosions.
Now that all of those artificial sources of DPS padding are gone, the hyperinflated NPC HP makes even less sense than it did before.
It's a vicious cycle - DPS goes up, Cryptic seems this, Cryptic raises "difficulty" (or "corrects" time-to-completion metrics) by throwing more HP at mobs. People are upset, power creep takes effect, and DPS goes up again. Cycle repeats.
That is why it's important to maintain balance and mitigate power creep. Not just for PvP, but because we end up exactly where we are now when power creep runs unchecked and OP items stay OP.
Villify PvP and/or me all you want, balance and power creep are not PvP only issues. They obviously take their toll on PvE, as we've seen.
Short version: Because it can't work the other way. Not with the time our software engineers have to spend on rebuilding powers of this nature.
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.
I find this very reasonable. At least the console will function the same all around until you get time to fix it later.
Edit: I do have to agree with others.
For a long time people have been saying that only fire-at-will benefits from critical hits on this console and it was reported as a bug. The timing of the fix right after a bonus gear upgrade weekend does seem a bit coincidental. I imagine some players are upset because just after they spend resources to upgrade this console they find out it gets changed.
Something should have been done about these consoles a long time ago, whether it was the temporary fix you did now or a more permanent solution. I don't have a problem with the changes myself since I'm not into worrying about high DPS. But it is frustrating that time after time we report things that should be fixed immediately and they go ignored for so long.
Bottom line: if players report something isn't working as intended it should be looked at right away, and if the reports are confirmed it should be fixed immediately, not take months to do something about it. It just looks bad when you wait until after a special event to fix something. Players tend to feel like it was done on purpose and they wind up feeling intentionally screwed over.
Comments
Now this would have been the logical approach to the problem, even as a temporary measure. As for the way the consoles were originally "painting" players into a corner, with attack/weapons types. Sorry but Cryptic did that long ago. You've only got to look at the damage to distance drop off between beams and cannons. Or is the nerf bat getting swung against beams or Fire at will next time? Because Cryptic sure has hell wont actually buff anything.
Anyway, about the plasma console... finally. Good change, even if its just temporaly, until they are balanced.
But... you didnt lost anything... Everything you spent on the upgrades its still there. Did your epic consoles downgraded? I hardly think so. The stats Flow or PrtG are still there. The +th or -th, whatever floats ur boat, is still there, isnt it? Ohh, you mean that "little extra dmg" from explosions its actually on par with other consoles/skills/weapon types? Well... thats wonderful, imho. In fact one would be happy if, any, balance passes are given. More of them for the better. When that "little extra dmg" could crit for 50k-100k it was clearly something wrong. And so it upgrading them just for that reason. The consoles allready gives so much, stats and +th/-th, wich can make ur reciprocity build work better or be a life saver if you dont want aggro.
And not mentioning in the patch note? Dunno about that, but probably they are pretty busy also (on top of their regular stuff) with the STLV thingy. Promo materials, videos and stuff...
Anyway, Kudos to Cryptic for this change.
I'll accept any form of refund or compensation.
a token to replace the item would be very nice
or the amount dilithium/resources we spent to obtain the item,
propotional ofcourse.
being very reasonable here and not raging nor calling names, cough
BFAW's superiority to cannons has nothing to do with the Plasma explosions, and everything to do with it taking a lower level BOff ability slot, and beams having both a wider arc and less drop off.
It's clear that Cryptic has no idea the answer to that question. But in PvE, with mobs having insane amounts of Hull HP thanks to Delta Rising, a console that was very useful in overcoming such lack of logic, has now been heavily nerfed (and far more than Bort admits to).
It's very clear that Cryptic has no idea what they're doing anymore.
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Would have curtailed a lot of the pizzin' & moanin' about how great a loss it would be when They changed one of them for the worse. (for whatever "reasons")
Would also have saved a lot of folks from spending (wasting) gobs of the resources to upgrade multiple copies.
Might even have kept the DPS race from completely taking over the game.
Anyway, I'll bet right about now Bort sometimes wishes he were back doing those wonderful STO'kd podcasts with Chris about the game, rather then putting up with the outrage from folks who disagree with how he has to implement the game as one of it's designers.
<smh>
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
The hyperinflated NPC HP was based around artificially inflated perceived DPS by a 'large' group of people by the Devs, thanks to things like EAP and the Plasma Explosion/Burn.
Now that they've removed or 'fixed' those heavy sources of DPS "padding", the massive HP pools of NPCs makes even less sense than it did before.
Disclaimer: Obviously people can (and do) achieve high amounts of DPS without EAP/Plasma Doping That's not my point - I'm simply stating that the balancing factor of high HP was based around DPS sources that don't exist anymore.
If we find out just exactly what the Devs intentions for these consoles are, we'll be able to make significantly better suggestions and judgements about them.
But... you didnt lost anything... Everything you spent on the upgrades its still there. Did your epic consoles downgraded? I hardly think so. The stats Flow or PrtG are still there. The +th or -th, whatever floats ur boat, is still there, isnt it? Ohh, you mean that "little extra dmg" from explosions its actually on par with other consoles/skills/weapon types? Well... thats wonderful, imho. In fact one would be happy if, any, balance passes are given. More of them for the better. When that "little extra dmg" could crit for 50k-100k it was clearly something wrong. And so it upgrading them just for that reason. The consoles allready gives so much, stats and +th/-th, wich can make ur reciprocity build work better or be a life saver if you dont want aggro.
And not mentioning in the patch note? Dunno about that, but probably they are pretty busy also (on top of their regular stuff) with the STLV thingy. Promo materials, videos and stuff...
Anyway, Kudos to Cryptic for this change.[/quote]
The plasma explosions is the exact reason i and everyone else who uses these consoles upgraded them. Now that has been taken away after money was exchanged to make use of them. Money only spent because there was an event making upgrading them enticing, and then event ends rug pulled from under feet. Money spent for a proc being removed. If i wanted Flow or PrtG there are other science consoles to go to, Science consoles i could craft that would do the job. +th/-th meh who cares, if i take aggro i tank it as best i can or get out of NPC range
Its like that scene from National Lampoons vacation. Clark buys a new car, goes to pick it up, the dealer pulls a swindle on him by crushing his old car and makes him take something he doesn't want or paid for, no refund offered, he can;t have hs old car back so is forced into taking something he neither paid for nor wanted.
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further
Kudos to Cryptic for changing something left to run rampant for many months, allow people to spend money on them, use them as part of the build, let players think they were working as intended. Have a event to make upgrading enticing and then decide right after nah we are going to change these now. Kudos indeed.
Tell me wouldn't you feel a little hard done by spending money to find within 72hrs that money was wasted on a product you spent it on in good faith only to have it changed after the transaction was made.
Whether the consoles are right or wrong in how they work its the way once again Cryptic have gone about doing things, and tbh the attitude of some people saying well good its changed, tough you spent money on it, it was broken you got what you deserve,
If they can do this to one part of the customer base what makes you think something or anything you use in the game is not subject to the same treatment. As customers whether these consoles are broken or not we should be banding together and telling Cryptic no you don't pull a stunt like this. What you do is fix the consoles 1st then make the correct changes to Holodeck. Not break the consoles completely
Its been stated and i agree with others this so called temp fix/change will be permanent.
We already had a plasma nerf that hit the players hard.
Then you released the new plasma consoles and told us "EVERYTHING is working as intented".
And now that we did believe you guys you come up with this TRIBBLE?
Nerfing the consoles again... after we had just enough time to spend our money to buy these consoles for all our toons and invest into upgrades.
And the worst is... you are not nerfing these consoles because they are not working as intended... you nerf them because they are the ones that are working while others dont work... because you cant do you job right?
You punish us players because YOU have made mistakes while developing the game.
You easily could have worked on a fix and rolled that one out when its done. The plasma consoles worked with crits as long we can think back with FAW. Why all of a sudden such a nerf is needed?
It was working as intended with FAW.
Instead of fixing the crit stuff you practically did the opposite... you broke it even more by removing stuff that was correctly working, leaving pretty much ALL the attack abilities in a bugged state now.
That is your solution?
That is how you treat paying customers?
I thought that Cryptic has learned from its past mistakes... but it looks like the players didnt rage enough yet.
Working as intended, many use them for a long time, fix the plasma doping, release 2x Bonus Tech Upgrades weekend, I replace and upgrade (+Pla) embassy consoles on two main toons, buy and upgrade beams to MK14 UR and Gold (I prefer Cannon or DBB but now rounded out the boring BFAW for tanks (ships, another expensive game item) that can't turn) ...... No release notes on these changes - Interesting timing.
Reduce base damage output as well - Interesting timing.
Promise it is temporary until the crit gets re-applied to other weapon firing modes after its coding mechanics is 're-worked' from the ground up for the purpose of making other ship builds equally attractive. - O.K., why no heads up from the very start all this time if you and most players knew and used the system as it was given your O.K. WAI two times now.
Why was it not left in place as it has been all this time and finally get to 're-working' the code, so that other ship builds become equally attractive as a natural extension of this fix? Why not let us maintain our WAI items now that we know other ship builds will get the same boost?
My answer based on the observations, patterns, and timing is that there will never be a 'fix' for other build types, it is not temporary but permanent, and part of a wider marketing technique of favoring one aspect of gameplay for a long time until enough people buy and upgrade into it before scaling it way back until the next cycle of OP gets in for a "fix."
This is about PR, marketing tactics, and I hate to say it but bait and switch - Not the wider problem of everything getting totally out of hand with gameplay dynamics (all immunities, auto-debuffs, off the scale power creep for movement, DPS, shield penetrating damage, shield & hull regens), repetitive predictable end-game scenarios, melting pot half-factions limiting even RP opportunities, and other more severe issues of lag and bugs that's affecting everyone so that there aren't even fleet mates to play or queue with anymore.
When you get something that is too OP, assume it will be nerfed somehow since it's obviously either unbalanced or broken. The list of OP stuff that has been nerfed is pretty long so you should know better than to use broken stuff as a crutch.
Didn't ruin it for me.
I have three embassy consoles that I use to buff my gravity well and the plasma damage was just a bonus, To be frank it's the players own fault for relying solely on a mechanic that was clearly broken. If they had a more balanced build this wouldn't be the massive issue the more dramatic players are making out it is.
Well done Cryptic.
Before this "fix" was introduced the crits on weapon enhancing abilities were partly broken.
After this "fix" the crits on the weapon enhancing abilities are completely broken.
That is an improvement? That is necessary? Thats how you want it to be ... completely broken?
And you guys didnt even have the balls to inform the players about this nerf.
Original Plasma Explosion Test Video:
Im again so disappointed in Cryptic, breaking consoles so they don't need to fix them is a new low.
I don't even know if a company like this is worth my time..
#oneJobJeremy
Funny. So tell me - where is all the "basic and advanced" in the statement which you made at the start of this conversation? Well... i'll stop this here. Have fun!
Link: Castra - a german Fleet.
And that, praxi5, is why you should not have asked for a nerf. Like the video says: in PvP, a 100k hit is pretty much deadly. In PvE, however, with NPC's having millions of HP, a 100k beating means nothing.
clearly broken?
It was confirmed that crits on FAW and these consoles were working as intended.
Nothing was broken with these consoles.
Plasma consoles have been nerfed when there was the issue with the plasma doping... and our fellow devs created these new plasma consoles and told us that this is exactly how they are supposed to work now.
They proudly presented us how these new plasma consoles work and let us believe that everything is ok with them.
And recently it was confirmed that the crits are also WAI.
So if everything is shiny and WAI then why is there a need for such an idiotic nerf?
Do the devs think that now all players will switch to cannons (which also remain bugged) and upgrade them for no obvious reason?
Doing such a nerf right after such an upgrade event is an impressive timing btw.
Waiting for player to do their upgrades and then nerf the upgraded consoles. Thats impressive PR job.
How you play the game is none of my business. I must say that I enjoy the irony of you judging how I play, since somehow you perceive me judging how you play when all I said was this stuff ain't needed. You could play and win in Elite content before these consoles showed up, you can still do so after. So what is the point of them?
Sure I have. Take a normal mission, add heaping tablespoons of HP, shave off some optional timers and sprinkle some alternate entity spawning (like a cube replacing a sphere and so on) and hey presto! An elite mission. It's all the same script.
That makes this nerf a wee more egregious than others. /understatement
My "reading between the lines" was fine mate. While your intentions may be noble there is the thing called " bad timing" that will result in other effects. Lets put it like this: one sons (scammed players) have a "heated" discussion with parents (cryptic) ... then the daughter comes and tell the sons to "behave" and they are wrong ... doesn't matter about what ... its 2 against 1 now ... and u did exactly what u claimed u did not want - divide/distract player base. Road to hell is paved with good intentions it seems ...
The consoles ware op yes but they had the green light from devs. Players invested based on that green light ... does not matter if u are a pvp or pve guy, if u think they are OP or not or if u use them or not, its all about player being lied multiple times about this and made to invest lots of resources into what will become a "mehh" investment if this goes live.
I didn't tell anyone to behave, I don't care who behaves or not. By all means, rage on. Cryptic deserved it on more than one ocassion. I just told people to rage for the right reasons and not for the wrong or selfish reasons.
Also, the engine is really showing it's limits. Why not give it some love so you can grow STO even further?
Sure, it isn't an exiting thing to advertise (which will cause the marketing department to go into hell-mode probably), but it will benefit the game in the long run.
^^ This sums it up nicely.
On top of that i am still trying to soak in the most outrageous developer response of all time. I guess my mental capacity is not enough to conceive the sheer amount of rudeness, arrogance and stupidity that it embodies.
The only thing i am sure of is that I will have my pay back.... times change...
Why did I call for a nerf? They were obviously OP. Yes, they were WAI by Critting with FAW, and I fully admit that. However, I don't think that the sheer magnitude of the damage they were getting was WAI.
I think that much is evidenced by the fact that they nerfed the base damage of the Explosions (for the record, I was calling attention to the massive Crits and the improper scaling that Consoles themselves have).
Further, why do the NPCs have millions of HP? Because they were balanced around artificially inflated DPS numbers from things like the original Plasma Burn and EAP. Then things got even crazier with Plasma Explosions.
Now that all of those artificial sources of DPS padding are gone, the hyperinflated NPC HP makes even less sense than it did before.
It's a vicious cycle - DPS goes up, Cryptic seems this, Cryptic raises "difficulty" (or "corrects" time-to-completion metrics) by throwing more HP at mobs. People are upset, power creep takes effect, and DPS goes up again. Cycle repeats.
That is why it's important to maintain balance and mitigate power creep. Not just for PvP, but because we end up exactly where we are now when power creep runs unchecked and OP items stay OP.
Villify PvP and/or me all you want, balance and power creep are not PvP only issues. They obviously take their toll on PvE, as we've seen.
I find this very reasonable. At least the console will function the same all around until you get time to fix it later.
Edit: I do have to agree with others.
For a long time people have been saying that only fire-at-will benefits from critical hits on this console and it was reported as a bug. The timing of the fix right after a bonus gear upgrade weekend does seem a bit coincidental. I imagine some players are upset because just after they spend resources to upgrade this console they find out it gets changed.
Something should have been done about these consoles a long time ago, whether it was the temporary fix you did now or a more permanent solution. I don't have a problem with the changes myself since I'm not into worrying about high DPS. But it is frustrating that time after time we report things that should be fixed immediately and they go ignored for so long.
Bottom line: if players report something isn't working as intended it should be looked at right away, and if the reports are confirmed it should be fixed immediately, not take months to do something about it. It just looks bad when you wait until after a special event to fix something. Players tend to feel like it was done on purpose and they wind up feeling intentionally screwed over.