The question of balance is an overused, overdiluted statement. Everything here is viable. However, one or few are optimal. So the question would be, why would we want to "balance" optimal stuff when everything is balanced in viability.
"Viable" doesn't mean good, though. "Viable" just means that it's able to get the job done, no matter how painful the experience may be.
Let's say you have two "viable" doctors to choose from for your surgery: One carries a kit full of scalpels, forceps, saws, bite blocks, and a bottle of whiskey. The other has a state-of-the-art, fully-equipped office and lab. Would you really say "it doesn't matter" in this case, or would you make the obvious choice and choose the optimal one?
In STO, choosing "optimal" over "viable" means engaging in more of the game's content without the headache of constantly getting blown up by things that would be trivial had you taken the superior path instead of an inferior one.
No need optimal stuff if you are not competing for top spot. It is the same dilemma if i presented you with a choice between Antiproton and tetryon. yes there is a difference. But that difference is insignificant for ordinary players. Difference Would only be significant if your aiming for #1 dps, this means maxed out gears, optimal piloting, optimized build, high quality teammates, and your choices of gear, ships and stuff is limited to one or a few.
Most people hate Undine Infiltration... the whole first part of that (baring 1 of the optionals) is running around talking to people. It's so boring, and if 1 team member answers wrong, you fail the mission.
That's the main reason people hate Undine infiltrator and many queues, 1 tiny mistake-->mission failed-->30 minutes cooldown on all related queues.
Some queues have a time limit, that means no dps-->mission failed
That and poor rewards, not so long ago I finished azure nebula rescue with all optionals, all ships rescued in less than 30 seconds after respawning --> 40 marks;
so what's the point? you earn more marks doing patrols and New Romulus missions and they are more interesting and diverse than hiding behind an asteroid disabling tractor beams.
All we need to repopulate queues again is no cooldown for failed queues, no shared cooldown for successful queues, better rewards and the removal of the goddamn time limits.
Hardly a comprehensive list, but a list nonetheless. Of course you can make Cannons/Torps/Sci work, but you're artificially gimping yourself. Yes you can run them if you like them (duh), but the fact is that the conditions that led to you being gimped shouldn't exist in the first place.
And a lot of this could be fixed if Cryptic would just fix some longstanding bugs.
You only gimp yourself if you are a noob. You can hit 75k+ ISA dps on any weapons platforms as long as you have the correct build, good piloting. Absent of those, you can really gimp yourself including if you are using beams.
Main Difference is information. Too many lazy players, too few information about anything other than cookie cutter beam builds.
Besides you shouldnt copy paste beam builds to cannon builds. I dont know why you keep insisting this nonsense in multiple forums even though explained multiple times by different experts. No amount of change mechanics will help a player, if a player doesnt understand the current mechanics.
I also dont know why you still dont know workarounds. Beams have workarounds but is publicly known like power management. I ask you, how does a torp, which according to you deals less damage in shields than beam, deal more dps than beams in mobs dealing more shield HP. Because of workaround/information. However, that information is not publicly available like power management of beam cookie cutter builds. Which points to either the failure of that information getting to you or your laziness to find that information.
Besides you shouldnt copy paste beam builds to cannon builds. I dont know why you keep insisting this nonsense in multiple forums even though explained multiple times by different experts. No amount of change mechanics will help a player, if a player doesnt understand the current mechanics.
Flawed conclusion.
Current mechanics don't work, they're broken.
I need to get to him. I can't just leave him out there alone. - Sometimes you've got to makes sacrifices, Lara. You can't save everyone. - I know about sacrifices. - No, you know about loss. Sacrifice is a choice you make. Loss is a choice made for you. - I can't choose to let him die, Roth.
read before you comment. OP is talking about PVE not PVP
Joke is on you cuz the QQers are known pvpers lmao. Kemocite, plasma explosions and what not pisses off pvpers but PvErs will never understand the reasons why. The PvPers on the other hand understand PvErs shortcomings, so they must use language you can understand otherwise they will never convince anyone . It's all about the reality we live in.
Irrelevent. The op Is specically talking about PVE. How a player spends there time in game has no bearing on whether there points are worth talking about or not
Yeah I just finished another advanced STF were the 4 other players in the team were hitting for 2-8K, hoping that someone would carry them through. I told one guy not to hit the small nanite generators too early in adavanced Infect space as we didn't have the collective dps for the reinforcements, he actually argued with me that he had always done the same thing in every infected. I tried to explain to him he has been doing it wrong all this time, but no doubt he was lucky enough to be in a very high dps teams before were it did not matter, and this has led him to not even understand the mechanics of the stf. Sad, but also annoying.
I also dont know why you still dont know workarounds. Beams have workarounds but is publicly known like power management. I ask you, how does a torp, which according to you deals less damage in shields than beam, deal more dps than beams in mobs dealing more shield HP. Because of workaround/information. However, that information is not publicly available like power management of beam cookie cutter builds. Which points to either the failure of that information getting to you or your laziness to find that information.
This is an interesting claim. Are you really saying torpedoes can do more dps than beams? If so, you need to prove it. Video or parse would do. I havn't seen @pottsey5g or @darkknightucf say anything about that.
Yeah I just finished another advanced STF were the 4 other players in the team were hitting for 2-8K, hoping that someone would carry them through. I told one guy not to hit the small nanite generators too early in adavanced Infect space as we didn't have the collective dps for the reinforcements, he actually argued with me that he had always done the same thing in every infected. I tried to explain to him he has been doing it wrong all this time, but no doubt he was lucky enough to be in a very high dps teams before were it did not matter, and this has led him to not even understand the mechanics of the stf. Sad, but also annoying.
I Woulda shown him his dps,the other 3 and your DPS..And then explian why that stf took as long as it did and imagine how much longer if you (with cumulatively more damage than the other 4) Hadnt been in to cover them..Especially since you cant really fail ISA and those nanite spheres,without a CC ship, get damn annoying..
Your reccommendation made sence,and hitting the genreators before your team is ready is going to result in major suckage..STFs,especailly with low dps guys NEED team cooperation.
This is an interesting claim. Are you really saying torpedoes can do more dps than beams? If so, you need to prove it. Video or parse would do. I havn't seen @pottsey5g or @darkknightucf say anything about that.
When you consider that the favored DPS benchmark is ISA, a land of unshielded targets, it wouldn't surprise me at all that torpedoes can compete on favorable terms against energy weapons.
All the parses and records I've seen state otherwise. One cant just make a claim and give no evidence to support it. Pax was also talking about shielded targets so IDK. I would really just like to see where Pax is getting that info.
Urm weapon cons for one. each con you add of the same type gives you less of a boost then the last one
False. Tactical consoles grant a flat linear increase for each console added. Try it and see. Each one will increase your listed tooltip DPSes by the same amount, barring rounding errors.
Base Damage we are going to use an example number of 500
Tactical Consoles we are going to use Fleet Spire Tactical Consoles 31.9% With 1.6% Critical Chance
Critical Chance = CH or Critical Hit
No Console and 500 Base Damage = 500 Damage
31.9% of 500 = 159.9
Now just add 159.9 onto your base damage for each console.
CH is just as simple 1.6% times the number of consoles.
One console and 500 Base Damage + 31.9% 1.6% CH = 659.9 Damage and 1.6 Critical Damage
Two consoles and 500 Base Damage + 31.9% & 1.6% CH +31.9% & 1.6% CH = 819.4 Damage and 3.2% Critical Chance
Three consoles and 500 Base Damage + 31.9% & 1.6% CH +31.9% & 1.6% + 31.9% & 1.6% CH = 979.7 Damage and 4.8% Critical Chance
Four consoles and 500 Base Damage + 31.9% & 1.6% CH++ 31.9% & 1.6% CH +31.9% & 1.6% + 31.9% & 1.6% CH = 1139.6 Damage and 6.4% Critical Chance
Five consoles and Base Damage + 31.9% & 1.6% CH + 31.9% & 1.6% CH++ 31.9% & 1.6% CH +31.9% & 1.6% + 31.9% & 1.6% CH = 1299.5 Damage and 8% Critical Chance
@paxdawn is getting it from the vid below. What I did was use a work-around vs low-shield Spheres in a relatively tight cluster, use a weak shield drain console, then activate Kemocite, then activate TS3 Neutronic (with a 9 in flowcaps + Rule 62 + 2pc Delta Ordinance), and watch the following hit in this order:
AoE spike drain from Neutronic
Radiation damage to shields x2 [Kemocite + Neutronic] (x3? Double proc of Kemocite is still under investigation based on new evidence)
Weapon Systems Synergy proc'd, and 50% of my kinetic damage made it past any shields that were left.
High Kinetic damage from Neutronic
In this case, I used the tools available to me to work around the problem(s) at hand. VS shielded targets, kinetics struggle (with or without bugs). VS unshielded targets, kinetics are strong, even w/ the bugs plaguing them.
The problem arose when you had energy weapons and their associated procs/buffs (re: FaW + plasma explosion crits) do the same (or more) damage than a HY1/2 direct to hull. I am sure that if my torps were allowed to do full damage to shields tomorrow, there would be massive QQ from both the PvE and PvP communities for weeks on end. I need only refer to the near-uprising when the Tier 1 Command Space Expose/Exploit proc was accidentally set to 98% for a week for an example. I didn't abuse it... much.... but there were some... entities.... that needed to be taught a lesson
Kinetics have their place. Heck, mines could have a place in the game as-is (on Normal STF's), IF there was a map designed for it, or if you get creative with it (4 maps come to mind. 1 Voth, 1 Undine, 2 Borg. I'll let you guess which and where).
Are there bugs that need fixing? Absolutely yes. Can most of them be worked around? Yes. Who has it the worst?
@paxdawn is getting it from the vid below. What I did was use a work-around vs low-shield Spheres in a relatively tight cluster, use a weak shield drain console, then activate Kemocite, then activate TS3 Neutronic (with a 9 in flowcaps + Rule 62 + 2pc Delta Ordinance), and watch the following hit in this order:
AoE spike drain from Neutronic
Radiation damage to shields x2 [Kemocite + Neutronic] (x3? Double proc of Kemocite is still under investigation based on new evidence)
Weapon Systems Synergy proc'd, and 50% of my kinetic damage made it past any shields that were left.
High Kinetic damage from Neutronic
In this case, I used the tools available to me to work around the problem(s) at hand. VS shielded targets, kinetics struggle (with or without bugs). VS unshielded targets, kinetics are strong, even w/ the bugs plaguing them.
The problem arose when you had energy weapons and their associated procs/buffs (re: FaW + plasma explosion crits) do the same (or more) damage than a HY1/2 direct to hull. I am sure that if my torps were allowed to do full damage to shields tomorrow, there would be massive QQ from both the PvE and PvP communities for weeks on end. I need only refer to the near-uprising when the Tier 1 Command Space Expose/Exploit proc was accidentally set to 98% for a week for an example. I didn't abuse it... much.... but there were some... entities.... that needed to be taught a lesson
Kinetics have their place. Heck, mines could have a place in the game as-is (on Normal STF's), IF there was a map designed for it, or if you get creative with it (4 maps come to mind. 1 Voth, 1 Undine, 2 Borg. I'll let you guess which and where).
Are there bugs that need fixing? Absolutely yes. Can most of them be worked around? Yes. Who has it the worst?
How much of your damage was from radiation and kemocite? Do you have your parse? Would a non-neutronic torpedo have similar results? If the double (maybe triple) proc on kemocite was fixed would you still do the comparable DPS?
I'm absolutely not trying to disprove anything you're saying. I consider you the expert on all things torpedoes. I just think these are important questions so further this discussion. Also, I would love for a Bug episode of The SHOW (and I'm not talking about the ship lol) where you all talk about current bugs (obviously not exploits). Especially since at least one of you is now an official Bug Hunter.
Also, what do you think of scaling kinetic resistance with shield health? I don't think that would cause problems in PvP but would greatly boost kinetics in PvE.
@paxdawn is getting it from the vid below. What I did was use a work-around vs low-shield Spheres in a relatively tight cluster, use a weak shield drain console, then activate Kemocite, then activate TS3 Neutronic (with a 9 in flowcaps + Rule 62 + 2pc Delta Ordinance), and watch the following hit in this order:
AoE spike drain from Neutronic
Radiation damage to shields x2 [Kemocite + Neutronic] (x3? Double proc of Kemocite is still under investigation based on new evidence)
Weapon Systems Synergy proc'd, and 50% of my kinetic damage made it past any shields that were left.
High Kinetic damage from Neutronic
In this case, I used the tools available to me to work around the problem(s) at hand. VS shielded targets, kinetics struggle (with or without bugs). VS unshielded targets, kinetics are strong, even w/ the bugs plaguing them.
The problem arose when you had energy weapons and their associated procs/buffs (re: FaW + plasma explosion crits) do the same (or more) damage than a HY1/2 direct to hull. I am sure that if my torps were allowed to do full damage to shields tomorrow, there would be massive QQ from both the PvE and PvP communities for weeks on end. I need only refer to the near-uprising when the Tier 1 Command Space Expose/Exploit proc was accidentally set to 98% for a week for an example. I didn't abuse it... much.... but there were some... entities.... that needed to be taught a lesson
Kinetics have their place. Heck, mines could have a place in the game as-is (on Normal STF's), IF there was a map designed for it, or if you get creative with it (4 maps come to mind. 1 Voth, 1 Undine, 2 Borg. I'll let you guess which and where).
Are there bugs that need fixing? Absolutely yes. Can most of them be worked around? Yes. Who has it the worst?
How much of your damage was from radiation and kemocite? Do you have your parse? Would a non-neutronic torpedo have similar results? If the double (maybe triple) proc on kemocite was fixed would you still do the comparable DPS?
I'm absolutely not trying to disprove anything you're saying. I consider you the expert on all things torpedoes. I just think these are important questions so further this discussion. Also, I would love for a Bug episode of The SHOW (and I'm not talking about the ship lol) where you all talk about current bugs (obviously not exploits). Especially since at least one of you is now an official Bug Hunter.
Also, what do you think of scaling kinetic resistance with shield health? I don't think that would cause problems in PvP but would greatly boost kinetics in PvE.
I've been getting ~80K w/o Kemo, the AoE drain from the Manticore console, and w/o Concentrate Firepower. The combo adds up nicely to raise the maximum theoretical DPS. The biggest hindrance to kinetics are shields, and Kemocite helps tremendously with that, on top of applying a debuff. It replaced Beta for me on my builds.
Concerning the double-proc issue. I could be wrong (in part, or in full) about how it is occurring, as well as the frequency of occurrence for ALL AoE abilities. There is something odd where we do see two shield procs and two hull procs for one weapon under FaW, CSV, or TS.
I was actually planning on one where we show situations where HY1/TS1 can perform better than HY3/TS3. I'm awaiting confirmation on two of the other big issues w/ torps before compiling them all into an episode-worthy SHOW.
I'm going to resume work on the Kinetics Guide 2.0 SOON^TM
This is an interesting claim. Are you really saying torpedoes can do more dps than beams? If so, you need to prove it. Video or parse would do. I havn't seen @pottsey5g or @darkknightucf say anything about that.
I have said something along those lines before but it depends on the content. CE for example favors torpedoes and mines. In Azure Nebula torpedoes and mines will kill the waves of NPC’s far faster than beams. At over 350k+ dps per group I find kinetics better at wiping out entire groups of NPC faster than beams. Some of the shuttle content is best with torpedoes over energy. It’s not a case of one is better than the other, it all depends on the content.
This is over simplified but if you know where a group of NPC's will warp in or dealing with large groups then torpedoes and mines are the higher damage weapon. When dealing with smaller groups or random warp point’s beams often do better. Azure Nebula being a prime example I can do 350k dps per group as a torpedo boat and wipe out the NPC groups in 1 second something I have never managed to do as a beam setup. Yet in other content beam setups wipe the floor over me. So for me its not as simple as saying beams or torpedoes are best.
All the parses and records I've seen state otherwise. One cant just make a claim and give no evidence to support it. Pax was also talking about shielded targets so IDK. I would really just like to see where Pax is getting that info.
Last time I looked under Engineer pilots, torpedo boats came in the top 5 under ISA and 1st place under CE. I am not going say torpedo boats beat energy weapons but they can compete against them.
“Kinetics have their place. Heck, mines could have a place in the game as-is (on Normal STF's), IF there was a map designed for it, or if you get creative with it (4 maps come to mind. 1 Voth, 1 Undine, 2 Borg. I'll let you guess which and where).”
Speaking of mines I just broke my own DPS record and my top weapon was mines. My DPS rounded was 95k as an Engineer pilot. Personally I love mines in Azure Nebula, GGA or GGE so yeah mines have a place and I hate it when random people in the DPS 10k channel say mines are useless. As flawed as Mines are they can be made to work and are my favorite weapon. A good timed Dispersal Pattern Beta 3 can be deadly.
One idea I have been wanting to try for a while but cannot find anyone to test with is to lay a mine field in the middle of ISA 2 left, 1 middle, 2 right run. If timed right the right and left areas blow up and both groups of probes spawn at once into the mine field. Add in a torp spread and that should if I have my math and experience right be well over 300k spike dps for a brief moment if not over 400k spike dps which turns into over 100k dps over the ISA run.
EDIT: @darkknightucf I really need to find some time to work on the mine part of that guide. When are you resuming work or planning on the next version?
@pottsey5g and @darkknightucf
This is the discussion I've been wanting for a long time. A discussion with evidence and not ad hominem put downs like calling people noobs or saying they don't know anything or suggesting they should stay in Normal STFs. Thank you for being such awesome people
P.S. I find it ironic that so many people spec for flow caps just for DPS. Tyken's, Energy Siphon, and Tachyon Beam feel left out of the party.
More party for me then. Use all three for my various, torp/drain builds. Amazing how many brute force it with raw DPS, I've found the only reason I kill slower is due to torp travel time. Not really a DPS logger or min/max, I'm sure if I broke it down the yellow floaties in the 90K range would be a combo of things, but hey it works.
P.S. I find it ironic that so many people spec for flow caps just for DPS. Tyken's, Energy Siphon, and Tachyon Beam feel left out of the party.
Indeed; all of these are quite useful - having one or more of these degrading shields makes it much easier for your weapons to get through to the hull (and the radiation damage deteriorating secondary deflectors add to these is icing).
Even if we change the mechanics. Those top DPS, will still top DPS.
Problem has always been players. Different wants, knowledge, skill set. Put them together with a game like STO with too many choices, you end up with different DPS. If a player is too lazy, too ignorant, or chooses their playerstyle, or with whining attitude, you end up lower end of the DPS.
Cannot fix balance in game if you cannot fix balance in players. But I suppose you all know this by now but want to blame mechanics instead of the person in the mirror.
Please show me a place in STO where diminishing returns happens with damage? I don't know of any. Please explain and show an example.
Urm weapon cons for one. each con you add of the same type gives you less of a boost then the last one
Sorry buddy but no they dont you need to look at it closer. Take all you Consoles out and put your weapons power to 50 in sol system space or any other system. Add one at a time and you will see each console adds the same amount of damage. Problem people have is they look at it with 100 weapons power and skills. The buff from weapons consoles are only added to the base damage of the weapon. So if a weapon does 100 damage and your console gives 30% boost one console makes it do 130 damage...160,190,220,250.......if you had more than 5 console slots. this number is boosted before skills and weapons power, now there are power, abilities, and passives that work different. AMP give its modifier at the back end of the math instead of the front. Some people also think tac console should buff each other so the math would look like this.
Way it works on a weapon that does 100 base damage. For math purposes using 100 for weapons damage and 30% console bonus to make it easy.
This is how it works:
1st console/2nd console/3rd console/4th console/5th console
130/ 160/ 190/ 220/ 250
This is how people get confused and people think it should work. People get confused by thinking the 2 and other should multiply the results of the prior. So the 2nd console would multiply the results of the 1st. the 3rd would multiply the results of the first two. This is not normal growth it is exponential growth.
This is how people think it is suppose to work.
1st console/2nd console/3rd console/4th console/5th console
130/ 169/ 219.7/ 285.61/ 371.293
While it would be fun to use those numbers once, it would be OP if it did.
@pottsey5g and @darkknightucf
This is the discussion I've been wanting for a long time. A discussion with evidence and not ad hominem put downs like calling people noobs or saying they don't know anything or suggesting they should stay in Normal STFs. Thank you for being such awesome people
Sorry but I don't have a problem with people not being able to do elites or advance queues. If you don't complete it oh well. I am also a supporter of have to do a normal prior to advance with all optional objectives and the same for elites need to do advance.
I love to see conversations like this. Problem is until we get an EP and Lead Design that will do something it will never happen.
Or in short: consoles give linear returns, not exponential returns, and the question of whether there are diminishing returns depends on what you expected.
The question for me would be "If the first tac console is more useful than whatever other console I have to drop, does that also mean that the fifth is as well", and the answer is "yes", because, using simeion's example, the first gives 30 which is better than your opportunity cost, and so does the fifth.
Diminishing returns from a gameplay sense can only be measured meaningfully in terms of opportunity costs because otherwise they wouldn't matter.
Of course all of this would change if a completely different multiplier would be used by another console which would give say 20% of bonus to whatever damage you're doing.
First comparison: tac gives 30, other gives 20% of 100, which is 20, so equip tac
Second comparison: tac gives 30, other gives 20% of now 130, which is 26, so equip tac
Third: 30 vs 20% of 160 (32), so now the tides have turned.
But this latter console type does not exist in this game AFAIK, and it rarely does. Problem is that the usual wording "+20% damage" does indeed imply exponential growth, so technically is wrong, while "+20% of base damage" or "+20 percentage points of damage" would be the more correct wording.
Happens in all games, though, Civilization was where I first noted it.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Let me explain how Cryptic has ruined their game by making terrible design choices.
The most glaring culprit today is kemocite laced weaponry, which is enabling players to score 100k dps, which is enough dps to complete a run SOLO. Thats all well and good, and I am all for Cryptic making money by selling power, but this is way out of balance. The problem is this: When you have a player who can score that much damage, it becomes unnecessary for them join with other players who have a clue how to make a build or play the game. SO, it becomes faster and eaiser for them to join public ques where it really doesent matter what anyone else does. The 4 hapless idiots in the run with the mega 100k dps build dont even realize how terrible they are, so they think its cool for them to join public advanced ques while they can pull 800 - 2000 dps. (in a t6 ship no less) Now, when the mega kemocite/faw scimitar etc isnt around, suddenly my 20-30k (in a t5 sci without faw I might add) isnt going to be enough to pull 4 idiots through a simple ISA run, and even with 5 -thr consoles I cant open fire without the entire map focusing me down.
Its wrong of me to call these players who join advanced ques when they are not ready for them idiots, because it isnt entirely their fault. People in general are pretty dense. Cryptic has created this problem by making the rewards for normal compete rubbish, so no one has any desire to play them, and like I said, the power creep preventing them from appreciating how terrible they are.
That said, I cant even imagine how it is possible to not be able to score 1k dps, but I see it every day.
PSA: if you cant pull at least 8k dps it is impolite of you to join a public que on advanced or elite, because all you are doing is wasting other people's time, and your own.
But cryptic has created this mess, and we all know they dont have the technical acumen or creativity to clean it up, and no one will ever read this thread after it gets buried because they have effectively censored theie entire forums by masking it from google searches with this vanilla / arc garbage.
Im finished.
exactly the elitist mentality that prevents me from bothering to run STFs join fleets, ect, because idiots like the OP think their s**t doesn't stink.
Hardly a comprehensive list, but a list nonetheless. Of course you can make Cannons/Torps/Sci work, but you're artificially gimping yourself. Yes you can run them if you like them (duh), but the fact is that the conditions that led to you being gimped shouldn't exist in the first place.
And a lot of this could be fixed if Cryptic would just fix some longstanding bugs.
You only gimp yourself if you are a noob. You can hit 75k+ ISA dps on any weapons platforms as long as you have the correct build, good piloting. Absent of those, you can really gimp yourself including if you are using beams.
Main Difference is information. Too many lazy players, too few information about anything other than cookie cutter beam builds.
Besides you shouldnt copy paste beam builds to cannon builds. I dont know why you keep insisting this nonsense in multiple forums even though explained multiple times by different experts. No amount of change mechanics will help a player, if a player doesnt understand the current mechanics.
I also dont know why you still dont know workarounds. Beams have workarounds but is publicly known like power management. I ask you, how does a torp, which according to you deals less damage in shields than beam, deal more dps than beams in mobs dealing more shield HP. Because of workaround/information. However, that information is not publicly available like power management of beam cookie cutter builds. Which points to either the failure of that information getting to you or your laziness to find that information.
We're having this discussion again.
No one's saying that you can't do the same that you would do with Beams than you can with Cannons, Torps, or whatever else (except probably Mines). And no one is saying that copy/pasting Beam builds onto Cannons (or vice versa) is a good idea.
My point is that the potential is different. You can't say that, for example, the lack of CrtD being applied to DHCs, the fact that CSV doesn't actually work as advertised, or the utter suckfest that is Charged Particle Burst doesn't gimp and hurt players.
No amount of "workarounds" will change the fact - and that's a direct result of the mechanics, not any "lack of understanding" that you keep saying.
"Workarounds" shouldn't need to be factored in when determining the viability and function of things. They should work properly, without needing a workaround.
If that information is not publicly available, that's a failure on two fronts. One is that the information should be freely available; we shouldn't need to have dedicated players who dissect how abilities work to figure out what is working, what isn't working, and what "workarounds" there are. The second is that those "workarounds" for broken things shouldn't need to exist, because they're a result of a broken mechanic (one way or the other).
It's not "laziness" that I don't want to figure out how to exploit the weird inner mechanics of how Cryptic's math and mechanics work. I look at how things are advertised, how they say they should work, and how they are working in comparison to others/alternatives.
That's how things should be determined, not by data mining to figure out what is and isn't working, nor min/maxing. For example, if I have to min/max to make half of the Sci abilities/Torpedoes/Mines/whatever worth a darn, then there's something wrong.
No need optimal stuff if you are not competing for top spot. It is the same dilemma if i presented you with a choice between Antiproton and tetryon. yes there is a difference. But that difference is insignificant for ordinary players. Difference Would only be significant if your aiming for #1 dps, this means maxed out gears, optimal piloting, optimized build, high quality teammates, and your choices of gear, ships and stuff is limited to one or a few.
Anyone who wants to enjoy the game to the fullest, even if casual, should (and usually will) aim for as close to optimal as is possible for them--for quality of life if nothing else. Small differences have a way of adding up, leading to a final result that can either leave the player struggling through basic content or breezing through it, alleviating frustration and offering them the option to participate in harder content should they one day want to.
As has already been stated, the problem is that wading through all of this game's bloated mountain of unbalanced stats, abilities, and gear items to find what works well vs what sucks is a huge mess right now. Ideally, the overpowered stuff should be reduced in effectiveness and the underpowered stuff should be boosted until everything is as level as possible. That way, people can really choose what they want without having to "wade through seas of garbage to find the good stuff" or "feeling like they're taking the inferior option for the sake of individuality."
Problem with this game and players playing it - most of them want to be captains Kirk and/or Picard from day one. Even if you dump a ton of money into the game, you're still a noob that will have nothing worth mentioning to contribute to elites even after 6 months of intense play.
Quite so. That massive investment in equipment isn't much help to anyone if you have no idea how to use it effectively.
I got most if not all of the gear to mk XIV epic. How did I do that? Played GROUND every day for the past 14 months. And not buying cats for the EC i earned from selling the excess or unnecessary...
I take it you're referring to things like Undine Infiltration, Cure Applied, and the Dyson and Kobali battlezones (and maybe the DIZ). Let me toss in another reason to get your boots on the ground and give those trigger fingers a workout: it's fun. And taking advantage of zone pause - something the game doesn't really explain, as I recall - where you can (i.e. 'Liberation') really helps you make the best use of your away team and their abilities (i.e. making sure that one tango with the shields gets a faceful of tachyon harmonic; setting up your mortar ahead of time; et cetera).
Tanking is back in style and it's pissing off the DPS addicts.
Why should it? You'd think they'd be glad that someone is drawing attention so they can bring the pain with a minimum of molestation. The same logic should also apply to folks who leverage the science track - after all, your torpedo spreads are going to be so much more effective if a buddy's melting their shields with Tyken's rifts and tachyon beams; bonus points for grav-well corraling.
[quote[You can get more benefit from pushing your R&D schools to level 15 than dumping 300 bucks for LTS.[/quote]
Amen. Particle Manipulator is a very nice trait, for example.
Comments
No need optimal stuff if you are not competing for top spot. It is the same dilemma if i presented you with a choice between Antiproton and tetryon. yes there is a difference. But that difference is insignificant for ordinary players. Difference Would only be significant if your aiming for #1 dps, this means maxed out gears, optimal piloting, optimized build, high quality teammates, and your choices of gear, ships and stuff is limited to one or a few.
Lol, no PvE whine. Have my popcorn ready for this one.
P.S. I find it ironic that so many people spec for flow caps just for DPS. Tyken's, Energy Siphon, and Tachyon Beam feel left out of the party.
That's the main reason people hate Undine infiltrator and many queues, 1 tiny mistake-->mission failed-->30 minutes cooldown on all related queues.
Some queues have a time limit, that means no dps-->mission failed
That and poor rewards, not so long ago I finished azure nebula rescue with all optionals, all ships rescued in less than 30 seconds after respawning --> 40 marks;
so what's the point? you earn more marks doing patrols and New Romulus missions and they are more interesting and diverse than hiding behind an asteroid disabling tractor beams.
All we need to repopulate queues again is no cooldown for failed queues, no shared cooldown for successful queues, better rewards and the removal of the goddamn time limits.
You only gimp yourself if you are a noob. You can hit 75k+ ISA dps on any weapons platforms as long as you have the correct build, good piloting. Absent of those, you can really gimp yourself including if you are using beams.
Main Difference is information. Too many lazy players, too few information about anything other than cookie cutter beam builds.
Besides you shouldnt copy paste beam builds to cannon builds. I dont know why you keep insisting this nonsense in multiple forums even though explained multiple times by different experts. No amount of change mechanics will help a player, if a player doesnt understand the current mechanics.
I also dont know why you still dont know workarounds. Beams have workarounds but is publicly known like power management. I ask you, how does a torp, which according to you deals less damage in shields than beam, deal more dps than beams in mobs dealing more shield HP. Because of workaround/information. However, that information is not publicly available like power management of beam cookie cutter builds. Which points to either the failure of that information getting to you or your laziness to find that information.
Current mechanics don't work, they're broken.
Urm weapon cons for one. each con you add of the same type gives you less of a boost then the last one
This is an interesting claim. Are you really saying torpedoes can do more dps than beams? If so, you need to prove it. Video or parse would do. I havn't seen @pottsey5g or @darkknightucf say anything about that.
Your reccommendation made sence,and hitting the genreators before your team is ready is going to result in major suckage..STFs,especailly with low dps guys NEED team cooperation.
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
All the parses and records I've seen state otherwise. One cant just make a claim and give no evidence to support it. Pax was also talking about shielded targets so IDK. I would really just like to see where Pax is getting that info.
From http://www.omegaprimary.com/dpsguide/
Tactical Consoles Math
Base Damage we are going to use an example number of 500
Tactical Consoles we are going to use Fleet Spire Tactical Consoles 31.9% With 1.6% Critical Chance
Critical Chance = CH or Critical Hit
No Console and 500 Base Damage = 500 Damage
31.9% of 500 = 159.9
Now just add 159.9 onto your base damage for each console.
CH is just as simple 1.6% times the number of consoles.
One console and 500 Base Damage + 31.9% 1.6% CH = 659.9 Damage and 1.6 Critical Damage
Two consoles and 500 Base Damage + 31.9% & 1.6% CH +31.9% & 1.6% CH = 819.4 Damage and 3.2% Critical Chance
Three consoles and 500 Base Damage + 31.9% & 1.6% CH +31.9% & 1.6% + 31.9% & 1.6% CH = 979.7 Damage and 4.8% Critical Chance
Four consoles and 500 Base Damage + 31.9% & 1.6% CH++ 31.9% & 1.6% CH +31.9% & 1.6% + 31.9% & 1.6% CH = 1139.6 Damage and 6.4% Critical Chance
Five consoles and Base Damage + 31.9% & 1.6% CH + 31.9% & 1.6% CH++ 31.9% & 1.6% CH +31.9% & 1.6% + 31.9% & 1.6% CH = 1299.5 Damage and 8% Critical Chance
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
AoE spike drain from Neutronic
Radiation damage to shields x2 [Kemocite + Neutronic] (x3? Double proc of Kemocite is still under investigation based on new evidence)
Weapon Systems Synergy proc'd, and 50% of my kinetic damage made it past any shields that were left.
High Kinetic damage from Neutronic
In this case, I used the tools available to me to work around the problem(s) at hand. VS shielded targets, kinetics struggle (with or without bugs). VS unshielded targets, kinetics are strong, even w/ the bugs plaguing them.
The problem arose when you had energy weapons and their associated procs/buffs (re: FaW + plasma explosion crits) do the same (or more) damage than a HY1/2 direct to hull. I am sure that if my torps were allowed to do full damage to shields tomorrow, there would be massive QQ from both the PvE and PvP communities for weeks on end. I need only refer to the near-uprising when the Tier 1 Command Space Expose/Exploit proc was accidentally set to 98% for a week for an example. I didn't abuse it... much.... but there were some... entities.... that needed to be taught a lesson
Kinetics have their place. Heck, mines could have a place in the game as-is (on Normal STF's), IF there was a map designed for it, or if you get creative with it (4 maps come to mind. 1 Voth, 1 Undine, 2 Borg. I'll let you guess which and where).
Are there bugs that need fixing? Absolutely yes. Can most of them be worked around? Yes. Who has it the worst?
IMHO (worse off at the top):
Mines
DHCs
Torps
DCs/SCs
DBBs
Arrays
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
See, there we go! Evidence!
How much of your damage was from radiation and kemocite? Do you have your parse? Would a non-neutronic torpedo have similar results? If the double (maybe triple) proc on kemocite was fixed would you still do the comparable DPS?
I'm absolutely not trying to disprove anything you're saying. I consider you the expert on all things torpedoes. I just think these are important questions so further this discussion. Also, I would love for a Bug episode of The SHOW (and I'm not talking about the ship lol) where you all talk about current bugs (obviously not exploits). Especially since at least one of you is now an official Bug Hunter.
Also, what do you think of scaling kinetic resistance with shield health? I don't think that would cause problems in PvP but would greatly boost kinetics in PvE.
Link to the logs are in my builds pages, but:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0jlAmLwIV46fmlpR3liZFZSRmR2TnVVZTg3LXVUd184ZXZKd19MU1lpTGRiSU8wWW1yak0
Look for the log w/ the date and DPS.
I've been getting ~80K w/o Kemo, the AoE drain from the Manticore console, and w/o Concentrate Firepower. The combo adds up nicely to raise the maximum theoretical DPS. The biggest hindrance to kinetics are shields, and Kemocite helps tremendously with that, on top of applying a debuff. It replaced Beta for me on my builds.
Concerning the double-proc issue. I could be wrong (in part, or in full) about how it is occurring, as well as the frequency of occurrence for ALL AoE abilities. There is something odd where we do see two shield procs and two hull procs for one weapon under FaW, CSV, or TS.
I was actually planning on one where we show situations where HY1/TS1 can perform better than HY3/TS3. I'm awaiting confirmation on two of the other big issues w/ torps before compiling them all into an episode-worthy SHOW.
I'm going to resume work on the Kinetics Guide 2.0 SOON^TM
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UUg5-rSwCue-mYzuMsdUTpq_u2Mf-KCtwftuBrgqyU4/edit?usp=sharing
To my knowledge, none of us on The SHOW are official Bug Hunters..... unless they're holding out on me...
As to scaling resistances w/ shieldPow.... tune in to The SHOW
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
This is over simplified but if you know where a group of NPC's will warp in or dealing with large groups then torpedoes and mines are the higher damage weapon. When dealing with smaller groups or random warp point’s beams often do better. Azure Nebula being a prime example I can do 350k dps per group as a torpedo boat and wipe out the NPC groups in 1 second something I have never managed to do as a beam setup. Yet in other content beam setups wipe the floor over me. So for me its not as simple as saying beams or torpedoes are best.
Last time I looked under Engineer pilots, torpedo boats came in the top 5 under ISA and 1st place under CE. I am not going say torpedo boats beat energy weapons but they can compete against them.
Speaking of mines I just broke my own DPS record and my top weapon was mines. My DPS rounded was 95k as an Engineer pilot. Personally I love mines in Azure Nebula, GGA or GGE so yeah mines have a place and I hate it when random people in the DPS 10k channel say mines are useless. As flawed as Mines are they can be made to work and are my favorite weapon. A good timed Dispersal Pattern Beta 3 can be deadly.
One idea I have been wanting to try for a while but cannot find anyone to test with is to lay a mine field in the middle of ISA 2 left, 1 middle, 2 right run. If timed right the right and left areas blow up and both groups of probes spawn at once into the mine field. Add in a torp spread and that should if I have my math and experience right be well over 300k spike dps for a brief moment if not over 400k spike dps which turns into over 100k dps over the ISA run.
EDIT: @darkknightucf I really need to find some time to work on the mine part of that guide. When are you resuming work or planning on the next version?
This is the discussion I've been wanting for a long time. A discussion with evidence and not ad hominem put downs like calling people noobs or saying they don't know anything or suggesting they should stay in Normal STFs. Thank you for being such awesome people
More party for me then. Use all three for my various, torp/drain builds. Amazing how many brute force it with raw DPS, I've found the only reason I kill slower is due to torp travel time. Not really a DPS logger or min/max, I'm sure if I broke it down the yellow floaties in the 90K range would be a combo of things, but hey it works.
+1
Sorry buddy but no they dont you need to look at it closer. Take all you Consoles out and put your weapons power to 50 in sol system space or any other system. Add one at a time and you will see each console adds the same amount of damage. Problem people have is they look at it with 100 weapons power and skills. The buff from weapons consoles are only added to the base damage of the weapon. So if a weapon does 100 damage and your console gives 30% boost one console makes it do 130 damage...160,190,220,250.......if you had more than 5 console slots. this number is boosted before skills and weapons power, now there are power, abilities, and passives that work different. AMP give its modifier at the back end of the math instead of the front. Some people also think tac console should buff each other so the math would look like this.
Way it works on a weapon that does 100 base damage. For math purposes using 100 for weapons damage and 30% console bonus to make it easy.
This is how it works:
1st console/2nd console/3rd console/4th console/5th console
130/ 160/ 190/ 220/ 250
This is how people get confused and people think it should work. People get confused by thinking the 2 and other should multiply the results of the prior. So the 2nd console would multiply the results of the 1st. the 3rd would multiply the results of the first two. This is not normal growth it is exponential growth.
This is how people think it is suppose to work.
1st console/2nd console/3rd console/4th console/5th console
130/ 169/ 219.7/ 285.61/ 371.293
While it would be fun to use those numbers once, it would be OP if it did.
Sorry but I don't have a problem with people not being able to do elites or advance queues. If you don't complete it oh well. I am also a supporter of have to do a normal prior to advance with all optional objectives and the same for elites need to do advance.
I love to see conversations like this. Problem is until we get an EP and Lead Design that will do something it will never happen.
The question for me would be "If the first tac console is more useful than whatever other console I have to drop, does that also mean that the fifth is as well", and the answer is "yes", because, using simeion's example, the first gives 30 which is better than your opportunity cost, and so does the fifth.
Diminishing returns from a gameplay sense can only be measured meaningfully in terms of opportunity costs because otherwise they wouldn't matter.
Of course all of this would change if a completely different multiplier would be used by another console which would give say 20% of bonus to whatever damage you're doing.
First comparison: tac gives 30, other gives 20% of 100, which is 20, so equip tac
Second comparison: tac gives 30, other gives 20% of now 130, which is 26, so equip tac
Third: 30 vs 20% of 160 (32), so now the tides have turned.
But this latter console type does not exist in this game AFAIK, and it rarely does. Problem is that the usual wording "+20% damage" does indeed imply exponential growth, so technically is wrong, while "+20% of base damage" or "+20 percentage points of damage" would be the more correct wording.
Happens in all games, though, Civilization was where I first noted it.
exactly the elitist mentality that prevents me from bothering to run STFs join fleets, ect, because idiots like the OP think their s**t doesn't stink.
We're having this discussion again.
No one's saying that you can't do the same that you would do with Beams than you can with Cannons, Torps, or whatever else (except probably Mines). And no one is saying that copy/pasting Beam builds onto Cannons (or vice versa) is a good idea.
My point is that the potential is different. You can't say that, for example, the lack of CrtD being applied to DHCs, the fact that CSV doesn't actually work as advertised, or the utter suckfest that is Charged Particle Burst doesn't gimp and hurt players.
No amount of "workarounds" will change the fact - and that's a direct result of the mechanics, not any "lack of understanding" that you keep saying.
"Workarounds" shouldn't need to be factored in when determining the viability and function of things. They should work properly, without needing a workaround.
If that information is not publicly available, that's a failure on two fronts. One is that the information should be freely available; we shouldn't need to have dedicated players who dissect how abilities work to figure out what is working, what isn't working, and what "workarounds" there are. The second is that those "workarounds" for broken things shouldn't need to exist, because they're a result of a broken mechanic (one way or the other).
It's not "laziness" that I don't want to figure out how to exploit the weird inner mechanics of how Cryptic's math and mechanics work. I look at how things are advertised, how they say they should work, and how they are working in comparison to others/alternatives.
That's how things should be determined, not by data mining to figure out what is and isn't working, nor min/maxing. For example, if I have to min/max to make half of the Sci abilities/Torpedoes/Mines/whatever worth a darn, then there's something wrong.
As has already been stated, the problem is that wading through all of this game's bloated mountain of unbalanced stats, abilities, and gear items to find what works well vs what sucks is a huge mess right now. Ideally, the overpowered stuff should be reduced in effectiveness and the underpowered stuff should be boosted until everything is as level as possible. That way, people can really choose what they want without having to "wade through seas of garbage to find the good stuff" or "feeling like they're taking the inferior option for the sake of individuality."
I take it you're referring to things like Undine Infiltration, Cure Applied, and the Dyson and Kobali battlezones (and maybe the DIZ). Let me toss in another reason to get your boots on the ground and give those trigger fingers a workout: it's fun. And taking advantage of zone pause - something the game doesn't really explain, as I recall - where you can (i.e. 'Liberation') really helps you make the best use of your away team and their abilities (i.e. making sure that one tango with the shields gets a faceful of tachyon harmonic; setting up your mortar ahead of time; et cetera).
Why should it? You'd think they'd be glad that someone is drawing attention so they can bring the pain with a minimum of molestation. The same logic should also apply to folks who leverage the science track - after all, your torpedo spreads are going to be so much more effective if a buddy's melting their shields with Tyken's rifts and tachyon beams; bonus points for grav-well corraling.
[quote[You can get more benefit from pushing your R&D schools to level 15 than dumping 300 bucks for LTS.[/quote]
Amen. Particle Manipulator is a very nice trait, for example.