To clarify I am not anti-dps in any way. I've even been known to chase that carrot myself a few times, the difference is I don't use vastly over performing and broken mechanics to achieve this (Plasma doping, +beam consoles, FAW, Plasmonic Leech, Kemocite, Neutronic Torpedo etc.) and then TRIBBLE and act surprised when these mechanics are brought back into line with balance.
I find it personally hilarious that sarcasm detector would mention past DEV mistakes because as he should well know they aren't the only ones with a record. We remember all the TRIBBLE the DPS League admins have put us through so I really don't think your gonna want to dig up old skeletons because I will happily refresh everyone's memory of the childish and Immature antics caused by you and your friends. It's not DPS the players have a hatred for its people like you.
Finally, though you may not have intended it that particular comment you made about him not understanding game mechanics really sets a new record for arrogance. Who are you, a nineteen year old nobody from who knows where, to tell a developer who has spent the better part of a decade designing this game that he doesn't understand it? The worst part is the fact that you seem to think you have a superior knowledge of programming and game design simply because you know how to click buttons in the correct order.
Stand back Kanye West there's a new kid in town....
As I mentioned previously, we'd be willing to consider this if we had any fantastic ideas for Skills to take the place of the 3 that would be removed. We haven't come up with anything appropriate internally, nor seen any such suggestions from players.
How about merging the Energy and Torpedo Skills and adding:
"Attack Pattern [Captain] 1" -- Adding a Captain Ability which gives you a choice between two effects: a buff or a debuff.
The second pip gives you "Attack Pattern [Captain] 2" which upgrades APC1 by allowing a choice to add an additional effect from another set of two.
The third pip would follow the same progression in to "Attack Pattern [Captain] 3". Maybe for this one it has four choices to choose one from: a Buff, a Debuff, Beam: Overload 1, or Torpedo High Yield 1. It would be sort of like Worf and Tuvok's APCs work.
This would be a skill that most people would probably use, making it a worthy replacement for gap caused by the merged Energy/Torp Skill. It also allows for a touch of customization. After all, who wouldn't want to use their Captain's personal skill? Admittedly, it might be kind of powerful, so I would suggest adding a Rank Requirement for unlocking each pip. Ensign, LtCom, and Captain, perhaps.
As I mentioned previously, we'd be willing to consider this if we had any fantastic ideas for Skills to take the place of the 3 that would be removed. We haven't come up with anything appropriate internally, nor seen any such suggestions from players.
How about merging the Energy and Torpedo Skills and adding:
"Attack Pattern [Captain] 1" -- Adding a Captain Ability which gives you a choice between two effects: a buff or a debuff.
The second pip gives you "Attack Pattern [Captain] 2" which upgrades APC1 by allowing a choice to add an additional effect from another set of two.
The third pip would follow the same progression in to "Attack Pattern [Captain] 3". Maybe for this one it has four choices to choose one from: a Buff, a Debuff, Beam: Overload 1, or Torpedo High Yield 1. It would be sort of like Worf and Tuvok's APCs work.
This would be a skill that most people would probably use, making it a worthy replacement for gap caused by the merged Energy/Torp Skill. It also allows for a touch of customization. After all, who wouldn't want to use their Captain's personal skill? Admittedly, it might be kind of powerful, so I would suggest adding a Rank Requirement for unlocking each pip. Ensign, LtCom, and Captain, perhaps.
Actually, this isnt such a bad idea. You can either buff yourself, or debuff your target, but not both. I think its outside this skill revamp0 since its a compltely new "skill" in a sense with its own testing. But it might actually make a good BOFF ability to be trained, but slighlty toned down so they arent the NPC versions we get in the FE's.
Now... I don't suppose we could get this thread back to discussing the other hundreds of bugs, inaccuracies and unpolished facets of this system, instead of circling this drain (heh) any longer?
Plasmonic Leech is practically a requirement for Romulans that wish to take any advantage of the AMP mod on cores. -40 subsystem power is too severe of a hit to their power levels for Rom ships to be comparable with their Fed/KDF counterparts. I'd recommend either removing that subsystem power hinderance on Warbirds, or keeping Plas Leach atleast effective enough to counter act that deficiency. Without one of those, it is unlikely that any singularity core ships will be bought in the future by a significant portion of the player base. ...that's all I'll say about the Plasmonic Leech.
Now, on to your statement. Not pressing, but last night, while testing various space sets, did discover that Jem'Hadar Shields's kinetic resist continues to show 'Jem'Hadar Crew Bracing' as the buff icon and name.
^ This right here sir. Romulans are going to take a large hit. All of these AMP warpcores you guys have in the game will be useless for romulans. There is no way to get power levels high enough to take advantage of it. Leech just needs to be closer to what it was. We were told that the skill revamp was a simplification, not a nerf.
To clarify I am not anti-dps in any way. I've even been known to chase that carrot myself a few times, the difference is I don't use vastly over performing and broken mechanics to achieve this (Plasma doping, +beam consoles, FAW, Plasmonic Leech, Kemocite, Neutronic Torpedo etc.) To achieve my goals and then TRIBBLE and act surprised when these mechanics are brought back into line with balance.
I find it personally hilarious that sarcasm detector would mention past DEV mistakes because as he should well know they aren't the only ones with a record. We remember all the TRIBBLE the DPS Leagues have put us through so I really don't think your gonna want to dig up old skeletons because I will happily refresh everyone's memory of the childish and Immature antics caused by you and your friends.
Finally, though you may not have intended it that particular comment you made about him not understanding game mechanics really sets a new record of arrogance even for the DPS leagues. Who are you, a nineteen year old nobody from bum-**** nowhere, to tell a developer who has spent the better part of a decade designing this game that he doesn't understand it? The worst part is the fact that you seem to think you have a superior knowledge of programming and game design simply because you know how to click buttons in the correct order.
Stand back Kanye West there's a new kid in town....
This exactly this is purely Anti-DPS non player knowledge AT ALL behaviour. You clearly demonstrated you got no idea what you are talkin about, you demonstrated you got no knowledge about game meta + you show how rude you are in process as well. Bravo *claps hands*. Now to business at hand - there is no arrogance from anyone who is in DPS group - arrogance you displayed is ignorace by players like you who got no idea how certain game mechanics functions but that is youre own problem and i wont get into that. He didnt said to anyone that he is superior or stuff like - your own miss-interpretation of game makes you see things they arent there. Is it true alot of people presented math to devs ? yes it is. Did they act upon it ? in some events - not always. Does this makes us superior ? not it doesnt. Are we dissapointed - yes we are. Botched up ignorance from people like you is makin an elephant in room where there is none.
Now... I don't suppose we could get this thread back to discussing the other hundreds of bugs, inaccuracies and unpolished facets of this system, instead of circling this drain (heh) any longer?
Plasmonic Leech is practically a requirement for Romulans that wish to take any advantage of the AMP mod on cores. -40 subsystem power is too severe of a hit to their power levels for Rom ships to be comparable with their Fed/KDF counterparts. I'd recommend either removing that subsystem power hinderance on Warbirds, or keeping Plas Leach atleast effective enough to counter act that deficiency. Without one of those, it is unlikely that any singularity core ships will be bought in the future by a significant portion of the player base. ...that's all I'll say about the Plasmonic Leech.
Now, on to your statement. Not pressing, but last night, while testing various space sets, did discover that Jem'Hadar Shields's kinetic resist continues to show 'Jem'Hadar Crew Bracing' as the buff icon and name.
Given that AMP is such an inconsequential mod overall, i SERIOUSLY doubt it's gonna be the end of the world for the poor, Scimitar flying, Crit-stuffed rommies
So it is ok for us to be cut out of using an available in game fleet item that we purchased?
Wanted to copy and paste a post from the general forum to here for more input.
I've managed to recreate my tank Science Odyssey build nearly the same, here is what I've found:
Hull points and shield points were slightly nerfed but not by much, hull by 90 points, shields by 9 so that's not bad. Resistance across the board was also lower, about 0.2 points only for each if that so again acceptable.
On the other hand stealth detection and bonus defense went up by 0.5-2 points. Crit chance, crit severity, and accuracy appeared to stay the same.
I've also checked my weapon damage on the hud and they are all up as well about 50-100 points. My subsystems stayed about the same, for some reason lost one point in weapon and shield and both points ended up on engines, I'll take it...don't feel like fine tuning it now.
Speed and turn rate were also slightly lower, again not much at all I'm talking about 0.2-0.5 points.
One of the biggest losses (but only because I put only one point in it) was Power Transfer rate which went from 184% to 164%. Also my leech drain with 2 points in is at -1.6 drain where as before I had 7 points and was at -1.9.
Now with all this being said, I did manage to put some points in skills that never existed before like:
2 points in hull pen
1 point in shield pen
1 point in shield hardness
So everything else being considered, even though I lost a few points here and there, I'd say I gained some with the hull and shield pens and shield hardness.
Now on to the two trickier things to measure since some mechanics were broken and/or glitchy...
1. Hull repair rate: With 100% crew my out of combat was around 320% and in combat was about 96% give or take. Now my out of combat is about 240% and in combat is about 78%.
However, despite this being lower on average it will end up higher because I won't suffer the loss of crew thereby lowering those numbers.
2. Shield regen rate: because the tool tip on this was always broken it's hard to say how much I had exactly but I was calculating base at 400 and with my shield power giving me x3 that so around 1200 per 6 seconds.
Now with just two points in shield regen I believe my rate is around 1140 per 6 seconds.
So I'd say I think overall I improved. I will test a little more in the following days and hopefully post some pics of the "before" and "after" stats of everything to show you exactly what I mean.
Hope this helps.
First things first. The science variant oddessy is NOT a science ship. Wanted to clear that up.
Can we get some information on the reason why we will not be able to pre-fill our skill tree before pressing the accept button? As it is set up now, people are going to be required to purchase a lot of retrain tokens.
On holodeck, we can pre-fill the tree to the very end, make little tweaks and changes and then accept it. With the new system, we will have to accept after every single point. Sure, we can read tooltips and all, but there are a lot of folks who will miscount and when they get toward the end, they will discover that they placed to many points in another area and then...they are forced to use ZEN and purchase another token. Would be nice to keep it as it is on live, and not penalize players for making a mistake. IMO.
To clarify I am not anti-dps in any way. I've even been known to chase that carrot myself a few times, the difference is I don't use vastly over performing and broken mechanics to achieve this (Plasma doping, +beam consoles, FAW, Plasmonic Leech, Kemocite, Neutronic Torpedo etc.) and then TRIBBLE and act surprised when these mechanics are brought back into line with balance.
I find it personally hilarious that sarcasm detector would mention past DEV mistakes because as he should well know they aren't the only ones with a record. We remember all the TRIBBLE the DPS Leagues have put us through so I really don't think your gonna want to dig up old skeletons because I will happily refresh everyone's memory of the childish and Immature antics caused by you and your friends. It's not DPS the players have a hatred for its people like you.
Finally, though you may not have intended it that particular comment you made about him not understanding game mechanics really sets a new record of arrogance even for the DPS leagues. Who are you, a nineteen year old nobody from bum-**** nowhere, to tell a developer who has spent the better part of a decade designing this game that he doesn't understand it? The worst part is the fact that you seem to think you have a superior knowledge of programming and game design simply because you know how to click buttons in the correct order.
Stand back Kanye West there's a new kid in town....
Fortunately, the plasma proc/kemocite/FAW builds are still going to shine. They are producing 100k+ dps numbers as always, at least for me on tribble. I feel sorry for the science/drain builds or whatnot. Their DPS was already sub par, and this change will just make it worse. Gimmick builds tend to get left behind historically.
Actually, this isnt such a bad idea. You can either buff yourself, or debuff your target, but not both. I think its outside this skill revamp0 since its a compltely new "skill" in a sense with its own testing. But it might actually make a good BOFF ability to be trained, but slighlty toned down so they arent the NPC versions we get in the FE's.
Hmmm "thoughts and ideas rising "
Perhaps if they cannot work it in to Skill Revamp, it could be used as a replacement for 'Abandon Ship' since that is being taken out. The Pips could be filled in as unlocks in the Level System gaps where nothing is currently given.
And no, I do not intend for it to be as powerful as the Hero NPC abilities. They have, like, two extra Buff/Debuff/Ability pips than this would.
To clarify I am not anti-dps in any way. I've even been known to chase that carrot myself a few times, the difference is I don't use vastly over performing and broken mechanics to achieve this (Plasma doping, +beam consoles, FAW, Plasmonic Leech, Kemocite, Neutronic Torpedo etc.) and then TRIBBLE and act surprised when these mechanics are brought back into line with balance.
I find it personally hilarious that sarcasm detector would mention past DEV mistakes because as he should well know they aren't the only ones with a record. We remember all the TRIBBLE the DPS Leagues have put us through so I really don't think your gonna want to dig up old skeletons because I will happily refresh everyone's memory of the childish and Immature antics caused by you and your friends. It's not DPS the players have a hatred for its people like you.
Finally, though you may not have intended it that particular comment you made about him not understanding game mechanics really sets a new record of arrogance even for the DPS leagues. Who are you, a nineteen year old nobody from bum-**** nowhere, to tell a developer who has spent the better part of a decade designing this game that he doesn't understand it? The worst part is the fact that you seem to think you have a superior knowledge of programming and game design simply because you know how to click buttons in the correct order.
Stand back Kanye West there's a new kid in town....
To resonante here... Just like sarcasm said, there is a difference between broken and simply effective and they have a very thin line. Out of those you mentioned, I'd personally say at least BFAW and leech are simply very effective, that's why you see so many players using them.
And calling out sarcasm for causing DPS-channel drama (I assume you are talking about the infamous channel split) is uncalled for, he had little to do with it.
Also, I am a member of DPS-75k. Does that make me a bad and arrogant person?
Personally I have no issue with the plasmonic leech console being reduced in effectiveness... and yes I use it. Maybe not as much as it has been but it does need some lowering as it is a little too powerful as a console. However, Science drain abilities being basically cut in half on Tribble do need some serious attention to get them back to where they were. or at least really close (maybe even slightly stronger). Those abilities should be vastly more powerful than the leech regardless of what ends up happening.
I do have problems with the stuff happening to science, and I really hope it is either consoles not being added right, or skills not hooked up right, or the formula still messed up for things. Examples include things like Destabilizing Resonance Beam and the cloud from the particle emissions torpedo, along with various other exotic type skills and weapons.
I forget where, but I think it was the "Bort what have you done to my science" where I post the partgens I have and the Holodeck to Tribble numbers for the skill and weapon mentioned above.
I understand from the Borticus that GW's pull issue is due to the new control thing not linked, so that's cool knowing it will be fixed. Along with why it does more damage is because its using aux power properly now or something, is a nice little bonus. I do wonder if they will ever get around to fixing the part where it doesn't really crit or doesn't have any severity (forget the exact problem its had forever) on its own.
Twilight, Particle Physicist that stole the ship.
Original Signup date: August 4, 2008
LTS since Pre-Order
I think I finally figured out this whole issue with people complaining about the "nerf" to aux/siphon/partG skills. It seems to me these people throwing a fit and showing up out of the blue are the PVP crowd.
These type of builds really only have a use in PVP. Drains and all that have no benefit to your dps when fighting something like the Borg queen vessel in an advanced or elite STF. Yet these people are complaining about the power of FAW builds. Builds that people are only using in PVE venues. I think that Cryptic is trying to get people on the weapon damage kick. Use your weapons and not rely on gimmick drain builds. Why do you think these new fire cycle haste traits and consoles are showing up?
You can drain that borg cube all day long and throw your gravity well on it, but you are not going to come close the destroying that cube as quick as somone with a spread III/FAW III setup. I even use a GW I occasionally just to group up my targets into a small area. As far as my science officer/ship, I use the Paradox and he has a heavy focus on weapon damage. Of course I have the GW III, Subspace Vortex III and destabilizing beam with a decent amount of part gen, but I use those in concert with FAW III and the leech. Sitting idle, I keep my aux power set at 90 and weapons at 125. By time leech kicks in and what ever else boosts that power, I'm at 125 and pulling some crazy numbers thanks to FAW and those science abilities. If I focused on drains and power levels alone, I would never reach the numbers I am.
Bottom line, there are not enough people that PVP in this game to constitue keeping drains as high as they have been. The nerf to leech is not going to break my builds because they are not gimmick builds focusing on draining power. They are focused on weapon dmg and crit chance/crit severity. All my captains maintain a crit chance of at least 25% with crit severity around 110% for non romulans and that much higher for my rom captains. With weapon dmg and other consoles alone, keeps me in the 75k + crowd and I'm happy with that. I suggest that the pvp crowd get used to using their weapons and other skills over draining your enemies.
Yes, ratios are the same, so what? There's more "total buffness" in the new system because of new skills and most bundlings are fairly logical (that is, if you want one, you are likely to want the other.)
They're really not logical at all beyond typically being the offensive/defensive skills of a single area. That's like saying you're glad of the bundled additional resists with weap damage for when you shoot yourself in the foot... Big deal if the 'total buffness' is higher overall, if you didn't have to take the additional bloat you could fine tune and tweak the build to better suit your playstyle and probably get more out of it, especially if you're picking abilities purely for their defensive measures.
Arguing this is not an overall buff (that is, that one pick isn't better than 3 pips) is like arguing that half a glass and half a 2-liter bottle are the same thing because both are halves of something.
That doesn't even make sense, partly because the new system doesn't bundle things in a linear boost of 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 in all cases, but more so because in certain bundles you only get 50% return from one of the skills included so it's clearly not the same thing at all.
If we were to split up those bundles, keep the new skills added (like Long-range Sensors) and the removed skills removed (like Sensors) and adjusted the available points totals accordingly, you could easily have the precise same build options but you're no longer tied to effectively wasting points on something you won't use. So hey, if you wanted drain resist, you wouldn't be forced into wasted flow caps points at the same time. Ultimately this is just a massive waste in efficiency of point distribution.
But that's not comparing the old system with the new, that's comparing the new system with a hypothetical one with both old skills unbundled and new ones added and more points. Such a system would be indeed more freeform. It would also be more complex with more potential for costly "newb errors" and one of the goals of the revamp is reducing those...
No, that's me trying to point out to you that the new system drastically inhibits your ability to build freely while I attempted to keep the 'new skills which remove suboptimal choices' to illustrate the point. The skills that removed and were added were seemingly done so because the mechanics, frankly, sucked. It had nothing to do with what points went where half of the time and everything to do with the skills and abilities which drew from them being inherently useless in the majority of cases.
Maybe it's late night/early morning, and I'm still drowsy... But it seems like we're just talking past each other, with neither getting the other's point (I definitely didn't understand what you're talking about here, and the few things I think I did, seem to be exact opposite of how either new or old system actually work... I really need some morning coffee...)
One thing is clear, though; we want completely different things from the system and have zero chance to persuade each other their approach is better, so we probably just need to agree to disagree. This thread has enough drama as it is.
I think I finally figured out this whole issue with people complaining about the "nerf" to aux/siphon/partG skills. It seems to me these people throwing a fit and showing up out of the blue are the PVP crowd.
These type of builds really only have a use in PVP. Drains and all that have no benefit to your dps when fighting something like the Borg queen vessel in an advanced or elite STF. Yet these people are complaining about the power of FAW builds. Builds that people are only using in PVE venues. I think that Cryptic is trying to get people on the weapon damage kick. Use your weapons and not rely on gimmick drain builds. Why do you think these new fire cycle haste traits and consoles are showing up?
snip
I am not pvp. I am pve. If you are trying to tell me that my Science captain using my Science hybrid Exotic/Beam build with 1 torpedo (Partgen based) with 407 partgens on holodeck and only 2 tactical consoles is not useful in pve... I highly beg to differ. http://i.imgur.com/C2rDvPX.jpg
Not everything is about you doing damage. In a team environment, drain builds help the higher dps people do MORE dps, and stay alive better as the enemies now do less damage. Gravity wells help the dps people do MORE dps by grouping the mobs together and lowering their defenses by holding them still.
Yes I do use plasmonic leech, and I do believe it needs a little lowering, just not as much as is currently done. as I mentioned in my above post, I am not happy with the stuff being done to science. Its bad enough everything is about Tactical captains and that Tactical captains can already science better than Science captains due to the captain skills working on non energy or projectile weapons, but now... unless serious tweaking is done, they are taking 2x4 with nails in it and taking it to science.
Twilight, Particle Physicist that stole the ship.
Original Signup date: August 4, 2008
LTS since Pre-Order
Maybe we should just start over in a new thread I lost what point we were all trying to make... let's consolidate our numbers about the science powers in one place for easy reference eh? That way we can compare the changes across multiple players.
I think I finally figured out this whole issue with people complaining about the "nerf" to aux/siphon/partG skills. It seems to me these people throwing a fit and showing up out of the blue are the PVP crowd.
It's easy to forget that things that are not moving have a defense debuff. It's easy to forget that things without shields don't need extra damage to get to the hull. I guess it's also easy to forget that weapons offline makes it hard for things to shoot back. And I suppose I can understand how one could forget that a resistance debuff on their target helps the shooter do more damage by overruling mitigations. So yeah, science nonsense is totally useless. Nothing to see here. Oh, and not all science ships do 2k dps.
Stepping away from all the drain talk, something else I want to discuss are deflectors. Namely, that some deflectors seem to have been negatively affected- and in very weird ways- by the change. I get that the consolidation means that some deflectors need new states so they won't have obscene boosts, but how you've done that is, uh, sorta bad in places.
For example, the Romulan Deflector Array (MK XIV) has +45 Inertial Dampeners, +45 Graviton Generators, and +30 Subspace Decompiler on Holodeck.
If left 'as is', this would result in a score of 120 control expertise.
Plus Five. Drain Expertise. REALLY? You have OTHER deflectors that have +60 control expertise. On holodeck this is a control oriented deflector. Control was its gimmick- but on tribble, there are better deflectors for every possible skill focus- ones that get extra mods at UR, ones that have better complementary skills.
It'd be nice if deflectors generally retained the same... purpose... into the new build, where possible. Control focus = control, not... lol random healing boosts + 5 drain expertise.
Regardless what else I said, I LOVE THE NEW SYSTEM!!!! A change is really welcome indeed. Devs really put some thoughts and hard works into it, wonderfully designed. Needs a lot more tweaks, but definitely a step toward right direction.
Waited until now to have a proper understanding to make a stand, since Copy over works again now. The bottom line:
Zen Only Respec Tokens HAVE TO GO, No IFs BUTs ANDs about it.
Character progression from 1~50 is full of traps, literally. If a new character didn't follow a pre-selected route or a specific ship in mind, it will consume tons of respec tokens after character and player slowly mature. For example, a completely new FED player do not have access to free carrier without extra purchasing... For them, carrier skill will be a huge lost before they even figure out pets do exist....
If company still insist to keep it, either the price have to decrease significantly, or an alternative way to obtain them (not life-sub, through events, dil store, rep progression, etc). The game atm is hostile against alt building. So for high-end players, $5.00 per change, or re-rolling a whole new toon just for fine tuning.... is asking a bit too much, way too much.
Just want to show my...lack of discontent with the Leech losing some effectiveness. I run it on five characters, which should right there point out that it's too powerful in its current state. It's still going to be a best in slot for raising power levels, but players who don't have it won't be as far behind running other power raising equipment.
Wholeheartedly agree. I very much stand by Bort's decision and statement on the matter. It's high time the 'uber console' was brought back in line with most of the other power boost consoles on the market.
Sorry for the further detracting from the topic at hand. Just it's often that the Devs get the negative criticism and rare that people actually support their decisions.
While I agree with Plasmonic leech to good, I think the major imbalancing aspect of Plasmonic Leech is the strong energy buff it grants to yourself, and less the drain it does to the enemy.
And independent of that - Energy Siphon and Tyken's Rift builds probably could use help.
Edit:
In another thread Borticus mentioned that Gravity Well's range is currently not affected correctly (or at all?) by skills.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Players Lose Nothing – As much as possible, everything available in the current system will be made available under the new system, and investments in equipment and ships retain full value.
In regards to this, i´d like to extend my thanks because i can now be sure that Cryptics Employees do not put any Value into staying true to their words.
Players Lose Nothing – As much as possible, everything available in the current system will be made available under the new system, and investments in equipment and ships retain full value.
In regards to this, i´d like to extend my thanks because i can now be sure that Cryptics Employees do not put any Value into staying true to their words.
Peace out.
Very good point and this is what I gathered from my testing thus far
I have taken a closer look at the revamp on Tribble and I compared it directly to the live version. From what I have gathered on other people's posts here on the forums I expected at least some form of nerfing. However, truth be told I did not expect to see what I empirically found out through my testing. This is not just a nerf or a major one. It's a grand scale nerf that affects pretty much everything about your build regardless of what that may be.
First of all, the amount of total power you lose in the Tribble version is significant as people have already pointed out. As a result speed and turn rate are also affected. Damage suffers a little bit. If anything, the only thing that gains anything from this is hull and shield regeneration.
To sum it up, this revamp effectively renders the introduction of MK XIV gear back to the MK XII and playing as a level 50 with T5 ships again.
The fact that changes to this single item have dominated so much of a discussion supposedly dedicated to discussing far-reaching systemic changes that are having an impact on hundreds - possibly thousands - of other mechanics, is probably a very strong indicator of a need for we developers to consider substantial modifications to the item in question.
I disagree with this sentiment. Allow me to explain why.
You have two possibilities.
1) all items are equally useful.
2) some items are more useful than others.
If you chose #1, then there's no meta game about equipping your ship. I can throw on whatever and it's all good. People will not play for long as there's nothing to do.
So you've chosen option #2. This means that people can work, grind, save, etc to get into ever better equipment. This also means that there's a significant investment in that kind of equipment. So yea, when you nerf it, it makes people unhappy.
You nailed it!
There's also what I'd like to call the Parity Trap. This is the fallacy in which Devs, like Bort, fall into the trap of using metrics to show that 'X is being used the most, therefore X must be nerfed.' Here is why that thinking is erroneous:
a) For one, as sarcasmdetectot pointed out, because being used a lot != automagically overpowered. It's like saying "Our metrics are showing us that everyone is using car seats, therefore we must nerf car seats!"
b) And, for two, when you remove/nerf X, now Y will show up in your metrics as the new flavor, and next month you'll be seeking to nerf Y for the exact same reasons you went after X. Ergo, the entire notion of going after the top item is a fallacy.
The real stinger, of course, is that all these nerfs are simply part of their business model. Obviously they've chosen Option #2 on jerryspock's list (so people will spend money); but that only works if you occassionally nerf the sh*t out of stuff, so you can start the cycle again and have people buy new shinies (that you'll then nerf too, of course, later on).
Comments
I find it personally hilarious that sarcasm detector would mention past DEV mistakes because as he should well know they aren't the only ones with a record. We remember all the TRIBBLE the DPS League admins have put us through so I really don't think your gonna want to dig up old skeletons because I will happily refresh everyone's memory of the childish and Immature antics caused by you and your friends. It's not DPS the players have a hatred for its people like you.
Finally, though you may not have intended it that particular comment you made about him not understanding game mechanics really sets a new record for arrogance. Who are you, a nineteen year old nobody from who knows where, to tell a developer who has spent the better part of a decade designing this game that he doesn't understand it? The worst part is the fact that you seem to think you have a superior knowledge of programming and game design simply because you know how to click buttons in the correct order.
Stand back Kanye West there's a new kid in town....
How about merging the Energy and Torpedo Skills and adding:
"Attack Pattern [Captain] 1" -- Adding a Captain Ability which gives you a choice between two effects: a buff or a debuff.
The second pip gives you "Attack Pattern [Captain] 2" which upgrades APC1 by allowing a choice to add an additional effect from another set of two.
The third pip would follow the same progression in to "Attack Pattern [Captain] 3". Maybe for this one it has four choices to choose one from: a Buff, a Debuff, Beam: Overload 1, or Torpedo High Yield 1. It would be sort of like Worf and Tuvok's APCs work.
This would be a skill that most people would probably use, making it a worthy replacement for gap caused by the merged Energy/Torp Skill. It also allows for a touch of customization. After all, who wouldn't want to use their Captain's personal skill? Admittedly, it might be kind of powerful, so I would suggest adding a Rank Requirement for unlocking each pip. Ensign, LtCom, and Captain, perhaps.
Not near enough tactical. Science abilities/skills do not pull the DPS numbers needed for advance/elites.
Thank you.
Actually, this isnt such a bad idea. You can either buff yourself, or debuff your target, but not both. I think its outside this skill revamp0 since its a compltely new "skill" in a sense with its own testing. But it might actually make a good BOFF ability to be trained, but slighlty toned down so they arent the NPC versions we get in the FE's.
Hmmm "thoughts and ideas rising
@borticuscryptic
^ This right here sir. Romulans are going to take a large hit. All of these AMP warpcores you guys have in the game will be useless for romulans. There is no way to get power levels high enough to take advantage of it. Leech just needs to be closer to what it was. We were told that the skill revamp was a simplification, not a nerf.
This exactly this is purely Anti-DPS non player knowledge AT ALL behaviour. You clearly demonstrated you got no idea what you are talkin about, you demonstrated you got no knowledge about game meta + you show how rude you are in process as well. Bravo *claps hands*. Now to business at hand - there is no arrogance from anyone who is in DPS group - arrogance you displayed is ignorace by players like you who got no idea how certain game mechanics functions but that is youre own problem and i wont get into that. He didnt said to anyone that he is superior or stuff like - your own miss-interpretation of game makes you see things they arent there. Is it true alot of people presented math to devs ? yes it is. Did they act upon it ? in some events - not always. Does this makes us superior ? not it doesnt. Are we dissapointed - yes we are. Botched up ignorance from people like you is makin an elephant in room where there is none.
So it is ok for us to be cut out of using an available in game fleet item that we purchased?
First things first. The science variant oddessy is NOT a science ship. Wanted to clear that up.
Something to take us away from the Leech nerf...
Can we get some information on the reason why we will not be able to pre-fill our skill tree before pressing the accept button? As it is set up now, people are going to be required to purchase a lot of retrain tokens.
On holodeck, we can pre-fill the tree to the very end, make little tweaks and changes and then accept it. With the new system, we will have to accept after every single point. Sure, we can read tooltips and all, but there are a lot of folks who will miscount and when they get toward the end, they will discover that they placed to many points in another area and then...they are forced to use ZEN and purchase another token. Would be nice to keep it as it is on live, and not penalize players for making a mistake. IMO.
Fortunately, the plasma proc/kemocite/FAW builds are still going to shine. They are producing 100k+ dps numbers as always, at least for me on tribble. I feel sorry for the science/drain builds or whatnot. Their DPS was already sub par, and this change will just make it worse. Gimmick builds tend to get left behind historically.
me too! great idea
Thank ya.
Perhaps if they cannot work it in to Skill Revamp, it could be used as a replacement for 'Abandon Ship' since that is being taken out. The Pips could be filled in as unlocks in the Level System gaps where nothing is currently given.
And no, I do not intend for it to be as powerful as the Hero NPC abilities. They have, like, two extra Buff/Debuff/Ability pips than this would.
To resonante here... Just like sarcasm said, there is a difference between broken and simply effective and they have a very thin line. Out of those you mentioned, I'd personally say at least BFAW and leech are simply very effective, that's why you see so many players using them.
And calling out sarcasm for causing DPS-channel drama (I assume you are talking about the infamous channel split) is uncalled for, he had little to do with it.
Also, I am a member of DPS-75k. Does that make me a bad and arrogant person?
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
I do have problems with the stuff happening to science, and I really hope it is either consoles not being added right, or skills not hooked up right, or the formula still messed up for things. Examples include things like Destabilizing Resonance Beam and the cloud from the particle emissions torpedo, along with various other exotic type skills and weapons.
I forget where, but I think it was the "Bort what have you done to my science" where I post the partgens I have and the Holodeck to Tribble numbers for the skill and weapon mentioned above.
I understand from the Borticus that GW's pull issue is due to the new control thing not linked, so that's cool knowing it will be fixed. Along with why it does more damage is because its using aux power properly now or something, is a nice little bonus. I do wonder if they will ever get around to fixing the part where it doesn't really crit or doesn't have any severity (forget the exact problem its had forever) on its own.
Twilight, Particle Physicist that stole the ship.
Original Signup date: August 4, 2008
LTS since Pre-Order
These type of builds really only have a use in PVP. Drains and all that have no benefit to your dps when fighting something like the Borg queen vessel in an advanced or elite STF. Yet these people are complaining about the power of FAW builds. Builds that people are only using in PVE venues. I think that Cryptic is trying to get people on the weapon damage kick. Use your weapons and not rely on gimmick drain builds. Why do you think these new fire cycle haste traits and consoles are showing up?
You can drain that borg cube all day long and throw your gravity well on it, but you are not going to come close the destroying that cube as quick as somone with a spread III/FAW III setup. I even use a GW I occasionally just to group up my targets into a small area. As far as my science officer/ship, I use the Paradox and he has a heavy focus on weapon damage. Of course I have the GW III, Subspace Vortex III and destabilizing beam with a decent amount of part gen, but I use those in concert with FAW III and the leech. Sitting idle, I keep my aux power set at 90 and weapons at 125. By time leech kicks in and what ever else boosts that power, I'm at 125 and pulling some crazy numbers thanks to FAW and those science abilities. If I focused on drains and power levels alone, I would never reach the numbers I am.
Bottom line, there are not enough people that PVP in this game to constitue keeping drains as high as they have been. The nerf to leech is not going to break my builds because they are not gimmick builds focusing on draining power. They are focused on weapon dmg and crit chance/crit severity. All my captains maintain a crit chance of at least 25% with crit severity around 110% for non romulans and that much higher for my rom captains. With weapon dmg and other consoles alone, keeps me in the 75k + crowd and I'm happy with that. I suggest that the pvp crowd get used to using their weapons and other skills over draining your enemies.
Maybe it's late night/early morning, and I'm still drowsy... But it seems like we're just talking past each other, with neither getting the other's point (I definitely didn't understand what you're talking about here, and the few things I think I did, seem to be exact opposite of how either new or old system actually work... I really need some morning coffee...)
One thing is clear, though; we want completely different things from the system and have zero chance to persuade each other their approach is better, so we probably just need to agree to disagree. This thread has enough drama as it is.
I am not pvp. I am pve. If you are trying to tell me that my Science captain using my Science hybrid Exotic/Beam build with 1 torpedo (Partgen based) with 407 partgens on holodeck and only 2 tactical consoles is not useful in pve... I highly beg to differ. http://i.imgur.com/C2rDvPX.jpg
Not everything is about you doing damage. In a team environment, drain builds help the higher dps people do MORE dps, and stay alive better as the enemies now do less damage. Gravity wells help the dps people do MORE dps by grouping the mobs together and lowering their defenses by holding them still.
Yes I do use plasmonic leech, and I do believe it needs a little lowering, just not as much as is currently done. as I mentioned in my above post, I am not happy with the stuff being done to science. Its bad enough everything is about Tactical captains and that Tactical captains can already science better than Science captains due to the captain skills working on non energy or projectile weapons, but now... unless serious tweaking is done, they are taking 2x4 with nails in it and taking it to science.
Twilight, Particle Physicist that stole the ship.
Original Signup date: August 4, 2008
LTS since Pre-Order
For example, the Romulan Deflector Array (MK XIV) has +45 Inertial Dampeners, +45 Graviton Generators, and +30 Subspace Decompiler on Holodeck.
If left 'as is', this would result in a score of 120 control expertise.
As a result, on Tribble, it now reads:
+30 Hull Repair
+30 Shield Emitters
+55 Control Expertise
+5 Drain Expertise.
Plus Five. Drain Expertise. REALLY? You have OTHER deflectors that have +60 control expertise. On holodeck this is a control oriented deflector. Control was its gimmick- but on tribble, there are better deflectors for every possible skill focus- ones that get extra mods at UR, ones that have better complementary skills.
It'd be nice if deflectors generally retained the same... purpose... into the new build, where possible. Control focus = control, not... lol random healing boosts + 5 drain expertise.
Waited until now to have a proper understanding to make a stand, since Copy over works again now. The bottom line:
Zen Only Respec Tokens HAVE TO GO, No IFs BUTs ANDs about it.
Character progression from 1~50 is full of traps, literally. If a new character didn't follow a pre-selected route or a specific ship in mind, it will consume tons of respec tokens after character and player slowly mature. For example, a completely new FED player do not have access to free carrier without extra purchasing... For them, carrier skill will be a huge lost before they even figure out pets do exist....
If company still insist to keep it, either the price have to decrease significantly, or an alternative way to obtain them (not life-sub, through events, dil store, rep progression, etc). The game atm is hostile against alt building. So for high-end players, $5.00 per change, or re-rolling a whole new toon just for fine tuning.... is asking a bit too much, way too much.
And independent of that - Energy Siphon and Tyken's Rift builds probably could use help.
Edit:
In another thread Borticus mentioned that Gravity Well's range is currently not affected correctly (or at all?) by skills.
In regards to this, i´d like to extend my thanks because i can now be sure that Cryptics Employees do not put any Value into staying true to their words.
Peace out.
Very good point and this is what I gathered from my testing thus far
I have taken a closer look at the revamp on Tribble and I compared it directly to the live version. From what I have gathered on other people's posts here on the forums I expected at least some form of nerfing. However, truth be told I did not expect to see what I empirically found out through my testing. This is not just a nerf or a major one. It's a grand scale nerf that affects pretty much everything about your build regardless of what that may be.
First of all, the amount of total power you lose in the Tribble version is significant as people have already pointed out. As a result speed and turn rate are also affected. Damage suffers a little bit. If anything, the only thing that gains anything from this is hull and shield regeneration.
To sum it up, this revamp effectively renders the introduction of MK XIV gear back to the MK XII and playing as a level 50 with T5 ships again.
You nailed it!
There's also what I'd like to call the Parity Trap. This is the fallacy in which Devs, like Bort, fall into the trap of using metrics to show that 'X is being used the most, therefore X must be nerfed.' Here is why that thinking is erroneous:
a) For one, as sarcasmdetectot pointed out, because being used a lot != automagically overpowered. It's like saying "Our metrics are showing us that everyone is using car seats, therefore we must nerf car seats!"
b) And, for two, when you remove/nerf X, now Y will show up in your metrics as the new flavor, and next month you'll be seeking to nerf Y for the exact same reasons you went after X. Ergo, the entire notion of going after the top item is a fallacy.
The real stinger, of course, is that all these nerfs are simply part of their business model. Obviously they've chosen Option #2 on jerryspock's list (so people will spend money); but that only works if you occassionally nerf the sh*t out of stuff, so you can start the cycle again and have people buy new shinies (that you'll then nerf too, of course, later on).