Antiproton balance - thoughts of a relatively new player

aeternusdoleo

I'm a relatively new player to STO - joined february this year. I've looked around for a while, tried some classes, some ships, and am enjoying myself (enough to have bought a life sub for the convenience perks it gives - I know I'll stick with this game for a while!). However, I've also stepped back and taken a look at what everyone's doing and using. And it may come as no surprise to many, that Antiproton weapons seem to be unequalled in space combat.

I've looked into the reasons for this since it seemed odd to me. Let's list the specials by type:
Tetryon: to target: 2.5% Chance: -X to all shields
Polaron: to target: 2.5% Chance: -25 All Current Power Levels
Plasma: to target: 2.5% Chance: X Plasma Damage (DoT, non stacking)
Phaser: to target: 2.5% Chance: Disable 1 Subsystem for 5 sec
Disruptor: to target: 2.5% Chance: -10 All Damage Resistance for 15 sec
And...
Antiproton: 100% Chance: +20% Crit Severity Bonus

This seems unusual and a break from the pattern of all the other weapon types. Especially given that with the specialization trees (which were likely added long after these type-based bonuses were set) crit rates for endgame players are quite high - probably at least 50%. Which means that crit bonus ends up being a LOT of bonus damage, making this type of weapon more effective then the other types - so much that this type dominates the space fighting field with people standardizing on Crit/Pen crafted antiproton beams. My guess is that in the past, crit rates were so low that the +20 crit severity was de-facto a 2.5%-ish chance, but that this never got rebalanced when the endgame playing field changed.

Wouldn't it be better to bring Antiproton back into the 2.5% Chance fold? Some suggestions:
to target: 2.5% chance: Next energy weapon critical hit inflicts 20% additional damage.
to target: 2.5% chance: Next energy weapon attack will inflict a critical hit.

Doing so would take away the straight up damage advantage that this type of weapon has, leveling the playing field and giving players a choice in their type of weapon without handicapping themselves if they don't want antiproton. The antiproton type would still be the go-to gun for pure damage, but it wouldn't be as severe a bonus that it would make other weapon choices invalid.

I understand that this will make some people who have heavily invested into antiproton unhappy - especially if they have large stocks of it on the exchange (mark 2 elite sellers, I am looking at you!). But in the long run, I see weapon diversity as a good thing - and those crafters can try their hand at other weapon types, and sell those. Seeing just those bloodred beams all over the place, from Federation, Romulan, Klingon and alien ships alike... it feels out of place. As if people are forced into antiproton to keep up with those who use it.
And I know retconning a game mechanic to make it better is possible: You guys just did it with the skills systems!

postinggum

Yes, IMO a re-balancing of weapons should occur, right now you'd be hard pushed to spot the difference gained from procs - do tetryon ships, to a noticeable extent, strip shields more quickly than others?

Once upon a time disruptors were the tops and weapons quality topped out at very rare, except for spiral wave beams for the galor and very few people could get that. Damage levels were a fraction of what they are now so a small advantage was very little.

Then fleet ultra rare weapons, fleet elite and crit hit rate boomed so AP was king and adv fleet weapons pretty affordable. Mk14 and epic quality shift the best again, and new lockbox weapons are coming with 2 procs and 3 mods.

Which results in:
Some really pricey rep system beams looking stoopidly expensive, similar for old lock box weapons that lose a mod for an extra proc.
AP the obvious go to for players looking to boost their own dps, though the difference between beam flavours is less than you'd expect.
2.5% proc traditional weapons looking pretty meh.
Coalition disruptors maybe the best energy type iff everyone on the team has them.

Altering some of these things is probably very simple for the devs, others less so.

freenos85

The very first skill tree did function very much like the one pre skill revamp. The major difference was that all weapon and ships types would be directly boosted by a specific skill. Antiproton were pretty far down the line, so a greater investment would be needed to actually use them effectively (example: Pic)
They were also exeedingly rare, since they didn't seem to drop outside of Ker'rat and getting a rare or even very rare one would make you a rich man. Not untill the crafting system arrived would their use become so ubiquitous as it is now.
So yeah, i agree that their "proc" isn't in line with other base energy types in it's base form.
The difference with antiproton though is, that the "proc" will get weaker and weaker as you get more crit-damage of your own. Every other proc can be boosted in some way. You can make the drain of tetryon and polaron weapons bigger by investing in DrainX, for example. But the more CritD your character accumulates the less good the 20% of antiproton will be. It's also a very "selfish" proc since it doesn't benefit your team very much. At least not directly. A lucky phaser proc might disable your target's shields for a few secs or fully specced polaron weapons might disable the whole enemy ship altogehter.

snoggymack22

aeternusdoleo wrote: »

Doing so would take away the straight up damage advantage that this type of weapon has, leveling the playing field and giving players a choice in their type of weapon without handicapping themselves if they don't want antiproton. The antiproton type would still be the go-to gun for pure damage, but it wouldn't be as severe a bonus that it would make other weapon choices invalid.

Pretty sure you don't handicap yourself going with something other than APs.
Disruptors are currently used in one of the top parses shown pre-revamp. Post re-vamp I believe Disruptors are still very competitive. And I've seen parses where the damage of every other beam weapon type is high enough not to matter. There's no handicap going on here at all. You want to rock Tetryons? Have at it. So much else is required to hit those massive DPS parses that at the end, your energy type isn't going to make a difference where you are "handicapped."

freenos85 gives a lot of great perspective on how the game got to this point. APs weren't always the most available or the easiest to invest in pointswise. And when fleet weapons debuted, Fleet Disruptors had a quality level advantage for a good long time.

The meta shifts. And will shift again.

I understand that this will make some people who have heavily invested into antiproton unhappy - especially if they have large stocks of it on the exchange (mark 2 elite sellers, I am looking at you!).

That's a byproduct of the crafting system. Mk II Very Rare weapons are cheaper overall to get to Mk XIV epic weapons. You also get people selling off the ones they don't want at very cheap prices. It comes down to the random assignment of mods. And there's rumors that a future crafting update may allow crafters to choose the mod the weapon gets and that will fix that issue right up.

it feels out of place. As if people are forced into antiproton to keep up with those who use it.
And I know retconning a game mechanic to make it better is possible: You guys just did it with the skills systems!

While my feedback here is likely to be ignored by the bulk of people who want an AP nerf (it's an old request so it's got a lot of steam already built up) I just want to continue to point out that the difference in damage isn't as huge as it's made out to be, that disruptors still parse great at the high end (as they always have) and that you absolutely CAN parse well using any energy type. Most of what you need to do with your build to hit those levels involves a whole bunch of other things. So my advice would be to focus on those other things (traits, DOFFs, learning the positioning and piloting needed, working with a team for the right buffs and debuffs) and worrying about energy type dead last. By then you'll have invested so much time and money into your build that the last steps you need to take regarding AP weapons or not will seem as trivial a step as it actually is. You'll either be ok with taking that step and getting them or you'll be ok with sticking with the weapon type you have.