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Some thoughts on Space PVE, and why I don't like it.
sdkraust
Member Posts: 524 Arc User
So as a forward, If you don't know who I am (e.g. You aren't from NOP Chat or an old Redditor) I used to be a moderately successful DPSer pre-Season 9 and did a bit of work on theorycrafting (which you may or may not accept the validity of).Now, I mainly do ground stuff as I can't keep up with the space power creep. I'm actually a nice guy that cares passionately about this game which is why I play it...
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So, I love ground combat (absolutely love it) and I seem to be in the small minority that do. That's okay.
The problem is that I used to love space combat too. What changed you might ask?
Space combat isn't balanced by design. In ground, you understand that all players can perform the same with equal effort. Eng, Tac, Sci all can do enough DPS to clear the content, and all it requires is a good kit and some Mk XII gear (and maybe a TR-116B for DRSE).
I pug a lot of NTTE (which is the ISA for ground) and pugs can do this content. Anyone with a Mk XII rep set shouldn't have an issue doing all of the ground combat (You -really- need Shield Pen for DRSE, which is an exception). DPS is low, but most people pugs fall in the 100-400 range. I myself, can parse upwards of 600 and want to do more as very few can do 1K+. I actually am debating doing some data analysis with DPS-League data and seeing this for myself.
Now for space there are more variables. Far more variables, and not all are created equal. This causes an interesting schism in the community between Tacs and Non-Tacs (and extremely hot headed members of the community who argue with the point I am trying to make).
The vast majority of both Space and Ground combat is a DPS race. Yes, positioning comes into play but Tacs have a definitive advantage in Space. I mean it's not even comparable.
If you look on the ISA ratings on the same leaderboards, you will see that on average Tacs do twice as much damage as Engi or Sci. I will not even put in the comparison of ROM vs FED here because they're already doing overkill damage as it is. I think that any "top DPSer" past or present can tell you this.
However, I do understand that Eng and Sci shine in other parts of Space combat. I regularly got First place during the recent CCA event with my ENG in his Andromeda/Ateleth because I was able to out tank the CCA without any issues and heal other people in the match. I also also able to get many First place with a Tac Vesta with My Lv 5x Sci. This was both in queue and via 10K.
The problem is that Eng and Sci cannot shine as well in Tacs in the large majority of Space STFs, and there is a huge skill disparity between players at all levels simply due to the number of variables that a player has to consider with a ship build vs a ground builds.
People might argue that this is okay and these Tacs do more damage than you need anyways. I'd disagree as an Eng can not tank any more than a Tac and a Sci can not space magic any more than a Tac. Tac's have more "power" in their Captain abilities, that give them huge advantages that Eng and Sci do not get (Everyone knows that Eng / Sci's Captain abilities do very little in PVE).
Now tonight, I was rather bold and queued up a Space STF - Battle of Korfez Elite. This STF was nothing but a DPS race, and I never died in my Ateleth. I saw other players die, the map was a huge mess and it wasn't easy when I couldn't even see my entire team on the map in the case I wanted to heal them. Now, I as a seasoned player had no issue - yet we still failed the STF before the boss. Now I'm assuming it was because we didn't meet the "DPS Requirement" that Cryptic no doubt put into place. I personally didn't find it as fun because it didn't play like an MMO.
But Compare this to ISA. I used to love ISE. Very simple arena design. Played this map like 300 times. Pre-DR I never died (Back then I used a Fleet Excelsior). Now with my far superior Ateleth, I cannot tank this map I am guaranteed to die almost every time I run this even with a full tank build (and 4pc Kobali which not everyone has). This is because the mission is designed to instantly kill anyone who has their shields drop due to some balances back in Season 5 (Phantom Torpedos). I don't care, but I cannot do my job as a Engi Tank if I get one shot by a Torpedo that does over 100K Hull w/ resists (and I have 90K hull...). These missions simply expect you to just DPS them without any sort of coordination.
Now I'd also like to present the fact that the queues give no barrier of entry (besides level) on players queueing for these mapes through the standard PVE queue. Many people would argue that this queue should not be used, but if you look at the CCA event, you will know that it can be used with some success (Although not as fast, you can't exactly "fail badly"). Maybe restrictions should be put into play before players are allowed to queue Elites? Why doesn't this game use some sort of iLevel to determine if you can play a map? Why is virtually all end game gear tied to some reputation / crafting system to gate progression instead of the typical MMO iLevel progression? The system worked (amazingly) back in Season 5/6. Back then you got gear to play ESTFs by playing Normals and there was a progression system.
A huge problem is that the vast majority of STOs playerbase runs as a Tac, and there are people with 50+ accounts who rely on this, which makes me fear that this will never be resolved.
Anyways, this is a brain dump of some of the thoughts I've connected. To Recap:
1. Ground combat is balanced, Space isn't.
2. Tacs in space are too overpowered due to queue design and min-maxing, but some queues work well for all classes.
3. The PVE progression system is a mess and should be looked at.
I'm posting this here for the lack of a better place to put it. This is my main concern with STO. Everything else is either trivial, or is working as intended.
Good night.
=======
So, I love ground combat (absolutely love it) and I seem to be in the small minority that do. That's okay.
The problem is that I used to love space combat too. What changed you might ask?
Space combat isn't balanced by design. In ground, you understand that all players can perform the same with equal effort. Eng, Tac, Sci all can do enough DPS to clear the content, and all it requires is a good kit and some Mk XII gear (and maybe a TR-116B for DRSE).
I pug a lot of NTTE (which is the ISA for ground) and pugs can do this content. Anyone with a Mk XII rep set shouldn't have an issue doing all of the ground combat (You -really- need Shield Pen for DRSE, which is an exception). DPS is low, but most people pugs fall in the 100-400 range. I myself, can parse upwards of 600 and want to do more as very few can do 1K+. I actually am debating doing some data analysis with DPS-League data and seeing this for myself.
Now for space there are more variables. Far more variables, and not all are created equal. This causes an interesting schism in the community between Tacs and Non-Tacs (and extremely hot headed members of the community who argue with the point I am trying to make).
The vast majority of both Space and Ground combat is a DPS race. Yes, positioning comes into play but Tacs have a definitive advantage in Space. I mean it's not even comparable.
If you look on the ISA ratings on the same leaderboards, you will see that on average Tacs do twice as much damage as Engi or Sci. I will not even put in the comparison of ROM vs FED here because they're already doing overkill damage as it is. I think that any "top DPSer" past or present can tell you this.
However, I do understand that Eng and Sci shine in other parts of Space combat. I regularly got First place during the recent CCA event with my ENG in his Andromeda/Ateleth because I was able to out tank the CCA without any issues and heal other people in the match. I also also able to get many First place with a Tac Vesta with My Lv 5x Sci. This was both in queue and via 10K.
The problem is that Eng and Sci cannot shine as well in Tacs in the large majority of Space STFs, and there is a huge skill disparity between players at all levels simply due to the number of variables that a player has to consider with a ship build vs a ground builds.
People might argue that this is okay and these Tacs do more damage than you need anyways. I'd disagree as an Eng can not tank any more than a Tac and a Sci can not space magic any more than a Tac. Tac's have more "power" in their Captain abilities, that give them huge advantages that Eng and Sci do not get (Everyone knows that Eng / Sci's Captain abilities do very little in PVE).
Now tonight, I was rather bold and queued up a Space STF - Battle of Korfez Elite. This STF was nothing but a DPS race, and I never died in my Ateleth. I saw other players die, the map was a huge mess and it wasn't easy when I couldn't even see my entire team on the map in the case I wanted to heal them. Now, I as a seasoned player had no issue - yet we still failed the STF before the boss. Now I'm assuming it was because we didn't meet the "DPS Requirement" that Cryptic no doubt put into place. I personally didn't find it as fun because it didn't play like an MMO.
But Compare this to ISA. I used to love ISE. Very simple arena design. Played this map like 300 times. Pre-DR I never died (Back then I used a Fleet Excelsior). Now with my far superior Ateleth, I cannot tank this map I am guaranteed to die almost every time I run this even with a full tank build (and 4pc Kobali which not everyone has). This is because the mission is designed to instantly kill anyone who has their shields drop due to some balances back in Season 5 (Phantom Torpedos). I don't care, but I cannot do my job as a Engi Tank if I get one shot by a Torpedo that does over 100K Hull w/ resists (and I have 90K hull...). These missions simply expect you to just DPS them without any sort of coordination.
Now I'd also like to present the fact that the queues give no barrier of entry (besides level) on players queueing for these mapes through the standard PVE queue. Many people would argue that this queue should not be used, but if you look at the CCA event, you will know that it can be used with some success (Although not as fast, you can't exactly "fail badly"). Maybe restrictions should be put into play before players are allowed to queue Elites? Why doesn't this game use some sort of iLevel to determine if you can play a map? Why is virtually all end game gear tied to some reputation / crafting system to gate progression instead of the typical MMO iLevel progression? The system worked (amazingly) back in Season 5/6. Back then you got gear to play ESTFs by playing Normals and there was a progression system.
A huge problem is that the vast majority of STOs playerbase runs as a Tac, and there are people with 50+ accounts who rely on this, which makes me fear that this will never be resolved.
Anyways, this is a brain dump of some of the thoughts I've connected. To Recap:
1. Ground combat is balanced, Space isn't.
2. Tacs in space are too overpowered due to queue design and min-maxing, but some queues work well for all classes.
3. The PVE progression system is a mess and should be looked at.
I'm posting this here for the lack of a better place to put it. This is my main concern with STO. Everything else is either trivial, or is working as intended.
Good night.
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Comments
Seems to me that low speed tanking is done in this game barring a 180 shift in the design of multiple mechanisms - you probably have to adapt or never like space again.
I have 3 out of 6 toons that are engineer tank captains. Stop with the nonsense. You are obviously doing something wrong if you are guaranteed to die in ISA. Up until the quoted statement, I wasn't going to say anything since it's obvious you were just ranting, but saying a tank is guaranteed to die in ISA is giving those who work hard at tanking well a bad name.
Pulling data from SCM (Because I asked on another site to be able to pull all of the data so I can put it through R).
Of people doing above 400 DPS in NTTE (Acceptance into G-400)
Total: 140/283 (49%)
Tac: 115/207 (55%)
Eng: 33/74 (44%)
Sci: 4/29 (13%)
This data has a rather small sample size as SCM has been tracking it for a much shorter time (I do not have/use CLR).
Now, the parses of all > 1K DPS are for the most part Tacs. Why? None of these Parses seems out of the ordinary. I could probably pull near 1K if I had Concussive Tachyon Emission (as an Eng) which adds around 200-300DPS if used right. I'm assuming that players simply do not have this on their non-mains as most dedicated people run Tac.
So I think there is an illusion that Tac plays better in ground DPS than Eng (and even Sci if we can see some impressive Sci / Command numbers). There are far more Tac players than non-Tac players so numbers will skew in Tac's favor.
This is contrapositive to space where only 1 Sci and no Eng has broken 100K in ISA with much larger sample sizes.
Also note that the same player dominates both leaderboards (@spencerb96) with the same PC.
Also NTTE is basically set if you can pull an average of 200 DPS per guy. These values are all overkill and are the 0.01% of STO players.
Oh sorry I offended you buddy. Please take your angst somewhere else. I don't want an argument. I am merely providing data.
I will post my build for you if you want. I am just a regular player, I am always open for criticism.
Edit: Here is the ship I am using as a point of reference:
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=kraustsatelethwip_0
I've been changing it around, I don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on Reciprocity, AHOD, ect.
You don't need reciprocity or AHOD to make the ship work well enough, though they open up a lot of opportunities. As for needing money for ships, it's a free to play game, and most anything can be obtained if you are patient and willing to grind for it.
OSS kills a subsystem at random, not very nice thing for a tank which needs all subsystems functioning to survive and do damage. DEM1 doesn't provide a huge DPS boost for engineers who use EPT3 on themselves.
LCDR uni TT1, APB1, BFAW3 (TT1, BFAW2, APB2 if you can't get BFAW3)
LT Tac TT1, BFAW2
CDR Eng ET1, RSP1, EPTS3, A2SIF3
LT Eng ET1, EPTW2
LT Sci HE1, HE2
When you can get 2 conn officers to reduce tac team recharge, 2 purple or 1 purple and 1 blue, replace one of the TT1 with FAW1 and replace BFAW2 with an attack pattern. That way, all tactical BO abilities are able to be run at or near minimum times.
Cycle tac team, EPTS, EPTW and BFAW often.
A2SIF3 is a tremendous hull heal and adds damage resist for a short duration. Because of it's considerable damage resist, you might use it like brace for impact, and with brace of impact, to prepare for a big hit, not just the big hull heal it provides as well.
I have a thread I started in the Academy section on an Introduction to space PVE tanking that might also help explain a few things too, especially the first 2 videos.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1189840/introduction-to-space-pve-tanking-in-sto
I always pug and im lucky if i see another Sci in team (~ 60% tac ~ 30% eng) ...
Well, in NTTE dps means... If at least 1 Tac in pug know what his doing (spam TI, ST and summon Security Escort army) its a lot easier to successfully complete it. But... Many times i see ppl which dont know what are they doing... They just pew pew.
Also, i was invited to G-400 channel and i think by mistake. All my 5 kit module is medic and im doing ~100-200 dps. I can tank NTTE Boss and all Tholians if everyone dies in final stage but i cant deal ~400 DPS. How can i remove\refuse channel invite?
This is the alternate BO setup I had. This is extremely cookie cutter down to your Doff recommendations.
However, I will disagree with a few points.
1. I have plenty of Hull Heals. ST > HE in this regard (I have the (arguable) 3 best Hull Heals in the game from the Kobali Set. I am more worried about losing my shields, which is why the focus is on Shields. Straight up hull healing seems pretty silly unless you're running 2x HE for the Res.
2. Who can't get FAW3 these days? It's what? 100K from the exchange?
3. Your arguments are "Use A2S / RSP1 vs A2S1 vs RSP3". The latter does not need a Doff dedicated to keeping uptime. 15s on RSP3 is amazing. This is a matter of choice IMO. Hell, I like to run 2x A2S1.
Now I'm quite surprised you aren't getting all pouty at me not running Tac Team, which even I have been doubting.
I have Marrion so I like to use him. I wanted to test something with the DEMs. This is a valid point, I will most likely eventually lean into your Boff Choice.
DOFFs would be
2x VR TT Conn Officers
2x VR DCE
1x Zemok (which I refuse to buy)
1x Something else
Also, what you just posted. I have been using on a Tor'kaht/FACR (more or less) for a very long time. It's nothing new and I agree is probably the "optimal" build.
I'd argue the boff setup should be something like
TT1, APB1, BFAW3
TT1, BFAW2
ET1, A2SIF1, EPTS3, RSP3
ET1, EPTW2
ST1, ST2 (But arguably "HE1, HE2" is more cookie cutter).
But I digress. This is not about my ship building skills, min-maxing Boff slots or Tanking but my unhappiness/concern in how Tacs can DPS twice as good as Eng/Sci yet can also tank as well, if not better with the same effort put in.
People like to cherry pick the weak points of an argument to try and make the discussion derail.
Edit: I forgot to mention I run 3x of the R&D Consoles that increase damage done based on heals, which is another reason I favor ST1, ST2 having a lower CD than HE1,HE2. The same goes for why I initially ran A2SIF1,A2SIF2 vs DEM1, DEM2 and sacrificing the Lt Cmdr Tac.
People like to whine when you don't run TT & APB tho.
Edit: ARGUABLY, the build should be
TT1, APB1, BFAW3
BFAW1, APB1
ET1, A2SIF1, EPTS3, RSP3
ET1, EPTW2
ST1, ST2 (But arguably "HE1, HE2" is more cookie cutter).
If you are running those Conn Officers because "I heard u liek APB" I'd rather throw in a Gravimetric Torpedo and Run 2x TS2 in this case because that's gonna do a whole lot more than 2x APB1s as an Eng.
But I digress again. I can min-max a ship build for hours, and it doesn't solve the problem that it's irrelevant when a Tac can do twice as much damage with the above build as a Eng could.
I attempted to provide help to you and you provide a bunch of replies that do nothing more than essentially say you won't change. It's like a slap to the hand trying to reach out to help. Good day.
I didn't see this. Sorry.
- Data shows that it's like 33 Eng 66 Tac which is a lot better than 80% Tac you see in Space. Sci is actually quite good ground, it's just not a "popular" pick for whatever reason.
- Depends entirely on the time of the day. People have odd sleep cycles. Either you get people that know what they're doing or you get people who are extremely bad. It's not as bad as Space. But you've got the "Oh TRIBBLE I took the wrong turn" bad.
G-200/G-400 invites get auto sent if you are on the SCM Leaderboards (Because us ground people are really nice, and you should join us unlike those evil space guys). Seriously. Ground is so much easier to play because there are less variables to consider.
I don't see @xiesha911 on SCM's table tho if that's the @handle you use.
On the contrary, I've already applied a few of your changes. I think you misunderstood the context of my post. Thanks.