Some fallacies regarding tactical captains.

gradii

Lets dispel some myths shall we?

Myth: The tactical career is the "Command" career and are the ones who will become captains and be in charge of ships.

Reality: Janeway was a science officer. Red meant COMMAND in TNG, and it just happens to ALSO mean tactical officer in our current 25th century uniforms. any qualified officer can get command training.

Myth: Tactical captains should do more dps than other careers becuase they are the ones who fight

Reality: All careers recieve at least basic combat training, with advanced combat training availiable to anyone who has the time. and if were going to continue to avoid the unholy trinity in this game, which I dearly hope we do (becuase I'd leave if we didn't) ALL careers need to have roughly the same dps potential, delivering it in different ways.

warpangel

That's because the classes are 100% Cryptic concept. In canon, the divisions are command, operations and science. Captains are always command division and whether they were ops or sci earlier in their career has no bearing on anything.

angrytarg

In that regard the most pressing issue is people expecting some sort of faithful game adaptation of Star Trek. What they should know beforehand is that STO is a somewhat solid MMO first and only has the Star Trek visuals and audio tacked on as flavour.

gradii

darthmeow504 wrote: »

And who says all MMOs have to use "trinity" based classes and group combat roles? All MMO means is massively-multiplayer online game, the tank-healer-dps structure isn't inherent. And where it exists in STO, it's by and large a bad thing that detracts from the setting and causes problems. The structure is simply WRONG for this game and it needs to go. You're a starship captain, your bridge crew is your adventuring party and you're the leader. Leader is your character class. ​​

I completely agree with this.

risian4

gradii wrote: »

Lets dispel some myths shall we?
Myth: Tactical captains should do more dps than other careers becuase they are the ones who fight

This assumption never made sense to me. In Trek, 'fighting' is done through the use of technology and exotic science stuff. If anything, Science and Engineering officers should actually be the ones who excell in fighting.

Taking something like Attack Pattern Omega as an example: this buff would in reality be done by either a pilot or someone who boosts the ship's system, so an engineer. Even when doing stuff like overloading a Beam array the 'tactical officer' is mostly just pressing a few buttons and the actual buffs are done, made possible and monitored by the ships' system specialists.

So I completely agree with the notion that tactical officers are made out to be much more important than they actually were/are in Trek. We see a lot of things being treated as tactical abilities whereas in 'reality' they weren't; they were either captain abilities (attack patterns were often named after captains like Defensive pattern Kirk-Epsilon, or in-game Attack Pattern Shon for example) or special abilities like Pilot ones, or the actual buffs were done by the other careers.

Even if most captains were the tactically thinking people regardless of their background, tactical officers below them were not the most important officers during a fight. Maybe in melee combat tactical officers would have some advantage. Tactical officers should therefore be melee experts, and strategically thinking people, but the latter is - if it actually happens in-game - something we're all doing as captains.

vampeiyre

It seems that fallacies are the only things being spewed by Tac captains, but also largely about them by other players as well.

Fallacies being stated by other players about Tac captains are ignoring the practicality about their role in the game. Some conventions/concessions need to be made because this is a game, after all, not a 100% accurate depiction of the TV show. It's easy and logical to define a Tac as the glass cannon/rogue, Science as the mezzer/rezzer, and Engineer as the tank/paladin. The further Geko tries to get away from the Trinity, the more the game becomes broken and suffers from the fact that the Trinity was a game design convention that exists (and still exists in good MMO game design) for a reason. If there's no need for a team/party, there won't be one, everyone will do the one thing that is pure advantage with zero drawback, which is exactly what's happening.

Fallacies coming from Tac captains are just various excuses as to why they want to retain their broken mechanics, and they're just going to get ignored by both players and the game developers anyway, so addressing this isn't even an issue.

gradii

vampeiyre wrote: »

Snip

The assumption that trinity mechanics are required for balance is a fallacy in its own.

nightken

well, while we're listing Fallacies. the idea that anything involving role beside everyone being dps heros, means only the holy trinity in it most basic form and nothing never mind the holy trinity hasn't been a trinity in quite some time if ever.

an idea of just how many roles there could be: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAdventurerIsYou#

in fact can someone ping a couple devs I think they could use the help too.

vampeiyre

gradii wrote: »

vampeiyre wrote: »

Snip

The assumption that trinity mechanics are required for balance is a fallacy in its own.

You're arguing from a false premise, which is a fallacy.

Whether you like it or not, STO is a trinity-based game. The problem is, due to poor design, the balance is out of whack so only one of the three points of the trinity is viable.

Of course there are other viable game designs. But the Trinity archetype is what this game is based on, it's just using a severely broken, poorly-designed implementation of those mechanics. Fact.

vampeiyre

sophlogimo wrote: »

vampeiyre wrote: »

[...]
Whether you like it or not, STO is a trinity-based game.[...]

Actually... no, not at all. The captain abilities make up such a miniscule amount of what defines a captain and his ship, next to traits, specializations, reputation choices, gear, bridge officers, etc., that any captain should theoretically be able to do anything.

If there wasn't that one class that got abilities that stack with one another and everything else, while the other two don't have such a thing.

Your inability to comprehend reality does not in fact alter reality.

theanothername

When in doubt call it "advanced tactical training" (i.e. Ro Laren... and that one (Ensign?) dude Riker buddied with before I think he got killed or something... to long ago; just remember it because red uniform and not command)

My Captains and their XOs all have red regardless of school. Except Non-SF and the AoY char who wears yellow; sometimes green (and is a tac).

But seriously:

gradii wrote: »

Lets dispel some myths shall we?

Myth: The tactical career is the "Command" career and are the ones who will become captains and be in charge of ships.
.

ppl believe that?

gradii

theanothername wrote: »

ppl believe that?

I've caught some people claiming it on these forums, unsure if it was a troll post or what.

baddmoonrizin

@theanothername @gradii

The only reason I can see them making that corollation is because Tactical is red and in TNG, etc. Command was red.

But as earlier stated, all career paths could lead to command. Picard and Janeway were both scientists. Sisko was an engineer, I believe. All possessed sound tactical and strategic skills, and proved themselves many times in battle.

arionisa

While I am old and senile, I seem to recall a number of people from TOS of all career paths that went on to become Captains, and even Admirals. Anyone starting a "myth" that Tactical is the career path that leads to command of a ship obviously hasn't seen much of Star Trek.

baddmoonrizin

@darthmeow504

Actually, if you look up Chekov on Memory Alpha, you'll find, among his many duties and positions, that he is listed as a Tactical/Weapons Officer and Security Chief. So, there is precedence in TOS for tactical officers.

gradii

sophlogimo wrote: »

These are good arguments for removing classes alltogether from the game. But it won't happen.

The trinity classes don't exist in STO and havent existed for as long as I've played, which is many years.

captainperkins

In the fan-fic Star Trek Continues Chekov is told he wont get promoted if he keeps stretching his duties in too many directions... That was a nod to the fandoms age old question stemming back to early 1970's: "what EXACTLY does Chekov DO???"

Frankly... The original series was lazy with those details. They didnt think star trek would become a cultural phenomena..
Thats whe main engineering is in the saucer on the original sketches by the designer. Its also why sometimes Sulu navigates and controls warp while Chekov fires phasers but then other times Chekov navigates whilst Sulu fires weapons...

The best explanation I told myself was: The helm was an "all in one" position where ship flight and weapons fell in to the same station. Be that as it may, the controls are programmable and can switch modes depending on the situation.
And due to the complexity of ship flight & combat the helm requires 2 men to operate.
In that way both Chekov and Sulu did the same job- a 2 man job!
Gene R. Was in the air force and all substantial aircraft had a pilot & co-pilot. The Enterprise was manned that way- which only changed in TNG...

Kirk was operations with an emphasis on tactical/security. Thats why he is such a good fighter like Sisko. Janeway was science and Picard was always in command division & was a pilot. Archer was an engineer & pilot.

bcwhguderian1941

I believe during TOS, Red Tunics represented "Ship Services". Hence a historian in red.

BCW

gradii

Claiming that STO is based on a trinity archetype is like claiming that Potato salad and french fries are the same food becuase they're both made from potatoes.

d0nomega

darthmeow504 wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

In that regard the most pressing issue is people expecting some sort of faithful game adaptation of Star Trek. What they should know beforehand is that STO is a somewhat solid MMO first and only has the Star Trek visuals and audio tacked on as flavour.

And who says all MMOs have to use "trinity" based classes and group combat roles? .​​

True. My very first MMO actually had non combat classes. Something you'll never find in an MMO nowadays.

warpangel

gradii wrote: »

Claiming that STO is based on a trinity archetype is like claiming that Potato salad and french fries are the same food becuase they're both made from potatoes.

Exactly.

STO has tools that could be used to make a trinity meta (though it would not be along class lines, since all STO classes are hybrids), but it isn't and has never been hard enough to actually produce one.

alexraptorr

Runescape is also one of those non-trinity games.
In that game basic combat classes are Archers, Mages and Warriors, and NONE of them are support or healers, just different methods of doing damage, against foes weak to certain types of damage, except for boss fights, then its just wail on the enemy with whatever combat style your most proficient with.

So yeah, no Rule exists that every game has to be a trinity.