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.
Until you come along, publically ask for a nerf, and then people are left with the huge HP on NPCs, but without means to combat them. As said in that video, normal people can pretty much forget about Elites, like HSE, now. Me? Even with Plasma consoles, I already really didn't have enough fire-power to do GGE properly: you need upward of 75k to finish that off comfortably.
Villify PvP and/or me all you want, balance and power creep are not PvP only issues.
Nobody is vilifying you. Including me. I was merely saying, that you should not have asked for a nerf, because of the HP issue in PvE being radically different from that in PvP -- and now PvE is left holding the bag.
Also, there's simply the matter of trust. When the Dev in charge 100% greenlights a reworked console, and absolutely brands it as WAI, it's then kinda shameless to just totally nerf it into oblivion, 6 or so months later; especially after a major Upgrade weekend (for which he 'forgot' to mention said nerf in the patch notes). I only have 8 or so of those consoles Epic (mostly PrtG, plus a few Flow), because I basically only use my main. But people with multiple toons in use, they have good reason to be rather upset.
yes, i do have a char with all plasma consoles, which recently i pumped to epic.
but heck yea, this change was overdue and i am welcoming it with both arms.
apparently i am one of the few who runs (vastly) different setups across toons.
now one of my chars is actually back in line with the others.
cool beans all around
and yea, changes happen. some might be drastic. deal with it.
Until you come along, publically ask for a nerf, and then people are left with the huge HP on NPCs, but without means to combat them. As said in that video, normal people can pretty much forget about Elites, like HSE, now. Me? Even with Plasma consoles, I already really didn't have enough fire-power to do GGE properly: you need upward of 75k to finish that off comfortably.
And who's fault is that, hmm? Who's fault is that you are cut off from some elite content? The devs or in fact the players that abused some broken stuff (while claiming they have skills/piloting skills and other BS like that), then bragged about how easy the game is thus making the devs "balance" content via idiot HP lvls? Thus making everything else obsolite but the BFAW idiocricy and stacking/borderline exploits. And I am not talking here (only) about these plasma explosions. This is generaly true about soo many other broken stuff in the game.
You see, now you (and some other ppl aswell) are realizing what I've been saying from the start of DR. That the HP lvls were too much and killed pretty much every build options. Or even ship options. 5 ships - DHCs T6 latest escorts, even expensive Intel JHSS are cut off from elite content yet other 5 ships - two years old BFAW scimitars can pull if off... Never seen in any other games such imbalance. And its based on broken stuff and borderline exploits.
That the HP lvls were too much and killed pretty much every build options. Or even ship options. 5 ships - DHCs T6 latest escorts, even expensive Intel JHSS are cut off from elite content yet other 5 ships - two years old BFAW scimitars can pull if off... Never seen in any other games such imbalance. And its based on broken stuff and borderline exploits.
So, the problem is that only one build type could handle the content..
So the acceptable fix is to nerf abilities on that build and make it so that no build can do it? That's your idea of a fix?
Once again, breaking it for everyone is not a fix. It's a cheap and lazy cop out at best.
And who's fault is that, hmm? Who's fault is that you are cut off from some elite content? The devs or in fact the players that abused some broken stuff (while claiming they have skills/piloting skills and other BS like that), then bragged about how easy the game is thus making the devs "balance" content via idiot HP lvls?
No, actually, that's the Devs' fault. Really. Or, I should say, the fault of a certain Lead Dev who always takes these things personal, and sees himself 'in competition' with that 0.01% of the playerbase that can truly steamroll over the Elite content. It's a personal battle of wills for him, somehow. The vast majority of the players, however, including me, cannot nearly accomplish what that 0.01% can: a certain Lead Dev not taking things personal would have realized that.
Until you come along, publically ask for a nerf, and then people are left with the huge HP on NPCs, but without means to combat them. As said in that video, normal people can pretty much forget about Elites, like HSE, now. Me? Even with Plasma consoles, I already really didn't have enough fire-power to do GGE properly: you need upward of 75k to finish that off comfortably.
It is, logically, the first step towards moving NPC HP back to where it should be. However, I'll totally agree with you here that logic and common sense don't always apply to STO
I think that now all of the biggest DPS offenders are gone, they start downscaling HP. If they had started with reducing HP first, then they would have been stuck with the issue of people flying through it even faster, exacerbating the issues that led to the HP bump in the first place.
Elite content should be hard, but it should not be "locked out" or "inaccessible" to the vast majority of the playerbase - what, something like 98% of the players don't have the requisite 75k builds to complete GGE? That's not right. That's a scaling issue, and that's something that needs addressed. And that's just GGE, a blind DPS race. That's not addressing the other complications with things like HSE.
That the HP lvls were too much and killed pretty much every build options. Or even ship options. 5 ships - DHCs T6 latest escorts, even expensive Intel JHSS are cut off from elite content yet other 5 ships - two years old BFAW scimitars can pull if off... Never seen in any other games such imbalance. And its based on broken stuff and borderline exploits.
So, the problem is that only one build type could handle the content..
So the acceptable fix is to nerf abilities on that build and make it so that no build can do it? That's your idea of a fix?
Once again, breaking it for everyone is not a fix. It's a cheap and lazy cop out at best.
Totally agree, it shouldn't only be 1 type of build that can successfully complete the content. There are people who can (and do) complete even the hardest things in STO (GGE, HSE) with non-FAW builds (Cannons or Kinetic/Torps). However, those people are few and far in between.
This isn't a "fix" and shouldn't even be considered one, imo. Temporary or not, it just highlights the issues with the huge NPC pools. They need to start downscaling them. Like, now.
It is, logically, the first step towards moving NPC HP back to where it should be. However, I'll totally agree with you here that logic and common sense don't always apply to STO
I think that now all of the biggest DPS offenders are gone, they start downscaling HP. If they had started with reducing HP first, then they would have been stuck with the issue of people flying through it even faster, exacerbating the issues that led to the HP bump in the first place.
I agree with this. Hopefully, this is a first step in a large balance pass to get those HPs to a normal level.
Elite content should be hard, but it should not be "locked out" or "inaccessible" to the vast majority of the playerbase - what, something like 98% of the players don't have the requisite 75k builds to complete GGE? That's not right. That's a scaling issue, and that's something that needs addressed. And that's just GGE, a blind DPS race. That's not addressing the other complications with things like HSE.
Not sure I agree with this. I think Elite content, by its very definition, SHOULD be inaccessible to the vast majority of the playerbase. If everyone can do Elite, what is the point of normal or advanced versions? Those HPs need to come down, so it isn't just a DPS race, I will grant that. But all along, tactics should have beaten Elites, not just 100K DPS. GIve those NPCs enough abilities to put a borg diamond to shame. Give an Elite crystalline entity the same healing abilities as the old, OLD version had.
But should every player be able to play elites? No. It should require high-end gear or high-end tactics.
I only have one toon that has ONE of these consoles. I kinda liked it when it just added a plasma proc. But the current version is kinda meh. However, I am ok with the nerf, but I am NOT ok with the methodology of said nerf, which is a bad habit of Cryptic: If we can't fix it, nerf it or remove it. Done: fixed! It's like removing the heart from a patient that had a heart attack. No heart? Fixed heart!!!!
Thanks to Borticus for at least admitting that they are low on resources and that this fix isn't optimal. The thing is...this is it. It will NEVER be revisited.
I have 11 toons... I have invested large amounts of resources for these consoles.... spent ages to earn everything required to obtain them... to upgrade them... and all the way to this point players were told that these consoles are finally working as intended.
No doubt was left open... no... "spend your resouces on upgrades this weekend" they told us.
And instantly after that ... boom... "oh sorry... you really upgraded your consoles?... too bad... we are now going to nerf them.... we wish you more luck next time".
Such methods are disgusting.
During the past year Cryptic layed out their bait at least 3 times and then started to nerf everything to the ground.
They increased the NPC HPs to up to 100 times of what the players can have on their ships. They nerfed the damage of consoles... but can we expect that the NPC HPs go down now?
No... we cant... that never will happen (thats about what "later" means).
This so called "fix" was like seeing a building with a crack in a window... then taking a stone to make sure that this window is complete broken.
Or like throwing this stone at the building nearby to make sure that the neighbours also have cracked windows (that "brings parity" and makes the neighbours happy, right?).
This idea of parity is so close minded... really.
The fixed state of these consoles is to crit with ALL types of fire modes.
After this "fix" they wont work with any type of the fire modes. Thats completely broken.... broken for FAW... broken for CSV... broken for RF... etc.
Parity!!!! Yay!!!
What about parity when it comes to ship types?
Which type of ships would lose most DPS by this fix.... the tactical dps monsters (*cough* Scimitar) or the poor sci ships which by default have less DPS? The Sci ships of course... the ships with the most sci consoles. The gap between them and the top damage dealers is getting bigger this way.
Parity.... thats a nice joke. The imparity is getting worse with such stupid decisions. Developers dont even seem to have the slightest idea how this game works and what consequences their decisions cause (not only on the ingame mechanics but also on what players think about Cryptic).
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
Each console was parsing 10k damage/second each. You can't honestly expect to believe that was working as intended. Now Attack Pattern Beta stacking and the [Pen] bug just needs to be fixed and space PvE will be a whole lot less broken.
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.
Until you come along, publically ask for a nerf, and then people are left with the huge HP on NPCs, but without means to combat them. As said in that video, normal people can pretty much forget about Elites, like HSE, now. Me? Even with Plasma consoles, I already really didn't have enough fire-power to do GGE properly: you need upward of 75k to finish that off comfortably.
Villify PvP and/or me all you want, balance and power creep are not PvP only issues.
Nobody is vilifying you. Including me. I was merely saying, that you should not have asked for a nerf, because of the HP issue in PvE being radically different from that in PvP -- and now PvE is left holding the bag.
Also, there's simply the matter of trust. When the Dev in charge 100% greenlights a reworked console, and absolutely brands it as WAI, it's then kinda shameless to just totally nerf it into oblivion, 6 or so months later; especially after a major Upgrade weekend (for which he 'forgot' to mention said nerf in the patch notes). I only have 8 or so of those consoles Epic (mostly PrtG, plus a few Flow), because I basically only use my main. But people with multiple toons in use, they have good reason to be rather upset.
Space PvE on Elite is impossible to do right now without exploiting major bugs; NPCs just have too much health right now at that difficulty. Plasma proc consoles were just the top of the iceberg. Cryptic needs to come down hard on stacking Attack Pattern Beta III 4 times via Elite Mesh Weavers using APB3 + FAW3. On top of that you've got entire teams all running APB3 with FAW3. A team with 3 Recluse Carrier and 2 Scimitars receives 17 copies of Attack Pattern Beta III for -850 all damage resistance rating while APB3 is active.
On top of that you've got teams exploiting the bug with [Pen] weapon mods making them stackable and team wide. That's an additional -10 damage resistance rating per weapon. A team with 3x Recluse/2x Scimitar would obtain -340 all damage resistance rating to everything hit and a team with 5x ship with 8 weapons slots would get -400 DRR to everything hit. At the very least that comes out to -1,190 all damage resistance rating. Nobody can even come close to claiming that's working as intended. It is an exploit that must be fixed.
Each console was parsing 10k damage/second each. You can't honestly expect to believe that was working as intended.
Where do you get such numbers from?
Pretty much all of my high dps runs over the past year showed about 4-6k dps per plasma console (while i have pretty high crit values).
If the consoles really produce 10k dps then every player in this game would have 30-40k dps. Reality however looks different.
Now Attack Pattern Beta stacking and the [Pen] bug just needs to be fixed and space PvE will be a whole lot less broken.
So, now Beta stacking is OP too?! Will you people never give it a rest!? And [Pen], when did that become a bug?!
Your post is quite indicative of the level of willful intent to see anything nerfed that's even remotely useful. Please, desist doing so.
Next they'll be shouting to end the stacking of two or more of the same duty officers. I'd be interested to see if any of these that think that this nerf's a good idea, were those that were crying for the instant fail optionals to be removed from advanced STF's. Also how many have or will need to be carried through them again, to complete all the optionals.
Such methods are disgusting.
During the past year Cryptic layed out their bait at least 3 times and then started to nerf everything to the ground.
They increased the NPC HPs to up to 100 times of what the players can have on their ships. They nerfed the damage of consoles... but can we expect that the NPC HPs go down now?
No... we cant... that never will happen (thats about what "later" means).
To be honest, I've come to expect this from cryptic now. All I can say from my point of view in my real life job, we get measured on our right first time, jobs go through multiple inspections to ensure everything is up to standard. And if we'd have screwed things up as much as these people have, We'd be out of a job by now. Thinking about work, my company has a adopted a new moto for that last few years, one which cryptic and this development team would do well to take on board and that is to "Exceed the customers expectations" Sadly I know they wont, even though my expectations of cryptic are pretty low right about now.
As for the HP sponges, this is typical of cryptics behaviour, take the easy way out. But on the flip side, the enhancements made to the Tachyon beams whilst they may be OP, they've added an interesting twist to the game. For me they've made me move away from relying on shields, to fortifying my hull and hull heals. But thinking about it, its the same pattern again. Anything that helps the players gets hammered into the floor, whilst anything that hinders them is shuffled onto the back burner.
Developers dont even seem to have the slightest idea how this game works and what consequences their decisions cause (not only on the ingame mechanics but also on what players think about Cryptic).
This has been the consensus within a large portion of my fleets senior officers for a while now. I've been told by one of the fleets founders that's why they quit playing STO. Personally I can understand the direction they're coming from. But like I've said before Cryptic would do well to stop shoving half arsed broken content out, take the time to properly beta test items. Hell the players would no doubt be willing to help if they don't have the resources in QA to do it. But as always, having tested and submitted stuff myself, we simply get ignored. And like I've said before a less than a week, between going live on Tribble and Holodeck isn't nearly enough time to test things properly.
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If the consoles really produce 10k dps then every player in this game would have 30-40k dps. Reality however looks different.
If I look back over my runs this week and I've got 3 Embassy consoles with the Plasma and flow procs on them 2 are Mk 14 epic and one Mk 14 U/R my fire at and normal beam attacks are always providing the most damage.
That's the pattern these days. You have group A constantly seeking the biggest baddest build and harder content to pit it up against. Then there is group B that can't be bothered to put any effort in so they want it dumbed down to the point there pets could complete it with no possibility of failure. Give ya 3 guesses who cryptic has sided with. So if you want to make a statement trash their "meta" by not logging in, and make them justify "reasons" to the board when numbers are down and so is cash flow. Money speaks much louder than these forums.
Now Attack Pattern Beta stacking and the [Pen] bug just needs to be fixed and space PvE will be a whole lot less broken.
So, now Beta stacking is OP too?! Will you people never give it a rest!? And [Pen], when did that become a bug?!
Your post is quite indicative of the level of willful intent to see anything nerfed that's even remotely useful. Please, desist doing so.
Kira,
If stuff is broken, it needs to be fixed. If stuff isn't balanced, it needs balancing. I don't agree for one second what Cryptic has done here in the way that they did (a point I expressed on The Show) but all I can see from you is Q_Q - nothing personal.
On tribble the other day, we did Hive Elite without the consoles and handled it just fine. HSE requires more than DPS, it requires team coordination. I consider HSE to be an aspirational STF.. it is very possible to do without DPS Scimitars (i've done it on my science with a Command ship) as it is a STF that requires more than bashing the spacebar. Nothing personal here, but if you have been unable to do it, don't take it out on the ones that drew Cryptic's attention to it for which we did very little in all honesty. Ryan_STO's 110k+ DPS from just plasma explosion would have got them to look at it. Then there is the PVP issue... accept the fact that content is split between those two worlds as it should be.
The consoles DIDN'T work properly and as you are a tac captain the impact to your DPS won't be as much as you think. Yes, DPS will go down... my response to that... fly your ship better. NO, none of the queues will be impossible. HSE & GGE will continue to have the requirements they have always had... teamwork and a solid DPS, DPS/Healer and/or DPS/Threat sponge. Yep, DPS is a common thread and there is nothing wrong with that as it is the game that we have been presented with.
And seriously, those who are saying that Cryptic made the NPC's HP high because of a handful of players are seriously misguided.
Now Attack Pattern Beta stacking and the [Pen] bug just needs to be fixed and space PvE will be a whole lot less broken.
??
So, now Beta stacking is OP too?! Will you people never give it a rest!? And [Pen], when did that become a bug?!
Your post is quite indicative of the level of willful intent to see anything nerfed that's even remotely useful. Please, desist doing so.
Kira,
If stuff is broken, it needs to be fixed. If stuff isn't balanced, it needs balancing. I don't agree for one second what Cryptic has done here in the way that they did (a point I expressed on The Show) but all I can see from you is Q_Q - nothing personal.
If by Q_Q you mean 'I object to people constantly seeking nerfs to whatever they think is even remotely good,' then sure, guilty as charged. Beta stacking, for example, while effective, is not a bug, nor OP: just the result of people coordinating their attacks. If there's any 'pattern', though, it's people just working down a list of things they want nerfed. And said list, mind you, is never-ending, by its very nature: if these folks have Beta stacking nerfed, they'll just go after the next-best thing. And majortiraomega's post, indeed, was very indicative of said mentality: The Plasma console nerf hasn't even hit Holodeck yet, and already folks are lining up for the next nerf. So, yeah, I'm always pushing back.
The consoles DIDN'T work properly and as you are a tac captain the impact to your DPS won't be as much as you think.
You assume too much. For one, I'm not a Tact Captain, just a lowly Fed Engineer, remember? And the only true objection I've had against *this* particular nerf, is the way Cryptic played it. The moment you rework something, and announce it to be WAI, then, at that point, it no longer matters whether someone still deems it OP: you lure your players into upgrading those items, and then you stab 'em in the back, a couple of months down the road. Not cool.
Personally, if you had asked, I am 'secretly' not all that down about the nerf, as it kinda allows me to slot other consoles again, instead of always needing to hear that more Plasma connsoles are better. I went with 2x crafted [EPS] consoles now, for instance, and, while my DPS is down a bit, surprisingly not even by all that much (like 3-4k).
Personally, if you had asked, I am 'secretly' not all that down about the nerf, as it kinda allows me to slot other consoles again, instead of always needing to hear that more Plasma connsoles are better. I went with 2x crafted [EPS] consoles now, for instance, and, while my DPS is down a bit, surprisingly not even by all that much (like 3-4k).
But EPS Flow Regulators are Engineering consoles, they can't go in your Science slots. And, they can't be crafted. Maybe you mean Flow consoles?
This is one of the problems I have, the rest of the Science consoles are still completely worthless to me. Therefore, the nerfed version of the Embassy consoles are still the best thing I can put there leaving me (and most others) no real method to compensate for the loss.
They're still the best Science consoles because they will still carry a small DPS buff along with +/- Threat and Flow to buff the leech. They're still going to be the best consoles for those slots, just not as good as before. It brings to light yet another problem in the current system which is a real lack of adequate variety. There is always 1 thing that's head and shoulders better then any other option, this problem exists all through STO. Rather it's Beams vs. Cannons, Weapons Mods, Science Consoles, whatever.
Usually, nerfs like this just mean a straight DPS loss that we have to eat because there is still nothing better to substitute. Cryptic gives us these 'fixes' under the guise of creating parity in builds, but at the end of the day it's not.. it's just a plain and simple nerf. The lack of acceptable options is always present in these situations.
Personally, if you had asked, I am 'secretly' not all that down about the nerf, as it kinda allows me to slot other consoles again, instead of always needing to hear that more Plasma connsoles are better. I went with 2x crafted [EPS] consoles now, for instance, and, while my DPS is down a bit, surprisingly not even by all that much (like 3-4k).
But EPS Flow Regulators are Engineering consoles, they can't go in your Science slots. And, they can't be crafted. Maybe you mean Flow consoles?
No, they can be crafted, and be Engineering too. I have 1x crafted RCS with [EPS] (Engineering, obviously), and 1x crafted PrtG with [EPS] (Science). Netting me a power transfer rate of 23.7/sec in total, which, together with the Emergency Cycle Trait yields good results for me. Not as good as the Plasma consoles, of course, but workable.
It's just an experiment, really, on my end, to see what will happen if I completely consider the Plasma consoles written off. I may put em back on again, later on.
Usually, nerfs like this just mean a straight DPS loss that we have to eat because there is still nothing better to substitute. Cryptic gives us these 'fixes' under the guise of creating parity in builds, but at the end of the day it's not.. it's just a plain and simple nerf. The lack of acceptable options is always present in these situations.
Now Attack Pattern Beta stacking and the [Pen] bug just needs to be fixed and space PvE will be a whole lot less broken.
??
So, now Beta stacking is OP too?! Will you people never give it a rest!? And [Pen], when did that become a bug?!
Your post is quite indicative of the level of willful intent to see anything nerfed that's even remotely useful. Please, desist doing so.
Kira,
If stuff is broken, it needs to be fixed. If stuff isn't balanced, it needs balancing. I don't agree for one second what Cryptic has done here in the way that they did (a point I expressed on The Show) but all I can see from you is Q_Q - nothing personal.
If by Q_Q you mean 'I object to people constantly seeking nerfs to whatever they think is even remotely good,' then sure, guilty as charged. Beta stacking, for example, while effective, is not a bug, nor OP: just the result of people coordinating their attacks. If there's any 'pattern', though, it's people just working down a list of things they want nerfed. And said list, mind you, is never-ending, by its very nature: if these folks have Beta stacking nerfed, they'll just go after the next-best thing. And majortiraomega's post, indeed, was very indicative of said mentality: The Plasma console nerf hasn't even hit Holodeck yet, and already folks are lining up for the next nerf. So, yeah, I'm always pushing back.
The consoles DIDN'T work properly and as you are a tac captain the impact to your DPS won't be as much as you think.
You assume too much. For one, I'm not a Tact Captain, just a lowly Fed Engineer, remember? And the only true objection I've had against *this* particular nerf, is the way Cryptic played it. The moment you rework something, and announce it to be WAI, then, at that point, it no longer matters whether someone still deems it OP: you lure your players into upgrading those items, and then you stab 'em in the back, a couple of months down the road. Not cool.
Personally, if you had asked, I am 'secretly' not all that down about the nerf, as it kinda allows me to slot other consoles again, instead of always needing to hear that more Plasma connsoles are better. I went with 2x crafted [EPS] consoles now, for instance, and, while my DPS is down a bit, surprisingly not even by all that much (like 3-4k).
Great choice as replacements. I've done near 100k without plasma explosions or kemo and while have near lag free runs the drop in DPS hasn't been large. Still need to see what happens with my sci though.
No, they can be crafted, and be Engineering too. I have 1x crafted RCS with [EPS] (Engineering, obviously), and 1x crafted PrtG with [EPS] (Science). Netting me a power transfer rate of 23.7/sec in total, which, together with the Emergency Cycle Trait yields good results for me. Not as good as the Plasma consoles, of course, but workable.
It's just an experiment, really, on my end, to see what will happen if I completely consider the Plasma consoles written off. I may put em back on again, later on.
I see what you're saying now, I guess I should have been more clear.
There is no Science console that grants EPS as a base function. The only way you can get EPS on any Science Console is to hit the crafting lottery.. literally. Field Exciters and the like with the EPS mod are some of the most expensive consoles in the game, last I checked an RCS with EPS at Mk XIV Epic was around 200-250 Million. The only console that grants EPS as a base function is an EPS Flow Regulator which is an non-craftable Engineering console.
Under normal conditions, there is still nothing better then the Embassy Consoles for Science even post nerf. The notion that they did this to somehow create a variation is builds is just silly. If that was really their interest they would have put some attention into Cannons a long time ago, they have been way behind the curve for years. Cannons still suffer ridiculous restrictions in comparison to beams, but they 'fix' these consoles with the story that they're creating parity.
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.
Totally agree and the nerve to say...it was done for the benefit of the community rather than just come clear and say...got my ego bruised because someone mop the floor with an obsolete built:
is this the console that allowed people to instagib a borg cube on elite difficulty?
because if so, it's probably the reason we have enemies with tens of millions of hp, which are practically unbeatable for people who don't invest in the gear that has been broken for months.
if those ways to cause 20+ million dps are removed, maybe they will finally scale the hp sponges back down, once there's no way to destroy boss type enemies in 5 seconds.
then again, maybe not. lol.
Now clowns, that's another story. They scare the crap out of me.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
I failed to clarify earlier: This is considered a temporary fix, not a final solution. We hope to be able to restore Crit functionality at a later point in time, when it can be universally applied.
The primary focus with this "temp fix" is to restore player choice, over the short term. If FAW was the only way to benefit from these consoles, then it paints players into a corner on how they need to equip their ship, and load out their boffs. Removing that outlier (until a better fix can be deployed) is how we chose to restore that balanced sense of choice. Now players have a greater opportunity to use the firing modes they want, and still get equivalent benefit from Embassy Consoles as anybody else.
And yes, I can confirm that there was also an additional reduction to the core amount of damage that the procs from these Consoles can dish out. This was not done lightly, but only after serious comparative testing on how these Consoles compare to anything similar that offers damage boosts (primarily Tactical +Dmg consoles, such as those from the Spire).
I recognize that this additional info is not likely to mollify anyone. I just want to make sure that if you're going to be upset about something, make sure you have all available information first.
Here are the patch notes that should have been included in the Tribble Notes, and will be included with the Holodeck Notes when this goes live:
ITEMS: Weapon Signature Amplifers/Nullifiers (Embassy Consoles)
- The plasma explosion procs gained from these consoles is no longer capable of landing a Critical Hit, under any circumstances.
- The damage of the plasma explosion procs has also been reduced by approximately 25%
From what I've read of this thread (i.e. all of it), a good number of the posters who made a post after page 3 didn't read what bort put. So here it is if you missed it. If you didn't, then I can say with no regrets that your butthurt over the decision is rightfully there - the thing I DO disagree with is "Why should FAW be the only thing that works with the Embassy console proc?", a well as the handling of the situation (the information not being included in the patch notes for one).
The way I read it, bort is saying that it will take too long to fix it whilst working around the FAW/Weapon Signature crit so that doesn't get broken - it's easier and less time-consuming to fix it when all parts are equal. Whilst @snipey47a has done the maths and found that it doesn't bring FAW/WS down far enough, at least they are now closer to each other so that FAW no longer completely and utterly rules the roost.
Personally, this will drop the DPS that my Fed Engineer does in his Olaen by an uncertain amount, but I'll still be using the consoles since they work with my setup. I can't say that this will do anything for my p***-poor performance (except make it worse ), but then again I don't do elites and haven't done since before DR.
These consoles have been reworked so much that they do not resemble the consoles I originally bought (which I got for the then +plasma damage). It would be nice if we could trade these for other consoles or straight up get the fleet marks and dil spent on them back (including dil used to upgrade them). I bought 4 a long time ago before all the shenanigans and now they are worthless to me.
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Until you come along, publically ask for a nerf, and then people are left with the huge HP on NPCs, but without means to combat them. As said in that video, normal people can pretty much forget about Elites, like HSE, now. Me? Even with Plasma consoles, I already really didn't have enough fire-power to do GGE properly: you need upward of 75k to finish that off comfortably.
Nobody is vilifying you.
Also, there's simply the matter of trust. When the Dev in charge 100% greenlights a reworked console, and absolutely brands it as WAI, it's then kinda shameless to just totally nerf it into oblivion, 6 or so months later; especially after a major Upgrade weekend (for which he 'forgot' to mention said nerf in the patch notes). I only have 8 or so of those consoles Epic (mostly PrtG, plus a few Flow), because I basically only use my main. But people with multiple toons in use, they have good reason to be rather upset.
yes, i do have a char with all plasma consoles, which recently i pumped to epic.
but heck yea, this change was overdue and i am welcoming it with both arms.
apparently i am one of the few who runs (vastly) different setups across toons.
now one of my chars is actually back in line with the others.
cool beans all around
and yea, changes happen. some might be drastic. deal with it.
And who's fault is that, hmm? Who's fault is that you are cut off from some elite content? The devs or in fact the players that abused some broken stuff (while claiming they have skills/piloting skills and other BS like that), then bragged about how easy the game is thus making the devs "balance" content via idiot HP lvls? Thus making everything else obsolite but the BFAW idiocricy and stacking/borderline exploits. And I am not talking here (only) about these plasma explosions. This is generaly true about soo many other broken stuff in the game.
You see, now you (and some other ppl aswell) are realizing what I've been saying from the start of DR. That the HP lvls were too much and killed pretty much every build options. Or even ship options. 5 ships - DHCs T6 latest escorts, even expensive Intel JHSS are cut off from elite content yet other 5 ships - two years old BFAW scimitars can pull if off... Never seen in any other games such imbalance. And its based on broken stuff and borderline exploits.
So, the problem is that only one build type could handle the content..
So the acceptable fix is to nerf abilities on that build and make it so that no build can do it? That's your idea of a fix?
Once again, breaking it for everyone is not a fix. It's a cheap and lazy cop out at best.
No, actually, that's the Devs' fault. Really. Or, I should say, the fault of a certain Lead Dev who always takes these things personal, and sees himself 'in competition' with that 0.01% of the playerbase that can truly steamroll over the Elite content. It's a personal battle of wills for him, somehow. The vast majority of the players, however, including me, cannot nearly accomplish what that 0.01% can: a certain Lead Dev not taking things personal would have realized that.
It is, logically, the first step towards moving NPC HP back to where it should be. However, I'll totally agree with you here that logic and common sense don't always apply to STO
I think that now all of the biggest DPS offenders are gone, they start downscaling HP. If they had started with reducing HP first, then they would have been stuck with the issue of people flying through it even faster, exacerbating the issues that led to the HP bump in the first place.
Elite content should be hard, but it should not be "locked out" or "inaccessible" to the vast majority of the playerbase - what, something like 98% of the players don't have the requisite 75k builds to complete GGE? That's not right. That's a scaling issue, and that's something that needs addressed. And that's just GGE, a blind DPS race. That's not addressing the other complications with things like HSE.
Totally agree, it shouldn't only be 1 type of build that can successfully complete the content. There are people who can (and do) complete even the hardest things in STO (GGE, HSE) with non-FAW builds (Cannons or Kinetic/Torps). However, those people are few and far in between.
This isn't a "fix" and shouldn't even be considered one, imo. Temporary or not, it just highlights the issues with the huge NPC pools. They need to start downscaling them. Like, now.
I agree with this. Hopefully, this is a first step in a large balance pass to get those HPs to a normal level.
Not sure I agree with this. I think Elite content, by its very definition, SHOULD be inaccessible to the vast majority of the playerbase. If everyone can do Elite, what is the point of normal or advanced versions? Those HPs need to come down, so it isn't just a DPS race, I will grant that. But all along, tactics should have beaten Elites, not just 100K DPS. GIve those NPCs enough abilities to put a borg diamond to shame. Give an Elite crystalline entity the same healing abilities as the old, OLD version had.
But should every player be able to play elites? No. It should require high-end gear or high-end tactics.
Thanks to Borticus for at least admitting that they are low on resources and that this fix isn't optimal. The thing is...this is it. It will NEVER be revisited.
No doubt was left open... no... "spend your resouces on upgrades this weekend" they told us.
And instantly after that ... boom... "oh sorry... you really upgraded your consoles?... too bad... we are now going to nerf them.... we wish you more luck next time".
Such methods are disgusting.
During the past year Cryptic layed out their bait at least 3 times and then started to nerf everything to the ground.
They increased the NPC HPs to up to 100 times of what the players can have on their ships. They nerfed the damage of consoles... but can we expect that the NPC HPs go down now?
No... we cant... that never will happen (thats about what "later" means).
This so called "fix" was like seeing a building with a crack in a window... then taking a stone to make sure that this window is complete broken.
Or like throwing this stone at the building nearby to make sure that the neighbours also have cracked windows (that "brings parity" and makes the neighbours happy, right?).
This idea of parity is so close minded... really.
The fixed state of these consoles is to crit with ALL types of fire modes.
After this "fix" they wont work with any type of the fire modes. Thats completely broken.... broken for FAW... broken for CSV... broken for RF... etc.
Parity!!!! Yay!!!
What about parity when it comes to ship types?
Which type of ships would lose most DPS by this fix.... the tactical dps monsters (*cough* Scimitar) or the poor sci ships which by default have less DPS? The Sci ships of course... the ships with the most sci consoles. The gap between them and the top damage dealers is getting bigger this way.
Parity.... thats a nice joke. The imparity is getting worse with such stupid decisions. Developers dont even seem to have the slightest idea how this game works and what consequences their decisions cause (not only on the ingame mechanics but also on what players think about Cryptic).
Each console was parsing 10k damage/second each. You can't honestly expect to believe that was working as intended. Now Attack Pattern Beta stacking and the [Pen] bug just needs to be fixed and space PvE will be a whole lot less broken.
Space PvE on Elite is impossible to do right now without exploiting major bugs; NPCs just have too much health right now at that difficulty. Plasma proc consoles were just the top of the iceberg. Cryptic needs to come down hard on stacking Attack Pattern Beta III 4 times via Elite Mesh Weavers using APB3 + FAW3. On top of that you've got entire teams all running APB3 with FAW3. A team with 3 Recluse Carrier and 2 Scimitars receives 17 copies of Attack Pattern Beta III for -850 all damage resistance rating while APB3 is active.
On top of that you've got teams exploiting the bug with [Pen] weapon mods making them stackable and team wide. That's an additional -10 damage resistance rating per weapon. A team with 3x Recluse/2x Scimitar would obtain -340 all damage resistance rating to everything hit and a team with 5x ship with 8 weapons slots would get -400 DRR to everything hit. At the very least that comes out to -1,190 all damage resistance rating. Nobody can even come close to claiming that's working as intended. It is an exploit that must be fixed.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
So, now Beta stacking is OP too?! Will you people never give it a rest!? And [Pen], when did that become a bug?!
Your post is quite indicative of the level of willful intent to see anything nerfed that's even remotely useful. Please, desist doing so.
Where do you get such numbers from?
Pretty much all of my high dps runs over the past year showed about 4-6k dps per plasma console (while i have pretty high crit values).
If the consoles really produce 10k dps then every player in this game would have 30-40k dps. Reality however looks different.
Next they'll be shouting to end the stacking of two or more of the same duty officers. I'd be interested to see if any of these that think that this nerf's a good idea, were those that were crying for the instant fail optionals to be removed from advanced STF's. Also how many have or will need to be carried through them again, to complete all the optionals.
To be honest, I've come to expect this from cryptic now. All I can say from my point of view in my real life job, we get measured on our right first time, jobs go through multiple inspections to ensure everything is up to standard. And if we'd have screwed things up as much as these people have, We'd be out of a job by now. Thinking about work, my company has a adopted a new moto for that last few years, one which cryptic and this development team would do well to take on board and that is to "Exceed the customers expectations" Sadly I know they wont, even though my expectations of cryptic are pretty low right about now.
As for the HP sponges, this is typical of cryptics behaviour, take the easy way out. But on the flip side, the enhancements made to the Tachyon beams whilst they may be OP, they've added an interesting twist to the game. For me they've made me move away from relying on shields, to fortifying my hull and hull heals. But thinking about it, its the same pattern again. Anything that helps the players gets hammered into the floor, whilst anything that hinders them is shuffled onto the back burner.
This has been the consensus within a large portion of my fleets senior officers for a while now. I've been told by one of the fleets founders that's why they quit playing STO. Personally I can understand the direction they're coming from. But like I've said before Cryptic would do well to stop shoving half arsed broken content out, take the time to properly beta test items. Hell the players would no doubt be willing to help if they don't have the resources in QA to do it. But as always, having tested and submitted stuff myself, we simply get ignored. And like I've said before a less than a week, between going live on Tribble and Holodeck isn't nearly enough time to test things properly.
If I look back over my runs this week and I've got 3 Embassy consoles with the Plasma and flow procs on them 2 are Mk 14 epic and one Mk 14 U/R my fire at and normal beam attacks are always providing the most damage.
Kira,
If stuff is broken, it needs to be fixed. If stuff isn't balanced, it needs balancing. I don't agree for one second what Cryptic has done here in the way that they did (a point I expressed on The Show) but all I can see from you is Q_Q - nothing personal.
On tribble the other day, we did Hive Elite without the consoles and handled it just fine. HSE requires more than DPS, it requires team coordination. I consider HSE to be an aspirational STF.. it is very possible to do without DPS Scimitars (i've done it on my science with a Command ship) as it is a STF that requires more than bashing the spacebar. Nothing personal here, but if you have been unable to do it, don't take it out on the ones that drew Cryptic's attention to it for which we did very little in all honesty. Ryan_STO's 110k+ DPS from just plasma explosion would have got them to look at it. Then there is the PVP issue... accept the fact that content is split between those two worlds as it should be.
The consoles DIDN'T work properly and as you are a tac captain the impact to your DPS won't be as much as you think. Yes, DPS will go down... my response to that... fly your ship better. NO, none of the queues will be impossible. HSE & GGE will continue to have the requirements they have always had... teamwork and a solid DPS, DPS/Healer and/or DPS/Threat sponge. Yep, DPS is a common thread and there is nothing wrong with that as it is the game that we have been presented with.
And seriously, those who are saying that Cryptic made the NPC's HP high because of a handful of players are seriously misguided.
If by Q_Q you mean 'I object to people constantly seeking nerfs to whatever they think is even remotely good,' then sure, guilty as charged. Beta stacking, for example, while effective, is not a bug, nor OP: just the result of people coordinating their attacks. If there's any 'pattern', though, it's people just working down a list of things they want nerfed. And said list, mind you, is never-ending, by its very nature: if these folks have Beta stacking nerfed, they'll just go after the next-best thing. And majortiraomega's post, indeed, was very indicative of said mentality: The Plasma console nerf hasn't even hit Holodeck yet, and already folks are lining up for the next nerf. So, yeah, I'm always pushing back.
You assume too much. For one, I'm not a Tact Captain, just a lowly Fed Engineer, remember? And the only true objection I've had against *this* particular nerf, is the way Cryptic played it. The moment you rework something, and announce it to be WAI, then, at that point, it no longer matters whether someone still deems it OP: you lure your players into upgrading those items, and then you stab 'em in the back, a couple of months down the road. Not cool.
Personally, if you had asked, I am 'secretly' not all that down about the nerf, as it kinda allows me to slot other consoles again, instead of always needing to hear that more Plasma connsoles are better. I went with 2x crafted [EPS] consoles now, for instance, and, while my DPS is down a bit, surprisingly not even by all that much (like 3-4k).
But EPS Flow Regulators are Engineering consoles, they can't go in your Science slots. And, they can't be crafted. Maybe you mean Flow consoles?
This is one of the problems I have, the rest of the Science consoles are still completely worthless to me. Therefore, the nerfed version of the Embassy consoles are still the best thing I can put there leaving me (and most others) no real method to compensate for the loss.
They're still the best Science consoles because they will still carry a small DPS buff along with +/- Threat and Flow to buff the leech. They're still going to be the best consoles for those slots, just not as good as before. It brings to light yet another problem in the current system which is a real lack of adequate variety. There is always 1 thing that's head and shoulders better then any other option, this problem exists all through STO. Rather it's Beams vs. Cannons, Weapons Mods, Science Consoles, whatever.
Usually, nerfs like this just mean a straight DPS loss that we have to eat because there is still nothing better to substitute. Cryptic gives us these 'fixes' under the guise of creating parity in builds, but at the end of the day it's not.. it's just a plain and simple nerf. The lack of acceptable options is always present in these situations.
No, they can be crafted, and be Engineering too.
It's just an experiment, really, on my end, to see what will happen if I completely consider the Plasma consoles written off. I may put em back on again, later on.
100% agreed.
Great choice as replacements. I've done near 100k without plasma explosions or kemo and while have near lag free runs the drop in DPS hasn't been large. Still need to see what happens with my sci though.
I see what you're saying now, I guess I should have been more clear.
There is no Science console that grants EPS as a base function. The only way you can get EPS on any Science Console is to hit the crafting lottery.. literally. Field Exciters and the like with the EPS mod are some of the most expensive consoles in the game, last I checked an RCS with EPS at Mk XIV Epic was around 200-250 Million. The only console that grants EPS as a base function is an EPS Flow Regulator which is an non-craftable Engineering console.
Under normal conditions, there is still nothing better then the Embassy Consoles for Science even post nerf. The notion that they did this to somehow create a variation is builds is just silly. If that was really their interest they would have put some attention into Cannons a long time ago, they have been way behind the curve for years. Cannons still suffer ridiculous restrictions in comparison to beams, but they 'fix' these consoles with the story that they're creating parity.
It would be funny if it wasn't so aggravating.
Totally agree and the nerve to say...it was done for the benefit of the community rather than just come clear and say...got my ego bruised because someone mop the floor with an obsolete built:
Original STO beta tester.
because if so, it's probably the reason we have enemies with tens of millions of hp, which are practically unbeatable for people who don't invest in the gear that has been broken for months.
if those ways to cause 20+ million dps are removed, maybe they will finally scale the hp sponges back down, once there's no way to destroy boss type enemies in 5 seconds.
then again, maybe not. lol.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
No. Those were bugged consoles from the Research Lab. That's not what we're talking about, no one wanted those to remain.
True but, the embassy consoles, play second fiddle to them!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
From what I've read of this thread (i.e. all of it), a good number of the posters who made a post after page 3 didn't read what bort put. So here it is if you missed it. If you didn't, then I can say with no regrets that your butthurt over the decision is rightfully there - the thing I DO disagree with is "Why should FAW be the only thing that works with the Embassy console proc?", a well as the handling of the situation (the information not being included in the patch notes for one).
The way I read it, bort is saying that it will take too long to fix it whilst working around the FAW/Weapon Signature crit so that doesn't get broken - it's easier and less time-consuming to fix it when all parts are equal. Whilst @snipey47a has done the maths and found that it doesn't bring FAW/WS down far enough, at least they are now closer to each other so that FAW no longer completely and utterly rules the roost.
Personally, this will drop the DPS that my Fed Engineer does in his Olaen by an uncertain amount, but I'll still be using the consoles since they work with my setup. I can't say that this will do anything for my p***-poor performance (except make it worse