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Tactical powers suggestion
jbmaverick
Member Posts: 935 Arc User
Beam Fire At Will is a pretty constant source of contention recently, and arguments exist for both sides about nerfing/adjusting it. As I write this there's a thread on the front page of this area of the forum more or less dedicated to that, but it's progressed a bit beyond what this sort of post could really add to, thus the new thread.
It's all well and good to call for a "nerf" to something, but without specifics it's kind of an empty request. So here's my suggestion:
Beam: Fire At Will should reduce the base damage of its attacks. Bare in mind this ability adds a 5th shot to the standard Beam firing salvo in addition to potentially doubling damage if you can hit 2 targets. Reducing the base damage of the attack would reduce its effectiveness as a single-target ability while still giving it plenty of kick as an AoE, which is how it should be as an AoE ability with the same cooldown as other attacks that modify the same weapons. The specific amount of base damage reduction would probably be around 20% or so, meaning that at Rank 1 BFAW has the same single-target DPS as standard fire compared to its current 25% boost. Ranks 2 and 3 would still provide their current damage increases, but that would act more as a reduction to the base damage penalty of the core ability. This is something of an inverse to an existing ability, Surgical Strikes, which reduces firing rate but increases base damage so at its core there is no loss of damage output, and potential for increased output exists with the use of the ability. This also brings it more in line with Cannon: Scatter Volley, which would now have a higher damage modifier than FAW at the expense of its reduced area of effect.
One problem point here is for the more casual players who prefer to play a "tanking" role. And don't say such a role is pointless or non-existent in this game, the people I play with regularly are not DPS Leaguers and prefer to play what they feel is fun. As a result a tank can be very helpful in the completion of some STFs for them. Telling them to improve their damage output isn't an answer because it's forcing a gameplay change on them they do not desire, and games (this IS a game, remember) should be about having fun. FAW represents one of the best abilities available to tanks for grabbing aggro in target-rich environments, and a damage reduction on the ability could hinder that purpose. So as a secondary effect, FAW could apply a threat modifier multiplier. This does not mean that FAW is absolutely a threat increasing attack, rather it would scale the threat modifiers that exist on the user already, such as from the Cruiser ability Attract Fire and from Embassy consoles. If someone were to be using the threat reducing version of the Embassy consoles, their threat would be even lower with FAW active.
Now the way I see it, Beams would have 2 types of attack modifiers, an AoE and a "Finisher" with Beam Overload. If FAW were to be adjusted as above, Beams would lack a sustained single-target attack. So my suggestion based on a thread I was involved with a long while back:
Beam: Raking Fire modifies all your Beam weapons for the usual amount of time to deal increased base damage. Visually, this is where the suggestion could fall apart depending on how attack visuals are determined. My guess is that in addition to weapon "emitters" on ship models, they also have weapon "receivers" where attacks converge. Visually Raking Fire should be a Beam attack swinging across a target rather than striking a specific point, so the best way I can think to make this work with such a system is to draw a line from one "receiver" to another. The animation would be somewhat long so I would suggest the animation carry across 2 actual attacks similar to how some beam-based weapons on the ground are able to apply 2 or more hits with a single sustained animation. You would still be hitting the usual 4 times per salvo Beams are capable of, but it would only look like 2 separate attacks. Damage-wise it should be fairly similar to Cannon: Rapid Fire, although with a lower damage modifier to compensate for Beams' naturally higher firing arc.
Of course, it's no fair to give Beams a new power without giving Cannons something new to use as well. Cannons have sustained single-target and AoE abilities, so what they're really missing is a Finisher. Thus the following:
Cannon: Punch a Hole modifies a single Cannon-type weapon in the same way Overload modifies a single Beam weapon. Visually, the weapon should be firing almost constantly for the normal 3-second duration of a Cannon weapon salvo, but in terms of mechanics it's treated as a single massive attack with similar modification values to Overload.
Additional possibilities: crafted Beam weapons can now have the [Rake] modifier and crafted Cannons can have the [Punch] modifier, granting each of them their respective attacks in the same way [Over] and [Rapid] currently work.
The one thing I'm really not sure about is the damage penalty on FAW. 20% might not be enough, as it still represents a potential doubling of damage output if it can reach 2 targets, while I'm not sure what CSV's output potential is with multiple targets. The goal of my suggestion is to keep FAW viable as a power that can be used while leveling and in end-game content without it being the absolute answer to everything. I tried to cover as many factors regarding the core powers possible, but I invite suggestions to improve the idea. I know there's other disparities between Beams and Cannons that's caused the current "situation" but I think it's best to leave those for other threads and focus on just the weapon abilities.
It's all well and good to call for a "nerf" to something, but without specifics it's kind of an empty request. So here's my suggestion:
Beam: Fire At Will should reduce the base damage of its attacks. Bare in mind this ability adds a 5th shot to the standard Beam firing salvo in addition to potentially doubling damage if you can hit 2 targets. Reducing the base damage of the attack would reduce its effectiveness as a single-target ability while still giving it plenty of kick as an AoE, which is how it should be as an AoE ability with the same cooldown as other attacks that modify the same weapons. The specific amount of base damage reduction would probably be around 20% or so, meaning that at Rank 1 BFAW has the same single-target DPS as standard fire compared to its current 25% boost. Ranks 2 and 3 would still provide their current damage increases, but that would act more as a reduction to the base damage penalty of the core ability. This is something of an inverse to an existing ability, Surgical Strikes, which reduces firing rate but increases base damage so at its core there is no loss of damage output, and potential for increased output exists with the use of the ability. This also brings it more in line with Cannon: Scatter Volley, which would now have a higher damage modifier than FAW at the expense of its reduced area of effect.
One problem point here is for the more casual players who prefer to play a "tanking" role. And don't say such a role is pointless or non-existent in this game, the people I play with regularly are not DPS Leaguers and prefer to play what they feel is fun. As a result a tank can be very helpful in the completion of some STFs for them. Telling them to improve their damage output isn't an answer because it's forcing a gameplay change on them they do not desire, and games (this IS a game, remember) should be about having fun. FAW represents one of the best abilities available to tanks for grabbing aggro in target-rich environments, and a damage reduction on the ability could hinder that purpose. So as a secondary effect, FAW could apply a threat modifier multiplier. This does not mean that FAW is absolutely a threat increasing attack, rather it would scale the threat modifiers that exist on the user already, such as from the Cruiser ability Attract Fire and from Embassy consoles. If someone were to be using the threat reducing version of the Embassy consoles, their threat would be even lower with FAW active.
Now the way I see it, Beams would have 2 types of attack modifiers, an AoE and a "Finisher" with Beam Overload. If FAW were to be adjusted as above, Beams would lack a sustained single-target attack. So my suggestion based on a thread I was involved with a long while back:
Beam: Raking Fire modifies all your Beam weapons for the usual amount of time to deal increased base damage. Visually, this is where the suggestion could fall apart depending on how attack visuals are determined. My guess is that in addition to weapon "emitters" on ship models, they also have weapon "receivers" where attacks converge. Visually Raking Fire should be a Beam attack swinging across a target rather than striking a specific point, so the best way I can think to make this work with such a system is to draw a line from one "receiver" to another. The animation would be somewhat long so I would suggest the animation carry across 2 actual attacks similar to how some beam-based weapons on the ground are able to apply 2 or more hits with a single sustained animation. You would still be hitting the usual 4 times per salvo Beams are capable of, but it would only look like 2 separate attacks. Damage-wise it should be fairly similar to Cannon: Rapid Fire, although with a lower damage modifier to compensate for Beams' naturally higher firing arc.
Of course, it's no fair to give Beams a new power without giving Cannons something new to use as well. Cannons have sustained single-target and AoE abilities, so what they're really missing is a Finisher. Thus the following:
Cannon: Punch a Hole modifies a single Cannon-type weapon in the same way Overload modifies a single Beam weapon. Visually, the weapon should be firing almost constantly for the normal 3-second duration of a Cannon weapon salvo, but in terms of mechanics it's treated as a single massive attack with similar modification values to Overload.
Additional possibilities: crafted Beam weapons can now have the [Rake] modifier and crafted Cannons can have the [Punch] modifier, granting each of them their respective attacks in the same way [Over] and [Rapid] currently work.
The one thing I'm really not sure about is the damage penalty on FAW. 20% might not be enough, as it still represents a potential doubling of damage output if it can reach 2 targets, while I'm not sure what CSV's output potential is with multiple targets. The goal of my suggestion is to keep FAW viable as a power that can be used while leveling and in end-game content without it being the absolute answer to everything. I tried to cover as many factors regarding the core powers possible, but I invite suggestions to improve the idea. I know there's other disparities between Beams and Cannons that's caused the current "situation" but I think it's best to leave those for other threads and focus on just the weapon abilities.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
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Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
I also don't want to see FAW get a definite increase in threat generation. It should still be a relevant AoE attack for those who want to focus on such a build without increasing their general risk, thus my suggestion that instead it increase the strength of threat modifiers, allowing the user to continue choosing whether they're seeking threat or not.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
If you're firing BFAW, you've given your ship's tactical subroutines control of phaser firing. Accuracy could be reduced a little, but it's a computer, it's not going to miss that often. It's not a tactical officer on your bridge playing a videogame trying to hit a large number of targets with their fingers dancing over the console at lightning speed.
Typical in Star Trek we see stuff like "Worf, fire photon torpedoes at their bow." or "target weapons systems" or "prepare a salvo of torpedoes, maximum spread" or "Helm, move to 72° Mark 45".
Worf could do it himself. I point to when the Duras sisters were trying to take out Gowron when he was first becoming Chancellor and Worf targeted and fired manually to get the drop on those BoP.
So saying Worf always relied on the computer, no he didn't. And most tactical officers actually can do it themselves. Some prefer to.
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http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
The largest modifiers are "Go Down Fighting" and "Attack pattern Alpha". Just program it that those two powers don't interact (read boost) with BFAW.
Also if you've got a bridge officer with BFAW + 2 or 3 other abilities, do you actually think they're manually targeting multiple phaser hits from multiple arrays on let's say 5 targets AND manually targeting torpedo salvos on multiple targets AND manually rebalanced Shields AND anything else your boff is doing?
No. Not a chance, much of that think-time and reaction time is being offloaded to the computer into the 'hands' of custom tactical subroutines (aka intelligent macros) so that the tactical officer is able to pay attention and be cognisant of what is going on around them and what the other bridge officers are doing what orders are being given etc.
Manual everything is to much of a cognitive load in a tense situation.
Logic.
The damage decrease on each shot is interesting. Torpedo High Yield has a similar mechanic on salvos.
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No, it doesn't take away the advantage of tactical captains. Attack pattern alpha and go down fighting still boost everything else.
In fact if the boost to BFAW from APA and GDF is taken away tactical captains have a lot of options left.
Enlighten me, why would this be a bad thing? Are tactical captains such idiots that they need those two powers combined with BFAW to do any sort of damage?
It's elementary: If a boost to a power is what is causing the problems then remove those boosts. BFAW could be considered an attack pattern so why add additional boosts?
Because it isn't just GDF and APA that is causing FAW to overperform. All of the classes right now are capable of hitting above 100k DPS with a FAW boat. If it is just APA of GDF, then why aren't cannons and torp boats at a level with FAW setups? FAW by itself is either over-performing or cannons and torps are underperforming. I think it's a combination of both.
Like I said in the thread(s), it's better to just bring FAW down to parity with other weapon boosts, and the easiest way to do it is to bring down it's AOE into a cone around a primary target just like all the other AOE weapon skills. I don't even think a damage nerf is called for. The people who do 30k+ is still a small portion of the game community.
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I doubt that many, if any, engineers and science captains can go above 100k. For tactical players DPS starts at 80k and ends somewhere high.
Cannons and torpedoes are both aimed at spike damage. They're not supposed to be continuous damage dealers.
They have their individual issues with drop off and performance against shields, but that's a different story.
The problem is the spacebar smash BFAW AoE damage which due to the plasmodic leech and A2B is no longer the energy drain it used to be. However if BFAW itself is downgraded then the gap between tactical and non-tactical will only become more pronounced since BFAW is the only thing available for engineers and science against the HP bags in advanced.
So make the adjustments to the powers which "corrupt" BFAW the most especially since the one career which is affected can still use APA and GDF in other capacities and thus has options available which other careers do not.
Scis and Engs are up there at 100k+. That's based on the DPS tables of both leagues. Sure there aren't as many as tacs, but tacs make up the majority of the DPS tables. IIRC, the number of tacs equal the number of scis and engs combined. Either way, the top 1% of all those classes do hit above 100k.
That's the thing though, Tacs are supposed to be the DPS class so they should have the upper hand in that regard.
Again, I don't think FAW should be outright nerfed in terms of raw damage because the top 1% of the playerbase can hit ridiculous numbers with it. I do feel it should merely be brought down to parity with other weapon skills. Limiting its AOE would make positioning more important and would make it a more fun skill to use IMO.
Here's an idea I posted in Reddit a while back:
Since shared CDs are removed, you can fire BO with FAW, CRF with CSV or a HY immediately after a TS. AOE will still be potent, but their longer cool down would would make them more useful in softening up targets. Focused fire will finish off what AOE shots leave behind.
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Sounds somewhat reasonable IMO, and a bit more fun if you ask me, instead of having to rely on 1 single weapon type and skill so heavily!
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CRF isn't a single-weapon ability though, is it? Admittedly it's been a long time since I used cannons but I was under the impression it affected all cannon weapons. The rest of it seems reasonable enough and addresses the point I made in the first post about AoEs usually having longer cooldowns and/or some other penalty to make up for their increased damage potential through total enemies hit. I would still like to see a sustained single-target attack for Beams similar to CRF and I think Cannons should have a single-weapon ability as well similar to Overload.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
True, it's not a single weapon ability, as I think they meant single target ability!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Not saying it should be nerfed...but the fact it does the most damage on single target and multi is a little goofy.
Cannons need to be buffed...
Yeah mis-worded on my part. I meant single target.
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Indeed. It's single-target damage needs to be reduced, it makes no sense that both, CSV and BFAW increase single-target damage. None at all, same for torpedo spread. AoE attacks are AoE attacks and should have drawbacks if used against few or single targets while rapid fire, overload and high yield are "sniper" abilities targeting single targets with more damage, increased crit chance and what not. You can change BOFF skills on-the-fly in STO since they changed the BOFF mechanics, you can have both and cycle them out if you think youll need to adapt soon. That should be a no-brainer. And no, don't listen to people crying "no nerf, just buff the rest" - that's literally what power creep is. Adjustments need to happen.
Either remove BFAWs crit chance entirely or lower it's base damage, same for CSV. Also, cannon abilities should be moved down to ENS-LTC, back int he days they did that to "limit" cannons to escorts but those boundaries don't exist any more.
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APA & AHOD etc affect all abilities equally but yet cannons and torps still lag way behind beams in terms of damage.
So BFAW is the culprit here whether people like it or not. I think a combination of these things are giving it a real advantage:
- lower boff rankings.
- increased damage on single targets.
- faster fire rate/more shots per cycle.
- no affect on accuracy.
- no affect on crits.
- can have near constant uptime.
I think e30ernest has some reasonable ideas in his bigger post. Not an all out nerf but something to balance things out.
how does it change a thing for tactical captains
not really, considering APA boosts EVERYTHING, including Sci majik, which is should not do. the problem imho, is when you stack APA APB, AP whatever. activating any AP should toss a cool down on the other patterns, and no tactical ability should increase Engineering or sci based damage. if you want to adjust BFAW, then you should look at power draw, maybe increase the power usage by 5% per weapon X the number of consoles boosting the weapon. of course all that would really do is cause more use of EPTW and batteries...
LOL, off subject here and all, but your signature is funny as hell!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Yeah...most mmo's give aoe lower damage which is made up for by hitting multiple targets.
Trouble is with BO, it just isn't very useful except for a quick burst...just wouldn't compare to CRF...so either we'd need a new beam ability (Maybe they could make a overload ability for cannons as well or change overload so it works for cannons or beams) or change BO to be more something like singularity overcharge, where it fires off multiple beam overloads but only one beam at a time.
IMO, that's kind of how I envisioned BFAW originally, and not the spread of rapid disco-death we have currently!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I agree. "Fire at will" on screen did not result in AoE spam either, it's taking opportunity shots against enemies without explicit order. The current fire at will should become an ability called "point defense" with accuracy and damage bonus against shuttles, torpedoes and mines and reduced efficiency against bigger targets but increased threat generation. A "fire at will" should pick one random target with maybe increased crit chance and accuracy but it's your officer deciding which. Your benefit would be to have time to concentrate on your defenses. And then we had to make defenses actually be worth something - we have so many traits and stuff these days our ships bascially auto-heal all the time.
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Clearly there's some missing if you want something like that, and things like BFAW need to have damage reduced so they cannot outperform single target attacks.
I'd add in a cannon version of BO, some sort of charged attack a bit like Isokinetic cannon and a rapid fire ability for beams against one target.
In principle, Surgical Strikes are single target rapid fire for both cannons and beams. It's just that only a few ships can use it since it's intelligence gated.
But one had to define what are the advantages of rapid fire versus focussed single attack. From the tip of my snout I'd say rapid fire = reduced crit chance and acuracy, higher rate of fire -> above average damage over a prolonged period. Overload, as it is = increased (guaranteed) crit chance, high accuracy -> spike damage. AoE attacks: decreased (none at all) crit chance, increased accuracy against small targets -> point defense and maybe aggro magnet.
I think what would be needed would be a complete overhaul of BOFF abilities. Recreate the whole system to make more sense.
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