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How about: Energy Weapon Damage Penalty against Hulls?
alexraptorr
Member Posts: 1,192 Arc User
So Energy Weapons are kind of dominant in the current meta, and FAWspam is everywhere, so how about introducing a little diversity and spice into builds again?
Torpedoes and Mines already suffer a massive damage reduction against shields, so why not go all the way and make Energy Weapons suffer a massive damage reduction against Hulls? It's only logical, and it would clearly define Energy Weapons and Projectile Weapons as Shield Strippers and Hull Smashers respectively, and make the later a core part of the game again rather than just a niche, especially in PvE.
Other Star Trek games have balanced the two in a similar fashion and it's not like its unprecedented in Star Trek Canon either. I mean just look at the Battle of Kithomer, where once the Enterprise's Shields collapsed, Chang's Photon torpedo blew clean through the saucer section.
https://youtu.be/XSqCJ-UGYns?t=3m32s
By far Energy Weapons and the continued damage stacking on them is a core issue with the current Power Creep, and I think a change like this would help mitigate that a bit and make things more interesting again.
I think it could also encourage teamwork and better team building as well, say if someone wants to go all out with a dedicated Beam Boat, they could strip shields for say even a dedicated torpedo boat and complement one another.
The potential in a balancing change like this is great and the possibilities for more diverse builds are endless.
Torpedoes and Mines already suffer a massive damage reduction against shields, so why not go all the way and make Energy Weapons suffer a massive damage reduction against Hulls? It's only logical, and it would clearly define Energy Weapons and Projectile Weapons as Shield Strippers and Hull Smashers respectively, and make the later a core part of the game again rather than just a niche, especially in PvE.
Other Star Trek games have balanced the two in a similar fashion and it's not like its unprecedented in Star Trek Canon either. I mean just look at the Battle of Kithomer, where once the Enterprise's Shields collapsed, Chang's Photon torpedo blew clean through the saucer section.
https://youtu.be/XSqCJ-UGYns?t=3m32sBy far Energy Weapons and the continued damage stacking on them is a core issue with the current Power Creep, and I think a change like this would help mitigate that a bit and make things more interesting again.
I think it could also encourage teamwork and better team building as well, say if someone wants to go all out with a dedicated Beam Boat, they could strip shields for say even a dedicated torpedo boat and complement one another.
The potential in a balancing change like this is great and the possibilities for more diverse builds are endless.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
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A far more reasonable change if like is some sort of sliding scale of the innate kinetic resistance shields have, so that a facing that's down to 1% can't stop a torp and absorb 65% of the damage. The lower a facing's hitpoints are the lower the resistance is. It would give back a role to things like tetryon weapons as even taking half of the shields off would make torps hit harder.
Personally I really like cannons cause it actually takes a tiny bit more skill to aim the ships, especially the heavies, but as well as adding diversity to weapon types to keep things from getting stale.
I find the whole of STO needs a huge balance pass overall, and wouldn't be opposed to some slight reduction of beam weapons against bare hull.
The problem, however, is the pace of the game is so fast beyond the initial leveling up that it changes completely and so ships no longer end up with exposed shield facings, disabled or underpowered engines, and with you taking advantage of having it in torpedo weapons arc to blow it up as is the case when leveling in lowly ranks.
Now, NPC shield facings are pretty huge, shield redistribution happens quickly, turn rates of everything with end-game gear and ships makes everyone feel escort-like, and the low cool-downs on torpedos combined with some really high crits plus 4 other team mates could cause things to be even more unbalanced.
So, overall, I do like the idea from the point of view of making torpedo/mines/energy weapon hybrids more viable, and more strategy and team work, but don't think this change alone would lead to much good unless everything is changed.
I didn't realize the OP wanted a nerf of all energy weapons. Beams afaik already have a small penalty against hulls, and possibly a bonus against shields, especially tetryon-based types. Cannons are supposed to be equally effective against both shields and hulls to make up for their very narrow firing arcs. Torpedo boats from my limited testing are pretty powerful even if the DPS and crits are all over the place.
I wouldn't mind beam energy weapons to have a slightly higher penalty against bare hull, but would not support an outright nerf to all energy weapons as that would just throw even the existing balance between energy types all out of whack.
So to make them more balanced just give a dynamic scale of resistance to all shields so that the less HP's the less innate resistance.
Torps are not an easy weapon to master, but they have the deck stacked against them so ridiculously that most new players simply drop them once they get +50 in level. I mean the general recommendation these days (and has been for years) is to just not even bother with torps at all on your build and go all energy weapons. That shows how poorly people view them.
The only people you see using torps are dedicated torp builds, canon builds and people just starting out.
There's a lot of abilities now that help torpedoes bypass the shield penalties, which have helped make Torpedo builds an extremely effective alternative to the meta.
And EPG builds.
And Hybrid Torp + EPG builds.
There are quite a few alternatives to the meta of beams.
Why don't we fix THE PROBLEM????
If there are posts here that do not appeal to you, or opinions you disagree with, the best way to deal with that is to resist the urge to add comments. Instead, engage with the content you like! Don't feed the trolls!
Because "the problem" is that someone's favorite build isn't the best. That's not a fixable problem.
If it's a matter of a personal build not including beams, then so be it.
If it's a matter of BFAW being horribly OP, then we need to look at the problem and fix the core issue, that BFAW is OP.
I am not above having to eat crow here and say the core issue of BFAW is a matter of personal builds not performing. However, whichever one it is needs admitted.
If there are posts here that do not appeal to you, or opinions you disagree with, the best way to deal with that is to resist the urge to add comments. Instead, engage with the content you like! Don't feed the trolls!
Torpedo damage reduction from impacting a shield- All shields would have an innate 75% torpedo/kinetic damage reduction as long as the shield facing that is impacted by the torpedo/kinetic damage is still online/up, though this 75% torpedo/kinetic reduction would be reduced by 1% per 3% shield hp that is left on the impacted shield facing to a minimum torpedo/kinetic damage reduction 15%. This is based on a shield power level of 50.
- Now I could see shield power system affecting the above based off two things, either effecting the minimum torpedo/Kinetic damage reduction your shields have, or how much torpedo/Kinetic damage reduction you lose per percent of hp of a shield facing is left on it. In the first possibility i could see it that 15% is the baseline when you have a shield power level of 50, while if have only 15 it would make the baseline be 5%, and if you ran your shield power at 125 n the baseline torpedo/Kinetic damage reduction would be 35%.
- The second possibility would be that at a base power level of 50 you would lose 1% of the torpedo/Kinetic damage reduction per 3% of the remaining hp of your shield facing that is impacted by a torpedo. Than if you were to set your shield power level to 15 this would become 2% percent per 3% of the shield facing's remaining hp, but if you than had your shield power level at 125 you would lose 1% per 6% of the remaining hp on the shield facing.
Now these are very rough numbers merely to show how things might work, and would I am sure need to be tweaked. Though I think this actually would make having high shield power levels as well as torpedoes more interesting to play with. Also it could make transphasic torpedoes, as well as shield/power level stripping type weapons/abilities abit more useful as you would gain a tangible buff to using them.
I too love to see difference.
About time they kill that FAW moronicy.
They just get less sober.
What are you guys using?
They just get less sober.
Well i almost exclusively at the moment run exotic-torp boats, using high EPG skill and a lot of torps. Most of my damage comes from bypassing shields entirely with stuff like plasma burn from PEP/Hyper-plasma etc.
Plus I try to slam heavy torps into shields in the hope that bleedthrough alone does the job (this is a dammed annoying way to have to play as it feels like such a waste)
But I think any changes to torps should be aimed more at helping the casual/occasional user torp users who currently ignore torps completely. I would love to see torps get more use, even if it's only people slotting one to get than canon feel, and currently the way they work just puts people off them completely.
Favorite right now is the Quantum Phase Torpedo, including the set. The drain is pretty neat and makes it more likely future torpedo hits will hit hull, not shields.
Of course, my torpedo builds are all Science Vessel builds, and probably not non-meta. Heck, they aren't even non-beam, because I grab the set bonuses with the beams I equip. But they are non-BFAW.
That isn't to claim that I don't also have BFAW builds.
Last year, I would think that BFAW was OP. But now having flown a variety of on and off-meta builds, I have come to the conclusion that FAW isn't the problem. It's the things that stack around it:
Those high DPS beam builds aren't hitting hard just because of FAW. If it was just a matter of FAW being OP, then everyone would be hitting high DPS numbers.
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Been thinking of getting improved weaponized emitters to make it that my aceton/endo an overwhelm emitters would cause rad abilities would cause radiation dot damage to chain to other targets, though would rather this have been more that while using overwhelm emitters your aceton beam/endo cause their dot damage to be dealt in one lump sum (maybe at 75-80% of the total).
You skipped a couple of movies, there:
Energy weapons do fine against hulls, it seems.
Therefore, until such time as an answer comes along that "does it right", FaW is going to remain exactly as-is.
"In ye olden days", even if you managed to get your weapons power up to 125, an eighth energy weapon would fire at ~45 weapons power (assuming 8 arrays or 4 cannons / 4 turrets) - and at this "level of damage", it was more efficient to run the "canon" build of at least a forward and aft torpedo (so 6 energy weapons with the 6th shot at ~65 weapons power) because torp damage > damage from guns 7 & 8.
I've read things that hint that with high enough EPS and overcap, it's entirely possible for guns 7 and 8 to be firing at >100 weapons power - which is why the current meta calls for 8 energy weapon builds.
An extremely simple "weapon power drain also lowers the cap number for subsequent weapons this firing cycle" - so that gun 2 of an 8 array ship has a cap of 115/125 (if weapons cap is +10), and the third gun caps out at 105/115 - would obviously restore this aspect of the original design back to the game, but then again, what these changes would do to people's builds and how content gets played is a little outside of my abilities to immediately prognosticate...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
You really did light that fuse after all, didn't you OP? I lol'd at the convo in Chat awhile ago and I'll admit to sorta egging it on some. But as I said earlier, I like your style.
To me this just means they've created a mechanic so out of balance that nearly everyone is using it now, and basically any change will upset a lot of players. So essentially they are too scared to even look at some sort of change.
It's pretty poor showing really on their part, if they'd designed it properly the first time and though of the consequences we might just have a more balanced game.
Nobody "needs" the BFAW meta to be good at the game. Poor mission design focused on endless waves of spam mobs coupled with ridiculous situations where too many buffs can stack up has led to it being the "one ability to rule them all". That's all on them, the devs, not us the players. You CAN do well with a torp boat, or a cannon escort, or an EPG sci boat, or even an all turret cruiser; people just go for the easiest option to get through the grind quicker.
Players just pick what gets the job done best and if part of the meta favours overpowered spam shooting then that will be popular. That doesn't make it right though, and it doesn't mean they should shy away from changes if something is so blatantly out of whack with the rest of the game.
Each strike on the same target during a firing cycle does half the damage of the previous strike (e.g. 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%...).
Still the single best choice against multiple targets, poor but not entirely worthless against 1-2 targets, giving Beam Overload an actual role as the preferred single target beam ability and increasing the relevance of Surgical Strikes.
No reason to punish people for using it in target rich environments, but it ALSO being great in 1-on-1 match ups is ludicrous. The kind of game design to be embarrassed by.