So many people seem to ignore the piloting skill aspect of this game. I mean it's not like you need twitch reflexes like some jet fighter game, but that does mean you don't need skills.
Just out of interest, and this isn't necessarily aimed just at you, but how much do you think keybinding has to do with "good" piloting?
I only ask because I've seen plenty of players who claim to be expert pilots simply fly into position and hit a single keybind for a bazillion abilities at once and watch the enemies vaporize.
And i'd imagine that a player who is flying by keyboard & mouse will probably be slower to hit abilities than someone who has a fancy set of keybindings and can fly single handed.
I fly with no keybindings and my piloting is very good, I know when and where to aim a shot or science power. But I think I could be better with all my abilities bound to keys within easy reach of the directional keys, I've just never got round to doing so.
There are some high-DPS pilots out there that don't use keybinds though. I personally enjoy flying my ship manually (manual fire and all) so I stayed away from keybinds. I don't even know how to make a keybind!
Three solutions. One buff EVERYTHING to BFAW levels. Two nerf BFAW to everything else's level. Three a bit of both. Option 1 will make the stupid silly quick completion time we have now even worse and ruin their metrics (and we all know what happened the last time THAT happened). Option 2 will hurt the noobish players quite a bit. Option 3 will bet a bit wors for the noobish players...but hey, they might be able to switch to a cannon or sci and do better maybe because that is their play style after all...and the metrics gets a bit of a boost...which is why I like option 3.
I see number one as fact. The last time they weren't happy about the damage being done and the times in which people were completing queues we got the DR treatment.
Can you put across a good argument and add to the conversation?
Three solutions. One buff EVERYTHING to BFAW levels. Two nerf BFAW to everything else's level. Three a bit of both. Option 1 will make the stupid silly quick completion time we have now even worse and ruin their metrics (and we all know what happened the last time THAT happened). Option 2 will hurt the noobish players quite a bit. Option 3 will bet a bit wors for the noobish players...but hey, they might be able to switch to a cannon or sci and do better maybe because that is their play style after all...and the metrics gets a bit of a boost...which is why I like option 3.
I have to agree with you on option 3 being the best.
Option 1: No way. The last thing we need is anything being more powerful (with the exception of a tiny minority of abilities - I'm looking at you Boarding Party & Aceton Beam). Powercreep is getting way out of hand and it will only lead in the long run to one thing - DR 2.0. That will benefit nobody because it essentially already killed the PVE queues and drove a lot long time of players away.
Option 2: A mega nerf to BFAW will just TRIBBLE off a huge number of the players, both elite and newbies. Now the elite few will surely adapt but the newbies who found this ability to be the answer to all their needs with little though going in to it, they will suffer and thee will be forum rage from them.
Option 3: The best of both worlds really. A minor nerf to some aspects of BFAW (such as things only proc on the primary target for example) will tie it down a bit. Then look at under-performing powers or those aspects of the game that are at an unfair disadvantage (e.g. cannon drop off, projectile speed to target). You will cause some upset to some of the BFAW users but will win some friends with the players using other types of builds (e.g., cannon boats, science ships, torp boats).
This option will potentially make all sorts of builds more viable and therefore more popular, and before long who knows you end up with everyone buying science ships and showing Cryptic they do sell well after all.
The main, numero uno problem with BFAW (imo) is that it's an aoe power that excels at single target. That goes against the very idea of aoe abilities, which is normally to reduce your damage in favor of hitting multiple targets. Cutting the damage modifier in half would be a good start, although I would like to see the damage modifier completely removed. Why an aoe ability boosts your damage by up to 40% baffles me.
I hate the way people say non FAW builds aren't 'viable'. Pretty much anything in this game is viable. You can only use mines and it's viable. The thing is, there's a difference between optimal and viable. Viable just means 'practicable or workable'. So if people want to use overload, or rapid fire, they're still viable. You can do all the content with them. They're just not optimal in an AOE based game.
Now if we're talking boarding parties and such like, I totally agree... they're not viable!!!
People talking about piloting skill in PvE. No, just no. Positioning? Yes. Remembering when and where to be positioned? Yes.
PvP before DR has piloting skill. If you want evidence look up @thissler 'channel Alphastrikers, that's piloting skill done by both hunter and prey. You don't see that and not do you need any good level of piloting skill in PvE. You simply have to be positioned well so that your weapons can reach the most targets.
To the matter at hand. I agree that BFAW doesn't need a big hit from the nerf bat. It needs "balancing", like every ability and item in sto. It needs to have an effect and a drawback. Like BO used to. It delivered huge damage and depleted your weapon power. HY3, huge damage but it's tricky landing all 4 torps on a moving target. APB, tac team says bye bye. And so on.
The problem that has been around for a while is that there are no consequences to a highly focused build. There's no consequences to running a pilot ship without speed and resistance tanking. You park and shoot. Granted some will say: "AAAHHaahhAAAHHaaahh!! You can't do that in HSE or some of the other STFs!" True, but we are talking general PvE not the odd one or two that requires a little more movement. Then again there are videos of people blasting through those too.
In conclusion. We need balance of everything, not just BFAW.
I hate the way people say non FAW builds aren't 'viable'. Pretty much anything in this game is viable. You can only use mines and it's viable. The thing is, there's a difference between optimal and viable. Viable just means 'practicable or workable'. So if people want to use overload, or rapid fire, they're still viable. You can do all the content with them. They're just not optimal in an AOE based game.
Now if we're talking boarding parties and such like, I totally agree... they're not viable!!!
Well that depends on what you mean by viable. To some yes being able to use it in all content and complete said content can be a way of saying it is viable. Yet you can also use the term to mean those things that are not optimal yet still within accepted limits to be not seen as gimped or weak, and that i believe is how many see it. In that alot of players see anything less than bfaw performance is just not acceptable an so not seen as viable. Not saying that is right or wrong, but merely that not exeryone uses the term to mean the same idea, or uses the same measure to see how viable something is. I agree that things like boarding party an such is just under-whelming an almost useless, but i can say that there are in many people's eyes quite usable abilities an builds that just are not up to the task of Bfaw performance an so see it as un-viable option.
I hate the way people say non FAW builds aren't 'viable'. Pretty much anything in this game is viable. You can only use mines and it's viable. The thing is, there's a difference between optimal and viable. Viable just means 'practicable or workable'. So if people want to use overload, or rapid fire, they're still viable. You can do all the content with them. They're just not optimal in an AOE based game.
Now if we're talking boarding parties and such like, I totally agree... they're not viable!!!
Well maybe viable isn't the best choice of word on my part, more like make other builds more "attractive" or "competitive".
I know you can make anything viable in game if you pour enough time and resources into it, learn the abilites, upgrade the items, investing in flying the ship right. But i'd guess the majority of players don't have that interest and go for the "easy" option which in the current meta seems to be BFAW.
If mine builds, or torp builds, or Trek canon builds were really that competitive then we'd see them all over the place (yes there are always exception from players who really know their stuff). Simple fact is BFAW type builds dominate the game at the moment and build diversity is low regardless of how viable people want to claim their specific different builds are. We on this forum are a minority but you go into the pug queues and the overwhelming majority of ships are spamming BFAW all over the place like it's going out of fashion.
BFAW is the easy ladder to high DPS which a lot of players think means they are the best and are the equivalent of the guys at the top of the DPS charts. Newbie players see it as a shining light to fly towards like a moth to a candle, whilst they shun any alternatives because all they see is BFAW.
Allowing more diversity in builds would be healthy for the game and the players, it would make it much more enjoyable i'm sure.
8x Beams + Hitting BFAW and Space is just too suprior and boring Beam Overload should also maybe be overlooked that it should do Massive energy spikes for 5-10 seconds like the Romulan Singularity power does. But most the time singletarget abilities are worthless if there are always 10 enemys+....
so... make FAW useless if there are 10 enemies+? you realize most of the game is multi-targets.
However, why does that mean you have to be able to engage all of them at the same time?
It doesn't. Aoe in this game is ridiculous. Literally ridiculous.
Scale back the aoe, scale back the enemies. Fights will be more fun rather than just hammering spacebar.
Cannons will have their mojo back. They still do tremendous single target damage, however no one cares because they can just hit everything with no effort with beams instead.
I don't understand how anyone finds FAW enjoyable, but thats me.
" Experience is a hard mistress, she gives the tests first, and the lessons after... "
I loved the idea of things like shielding type ships that might give nearby ships a large boost to shield hp, or even a large reduction in damage they take while the main ship is up. Which would make cannon an more single target options a leg up as you need that main ship down to actually take out the shielded ships which such abilities excel at. Having more mechanics or elements like this that reduce the usefulness of aoe, and increases the need/usefulness of single target alternatives to take them out to make the aoe useful again would be nice. If you varied these and make them interesting, than you could give all things a place an also make it that abilities that would normally not be used might be used now. Like that some enemies will become cloaked an un-targetable if approached by a non-cloaked target, or if you don't use charged pulse to uncloak them.
Hell i even thought that instead of just destroying the three bases in badlands, that it would have been more interesting if each base buffed one of three dreadnoughts that spawn (though much bigger in size.). Make it that the dreadnought get different buffs for each base that is online and you get the normal three elite marks for killing the bases an dreadnought, but if you kil the dreadnought with all three bases online you get five elite marks. This would give some verity to the fight as each dreadnought could be different in style of fighting an weapons they have, while also even in their buffs from they gain from the bases.
Just what definition of viable are we using here? Just scraping by on a build is not viable. Being at barely 15% of what a BFAW can do is not viable. If people are SCREAMING IN THE CHATBOX LIKE THIS BECAUSE ISA IS TAKING TOO LONG!!!!! when someone brought cannons or torps or anything to the game other than BFAW, that is not viable.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
All the people complaining about FAW are sort of missing a bigger issue: There are not actually any alternatives to it. If you're not using FAW, what skill DO you use? There are no other skills that are used for beams, plural. BO isn't a valid alternative because it only works for beam, singular, rendering every other beam on your ship useless in the process. SS is only available on approximately 3 ships,and USED to actually be a serious competitor, until it got nerfed into the dirt. What's left?
This.
BFAW makes canon builds viable and for no other reason it should be left alone.
Just what definition of viable are we using here? Just scraping by on a build is not viable. Being at barely 15% of what a BFAW can do is not viable. If people are SCREAMING IN THE CHATBOX LIKE THIS BECAUSE ISA IS TAKING TOO FCKING LONG!!!!! when someone brought cannons or torps or anything to the game other than BFAW, that is not viable.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
Like stated I hit up to 90k DPS with cannons in a good ISA run on my current build. Others do with torpedoes. This is not 15% of the current ISA DPS record achieved with beams. If you don’t take clinical engineered ISA runs by perfectly coordinated DPS teams into an account I roughly estimate it somewhere in the 70% reach.
I think it’s kinda dangerous when peeps start to draw easy conclusions when it comes to nerfs or to augment underused abilities. Nerf beam fire at will wrong could easily mean nerf cannon scatter voley right along with it. Also bring in beam overload and cannon rapid fire in line with their counterparts would require them to be what, 10 times more powerful as they are? Would be funny numbers considering that at times I already parse 100k dmg hits under scatter volley. What am I supposed to do with 1mil dmg one shots out of a DHC? Hit PvP?
Peeps just see the result of BFAW and think its OP and needs a nerf. What they forget is that DPS builds using it and which melt ISA critters in seconds consist of up to 27 ship gear parts, 10 personal traits, 5 passive and 5 active reputation traits as well as 5 starship traits. Not to mention spec trees, skill trees and fleet boosts. ALL selections either directly or indirectly translate to weapons damage with the infamous plasmonic leech probably being one of the more indirect ones.
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
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To those saying there is no alternative to BFAW for beams, think what it should be used for compared to what it actually does. It's meant to be an AOE attack so that should mean hitting multiple targets for less damage to either grab aggro or thin out low HP spam like fighters, mines, torps etc. It should not be able to hit and kill multiple high HP targets which is what it is currently doing, that should be the role of escorts or single target focused attacks like beam broadsides, torp volleys. With a few exceptional builds and pilots not being included no other AOE ability in game can just nuke multiple high HP enemies in a 360 degree arc in one volley, it's just out of hand.
It wouldn't need an alternative if if was actually doing what it's meant to do. Killing of main heavy targets would again become to forte of cannon escorts or single target broadside attacks.
Perhaps toning down the number of mobs would help here.
Or perhaps adding in another ability for beam-rapid fire to allow for attacking big targets.
All the people complaining about FAW are sort of missing a bigger issue: There are not actually any alternatives to it. If you're not using FAW, what skill DO you use? There are no other skills that are used for beams, plural. BO isn't a valid alternative because it only works for beam, singular, rendering every other beam on your ship useless in the process. SS is only available on approximately 3 ships,and USED to actually be a serious competitor, until it got nerfed into the dirt. What's left?
This.
BFAW makes canon builds viable and for no other reason it should be left alone.
That is only a reason not to nerf it to become underpowered.
And a beam-based Defiant is not canon at all.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Just what definition of viable are we using here? Just scraping by on a build is not viable. Being at barely 15% of what a BFAW can do is not viable. If people are SCREAMING IN THE CHATBOX LIKE THIS BECAUSE ISA IS TAKING TOO LONG!!!!! when someone brought cannons or torps or anything to the game other than BFAW, that is not viable.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
My point is that for something to be viable, it just needs to be able to usable in order to complete the game content. You don't need FAW to complete the game content. You can do that without using any abilities at all!
As I've said before, people will follow the easiest path to get the most reward, so because currently the game favours FAW because of it's mobs of npc's, most of the builds that are shared around the forums are based on FAW. Yes... it's the easiest, and definitely requires less 'skill' than cannons, but that's just the way the game is set up right now.
The game evolves and changes. At one point escorts with cannons was 'the best'. The 2 man No Win Scenario was done with escorts using phaser DHC's! Then a few months ago the game changed and suddenly running beams with a torp with TS and kemocite was producing epic numbers. It got nerfed to the point of making kemocite completely pointless and people went back to all beams, and promptly produced even higher numbers. Now we have torpedo builds ripping apart CCA in seconds. The game changes, and different content favours (and rightly so) different types of build.
If you just nerf FAW because the players at the top end are killing things too fast, you'll only really end up hurting the players at the bottom end of the ability spectrum. I was pugging yesterday on my Pakled engineer in his APU (Automated Pakled Unit), and there was a guy in a Chel Grett who did 0.3K dps. He has obviously been playing the game for a while because he has the Chel Grett, but is likely only a casual player and playing for fun.... which is entirely fine! The thing is, there are lots of people like that, and simply nerfing abilities is going to harm him, far more than me! There needs to be a solution that balances abilities without penalising a group of players. It's a game! It should be fun! It's not right to take away someone elses toys because they're idea of fun is different to yours.
Just what definition of viable are we using here? Just scraping by on a build is not viable. Being at barely 15% of what a BFAW can do is not viable. If people are SCREAMING IN THE CHATBOX LIKE THIS BECAUSE ISA IS TAKING TOO LONG!!!!! when someone brought cannons or torps or anything to the game other than BFAW, that is not viable.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
My point is that for something to be viable, it just needs to be able to usable in order to complete the game content. You don't need FAW to complete the game content. You can do that without using any abilities at all!
Can you avoid an afk penalty while using no abilities while a BFAW Scimitar is instagibbing everything on the map?
Post edited by jodarkrider on
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Just what definition of viable are we using here? Just scraping by on a build is not viable. Being at barely 15% of what a BFAW can do is not viable. If people are SCREAMING IN THE CHATBOX LIKE THIS BECAUSE ISA IS TAKING TOO FCKING LONG!!!!! when someone brought cannons or torps or anything to the game other than BFAW, that is not viable.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
Ignore idiots who flame in chat... they're idiots!
My point is that for something to be viable, it just needs to be able to usable in order to complete the game content. You don't need FAW to complete the game content. You can do that without using any abilities at all!
Can you avoid an afk penalty while using no abilities while a BFAW Scimitar is instagibbing everything on the map?
That's not a FAW problem... that's an issue with the game having very little elite content, and what there is, gives basically no reward. The upshot is that people who should be doing elites, can't and are therefore on the same maps as those who struggle in advanced. Do you really think that if these people had no FAW the outcome would be completely different?
There are people who can't even break 1K dps in a scimitar. I've had fleet supports do 10K. The problem is not the abilities we have access to (we all have access to all the same things!). The problem is the difference in weak and strong players is far too great, and the content doesn't cater for it.
Just what definition of viable are we using here? Just scraping by on a build is not viable. Being at barely 15% of what a BFAW can do is not viable. If people are SCREAMING IN THE CHATBOX LIKE THIS BECAUSE ISA IS TAKING TOO FCKING LONG!!!!! when someone brought cannons or torps or anything to the game other than BFAW, that is not viable.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
Ignore idiots who flame in chat... they're idiots!
My point is that for something to be viable, it just needs to be able to usable in order to complete the game content. You don't need FAW to complete the game content. You can do that without using any abilities at all!
Can you avoid an afk penalty while using no abilities while a BFAW Scimitar is instagibbing everything on the map?
That's not a FAW problem... that's an issue with the game having very little elite content, and what there is, gives basically no reward. The upshot is that people who should be doing elites, can't and are therefore on the same maps as those who struggle in advanced. Do you really think that if these people had no FAW the outcome would be completely different?
There are people who can't even break 1K dps in a scimitar. I've had fleet supports do 10K. The problem is not the abilities we have access to (we all have access to all the same things!). The problem is the difference in weak and strong players is far too great, and the content doesn't cater for it.
You said you can complete content without using any abilities. Do you consider an afk penalty to be completing that content?
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Just what definition of viable are we using here? Just scraping by on a build is not viable. Being at barely 15% of what a BFAW can do is not viable. If people are SCREAMING IN THE CHATBOX LIKE THIS BECAUSE ISA IS TAKING TOO FCKING LONG!!!!! when someone brought cannons or torps or anything to the game other than BFAW, that is not viable.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
Ignore idiots who flame in chat... they're idiots!
My point is that for something to be viable, it just needs to be able to usable in order to complete the game content. You don't need FAW to complete the game content. You can do that without using any abilities at all!
Can you avoid an afk penalty while using no abilities while a BFAW Scimitar is instagibbing everything on the map?
That's not a FAW problem... that's an issue with the game having very little elite content, and what there is, gives basically no reward. The upshot is that people who should be doing elites, can't and are therefore on the same maps as those who struggle in advanced. Do you really think that if these people had no FAW the outcome would be completely different?
There are people who can't even break 1K dps in a scimitar. I've had fleet supports do 10K. The problem is not the abilities we have access to (we all have access to all the same things!). The problem is the difference in weak and strong players is far too great, and the content doesn't cater for it.
You said you can complete content without using any abilities. Do you consider an afk penalty to be completing that content?
I'm saying you can, and we have.
To get an AFK penalty, you have to do less than 1% of the overall teams damage. 1% isn't a lot, and no change to FAW will make those who can't do 1% of the damage any more likely to.
Just what definition of viable are we using here? Just scraping by on a build is not viable. Being at barely 15% of what a BFAW can do is not viable. If people are SCREAMING IN THE CHATBOX LIKE THIS BECAUSE ISA IS TAKING TOO FCKING LONG!!!!! when someone brought cannons or torps or anything to the game other than BFAW, that is not viable.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
Ignore idiots who flame in chat... they're idiots!
My point is that for something to be viable, it just needs to be able to usable in order to complete the game content. You don't need FAW to complete the game content. You can do that without using any abilities at all!
Can you avoid an afk penalty while using no abilities while a BFAW Scimitar is instagibbing everything on the map?
That is completely possible I think. A high-end DPS player in a PUG would be lucky to hit 100k. If he did, you just need to do 1k to avoid an AFK penalty. Normal fire will be more than enough to do that.
Provided they are not having server/client/connection issues, the players who don't hit 1k (and get an AFK penalty) are either severely undergeared, badly set-up (that includes power levels, BOff abilities and captain skills) or don't know how to use their firing arcs properly. Maybe it's even all the above. When you get T1 ships doing more than enough DPS in an ISA to prevent themselves from getting AFK penalties, then you know it's a player problem rather than a game balance issue.
Comments
Just nerf everything. Then everyone will be happy.
"Use Temporal Skills to NERF EVERYTHING before it happened!" -Unknown source.
Just out of interest, and this isn't necessarily aimed just at you, but how much do you think keybinding has to do with "good" piloting?
I only ask because I've seen plenty of players who claim to be expert pilots simply fly into position and hit a single keybind for a bazillion abilities at once and watch the enemies vaporize.
And i'd imagine that a player who is flying by keyboard & mouse will probably be slower to hit abilities than someone who has a fancy set of keybindings and can fly single handed.
I fly with no keybindings and my piloting is very good, I know when and where to aim a shot or science power. But I think I could be better with all my abilities bound to keys within easy reach of the directional keys, I've just never got round to doing so.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
You may see us/them as loud or the minority but what is wrong in this statement by Coldnapalm?
I see number one as fact. The last time they weren't happy about the damage being done and the times in which people were completing queues we got the DR treatment.
Can you put across a good argument and add to the conversation?
I have to agree with you on option 3 being the best.
Option 1: No way. The last thing we need is anything being more powerful (with the exception of a tiny minority of abilities - I'm looking at you Boarding Party & Aceton Beam). Powercreep is getting way out of hand and it will only lead in the long run to one thing - DR 2.0. That will benefit nobody because it essentially already killed the PVE queues and drove a lot long time of players away.
Option 2: A mega nerf to BFAW will just TRIBBLE off a huge number of the players, both elite and newbies. Now the elite few will surely adapt but the newbies who found this ability to be the answer to all their needs with little though going in to it, they will suffer and thee will be forum rage from them.
Option 3: The best of both worlds really. A minor nerf to some aspects of BFAW (such as things only proc on the primary target for example) will tie it down a bit. Then look at under-performing powers or those aspects of the game that are at an unfair disadvantage (e.g. cannon drop off, projectile speed to target). You will cause some upset to some of the BFAW users but will win some friends with the players using other types of builds (e.g., cannon boats, science ships, torp boats).
This option will potentially make all sorts of builds more viable and therefore more popular, and before long who knows you end up with everyone buying science ships and showing Cryptic they do sell well after all.
I hate the way people say non FAW builds aren't 'viable'. Pretty much anything in this game is viable. You can only use mines and it's viable. The thing is, there's a difference between optimal and viable. Viable just means 'practicable or workable'. So if people want to use overload, or rapid fire, they're still viable. You can do all the content with them. They're just not optimal in an AOE based game.
Now if we're talking boarding parties and such like, I totally agree... they're not viable!!!
Positioning? Yes.
Remembering when and where to be positioned? Yes.
PvP before DR has piloting skill. If you want evidence look up @thissler 'channel Alphastrikers, that's piloting skill done by both hunter and prey.
You don't see that and not do you need any good level of piloting skill in PvE.
You simply have to be positioned well so that your weapons can reach the most targets.
To the matter at hand. I agree that BFAW doesn't need a big hit from the nerf bat. It needs "balancing", like every ability and item in sto. It needs to have an effect and a drawback.
Like BO used to. It delivered huge damage and depleted your weapon power.
HY3, huge damage but it's tricky landing all 4 torps on a moving target.
APB, tac team says bye bye.
And so on.
The problem that has been around for a while is that there are no consequences to a highly focused build. There's no consequences to running a pilot ship without speed and resistance tanking. You park and shoot. Granted some will say: "AAAHHaahhAAAHHaaahh!! You can't do that in HSE or some of the other STFs!"
True, but we are talking general PvE not the odd one or two that requires a little more movement. Then again there are videos of people blasting through those too.
In conclusion. We need balance of everything, not just BFAW.
Well that depends on what you mean by viable. To some yes being able to use it in all content and complete said content can be a way of saying it is viable. Yet you can also use the term to mean those things that are not optimal yet still within accepted limits to be not seen as gimped or weak, and that i believe is how many see it. In that alot of players see anything less than bfaw performance is just not acceptable an so not seen as viable. Not saying that is right or wrong, but merely that not exeryone uses the term to mean the same idea, or uses the same measure to see how viable something is. I agree that things like boarding party an such is just under-whelming an almost useless, but i can say that there are in many people's eyes quite usable abilities an builds that just are not up to the task of Bfaw performance an so see it as un-viable option.
Well maybe viable isn't the best choice of word on my part, more like make other builds more "attractive" or "competitive".
I know you can make anything viable in game if you pour enough time and resources into it, learn the abilites, upgrade the items, investing in flying the ship right. But i'd guess the majority of players don't have that interest and go for the "easy" option which in the current meta seems to be BFAW.
If mine builds, or torp builds, or Trek canon builds were really that competitive then we'd see them all over the place (yes there are always exception from players who really know their stuff). Simple fact is BFAW type builds dominate the game at the moment and build diversity is low regardless of how viable people want to claim their specific different builds are. We on this forum are a minority but you go into the pug queues and the overwhelming majority of ships are spamming BFAW all over the place like it's going out of fashion.
BFAW is the easy ladder to high DPS which a lot of players think means they are the best and are the equivalent of the guys at the top of the DPS charts. Newbie players see it as a shining light to fly towards like a moth to a candle, whilst they shun any alternatives because all they see is BFAW.
Allowing more diversity in builds would be healthy for the game and the players, it would make it much more enjoyable i'm sure.
However, why does that mean you have to be able to engage all of them at the same time?
It doesn't. Aoe in this game is ridiculous. Literally ridiculous.
Scale back the aoe, scale back the enemies. Fights will be more fun rather than just hammering spacebar.
Cannons will have their mojo back. They still do tremendous single target damage, however no one cares because they can just hit everything with no effort with beams instead.
I don't understand how anyone finds FAW enjoyable, but thats me.
Hell i even thought that instead of just destroying the three bases in badlands, that it would have been more interesting if each base buffed one of three dreadnoughts that spawn (though much bigger in size.). Make it that the dreadnought get different buffs for each base that is online and you get the normal three elite marks for killing the bases an dreadnought, but if you kil the dreadnought with all three bases online you get five elite marks. This would give some verity to the fight as each dreadnought could be different in style of fighting an weapons they have, while also even in their buffs from they gain from the bases.
I don't even need cannons, torps, and Beam:Overload to be equal to BFAW, I just don't want BFAW to be the be all end all, and the others be none more than a sick joke at the expense of anyone who uses them.
This.
BFAW makes canon builds viable and for no other reason it should be left alone.
Like stated I hit up to 90k DPS with cannons in a good ISA run on my current build. Others do with torpedoes. This is not 15% of the current ISA DPS record achieved with beams. If you don’t take clinical engineered ISA runs by perfectly coordinated DPS teams into an account I roughly estimate it somewhere in the 70% reach.
I think it’s kinda dangerous when peeps start to draw easy conclusions when it comes to nerfs or to augment underused abilities. Nerf beam fire at will wrong could easily mean nerf cannon scatter voley right along with it. Also bring in beam overload and cannon rapid fire in line with their counterparts would require them to be what, 10 times more powerful as they are? Would be funny numbers considering that at times I already parse 100k dmg hits under scatter volley. What am I supposed to do with 1mil dmg one shots out of a DHC? Hit PvP?
Peeps just see the result of BFAW and think its OP and needs a nerf. What they forget is that DPS builds using it and which melt ISA critters in seconds consist of up to 27 ship gear parts, 10 personal traits, 5 passive and 5 active reputation traits as well as 5 starship traits. Not to mention spec trees, skill trees and fleet boosts. ALL selections either directly or indirectly translate to weapons damage with the infamous plasmonic leech probably being one of the more indirect ones.
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It's meant to be an AOE attack so that should mean hitting multiple targets for less damage to either grab aggro or thin out low HP spam like fighters, mines, torps etc. It should not be able to hit and kill multiple high HP targets which is what it is currently doing, that should be the role of escorts or single target focused attacks like beam broadsides, torp volleys.
With a few exceptional builds and pilots not being included no other AOE ability in game can just nuke multiple high HP enemies in a 360 degree arc in one volley, it's just out of hand.
It wouldn't need an alternative if if was actually doing what it's meant to do. Killing of main heavy targets would again become to forte of cannon escorts or single target broadside attacks.
Perhaps toning down the number of mobs would help here.
Or perhaps adding in another ability for beam-rapid fire to allow for attacking big targets.
And a beam-based Defiant is not canon at all.
My point is that for something to be viable, it just needs to be able to usable in order to complete the game content. You don't need FAW to complete the game content. You can do that without using any abilities at all!
As I've said before, people will follow the easiest path to get the most reward, so because currently the game favours FAW because of it's mobs of npc's, most of the builds that are shared around the forums are based on FAW. Yes... it's the easiest, and definitely requires less 'skill' than cannons, but that's just the way the game is set up right now.
The game evolves and changes. At one point escorts with cannons was 'the best'. The 2 man No Win Scenario was done with escorts using phaser DHC's! Then a few months ago the game changed and suddenly running beams with a torp with TS and kemocite was producing epic numbers. It got nerfed to the point of making kemocite completely pointless and people went back to all beams, and promptly produced even higher numbers. Now we have torpedo builds ripping apart CCA in seconds. The game changes, and different content favours (and rightly so) different types of build.
If you just nerf FAW because the players at the top end are killing things too fast, you'll only really end up hurting the players at the bottom end of the ability spectrum. I was pugging yesterday on my Pakled engineer in his APU (Automated Pakled Unit), and there was a guy in a Chel Grett who did 0.3K dps. He has obviously been playing the game for a while because he has the Chel Grett, but is likely only a casual player and playing for fun.... which is entirely fine! The thing is, there are lots of people like that, and simply nerfing abilities is going to harm him, far more than me! There needs to be a solution that balances abilities without penalising a group of players. It's a game! It should be fun! It's not right to take away someone elses toys because they're idea of fun is different to yours.
Can you avoid an afk penalty while using no abilities while a BFAW Scimitar is instagibbing everything on the map?
That's not a FAW problem... that's an issue with the game having very little elite content, and what there is, gives basically no reward. The upshot is that people who should be doing elites, can't and are therefore on the same maps as those who struggle in advanced. Do you really think that if these people had no FAW the outcome would be completely different?
There are people who can't even break 1K dps in a scimitar. I've had fleet supports do 10K. The problem is not the abilities we have access to (we all have access to all the same things!). The problem is the difference in weak and strong players is far too great, and the content doesn't cater for it.
You said you can complete content without using any abilities. Do you consider an afk penalty to be completing that content?
I'm saying you can, and we have.
To get an AFK penalty, you have to do less than 1% of the overall teams damage. 1% isn't a lot, and no change to FAW will make those who can't do 1% of the damage any more likely to.
That is completely possible I think. A high-end DPS player in a PUG would be lucky to hit 100k. If he did, you just need to do 1k to avoid an AFK penalty. Normal fire will be more than enough to do that.
Provided they are not having server/client/connection issues, the players who don't hit 1k (and get an AFK penalty) are either severely undergeared, badly set-up (that includes power levels, BOff abilities and captain skills) or don't know how to use their firing arcs properly. Maybe it's even all the above. When you get T1 ships doing more than enough DPS in an ISA to prevent themselves from getting AFK penalties, then you know it's a player problem rather than a game balance issue.
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