After the Infinity consoles came out, I got the PL based on everyone's suggestions and equipped it. Used it for a while and found that the benefits to having it were marginal at best compared to other consoles, so I unequipped it and it's been sitting in my bank for quite some time now.
I honestly found the Aceton Assimilator console to be more useful (especially in shuttle missions).
Space Barbie Extraordinaire. Got a question about Space Barbie? Just ask.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
It's about time that players couldn't be a master of or at least significantly benefit from everything (draining, exotic damage dealing + tactical skills) without making any significant sacrifices at the same time. That is, per their statement, exactly what they're trying to do here: to make specific builds more viable and thus have the playerbase move away from easy access to basically all different benefits that belong to different careers and specialisations.
Pray-tell, then, how will I go about making a specialized drain boat now, when Bort has capped Leech at +6? Not partgens too, or any other sh*t, but just focussed on getting power. Guess what!? Bort killed that outright,
Besides, Borticus said it last time: if one item dominates the entire discussion around something as big as the skill revamp which is one of the fundamental systems of the entire game, then that item is obviously too important. He was right back then, he's still right in that assessment.
Bort says a lot of things, all of which, in my book, now rank below the things he nerfed to death, even.
After the Infinity consoles came out, I got the PL based on everyone's suggestions and equipped it. Used it for a while and found that the benefits to having it were marginal at best compared to other consoles, so I unequipped it and it's been sitting in my bank for quite some time now.
I honestly found the Aceton Assimilator console to be more useful (especially in shuttle missions).
Yeah I noticed that PL has benefits, but I honestly don't think I would ever have paid the 70-80 million that it used to go for.
If players are interested in buffing their own power systems, Energy siphon can still easily do that.
After the Infinity consoles came out, I got the PL based on everyone's suggestions and equipped it. Used it for a while and found that the benefits to having it were marginal at best compared to other consoles, so I unequipped it and it's been sitting in my bank for quite some time now.
I honestly found the Aceton Assimilator console to be more useful (especially in shuttle missions).
Yeah I noticed that PL has benefits, but I honestly don't think I would ever have paid the 70-80 million that it used to go for.
If players are interested in buffing their own power systems, Energy siphon can still easily do that.
Energy Siphon is, by no stretch of the imagination, even remotely comparable to the always-on character of the Leech.
After the Infinity consoles came out, I got the PL based on everyone's suggestions and equipped it. Used it for a while and found that the benefits to having it were marginal at best compared to other consoles, so I unequipped it and it's been sitting in my bank for quite some time now.
I honestly found the Aceton Assimilator console to be more useful (especially in shuttle missions).
Yeah I noticed that PL has benefits, but I honestly don't think I would ever have paid the 70-80 million that it used to go for.
If players are interested in buffing their own power systems, Energy siphon can still easily do that.
Energy Siphon is, by no stretch of the imagination, even remotely comparable to the always-on character of the Leech.
It is. If one is prepared to sacrifice something for it, like a Doff slot or more than one sci console slot. And that's how it should be.
Passive buffing + significant draining with just one console... I am only surprised that they've let it be for so long. Should have been corrected a long time ago.
Passive buffing + significant draining with just one console... I am only surprised that they've let it be for so long. Should have been corrected a long time ago.
And precisely because "they've let it be for so long" is what made ppl, rightly so, believe the item was WAI.
Well it was "Working As Intended", any claim to the contrary is a "lie", especially after they fiddled with it in the skill revamp.
"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
Nerfing the Plasma consoles and the leech is a very bad decision. Those consoles in combination with the leech were an easy way to keep your energy levels up and do some damage especially if a payer had not the beat gear or no fancy consoles and traits. This nerf will hurt many casual and f2p Players badly . And WHY? Saying that the leech wasn't supposed to be used that way is no reason. It has been used this way forever and everyoene did it and knew it. They are a key element in many low-budget builds and the DPS from the Plasma consoles was very helpful especially since Survivability went down and Enemy DPS and HP went up after Delta Rising
Honestly, rather than this irresponsible approach of killing plasmonic leech outright by making it a flat buff they should have adjust the DrainX scaling or the number of stacks. That would have been the responsible thing to do, as it would not just instantly devalue and make peoples DrainX gear COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!
Because it is now unless you are specifically building a drainboat build. All my science consoles and my deflector and DrainX universal consoles on my Command Warbird are now just vendor trash, as they no longer serve any kind of function whatsoever in my build.
As such the way they have nerfed the Leech directly violates their goals.
- It completely destroys some builds completely and tells people that "their fun is wrong".
- It completely destroys the investments of zen, dilithium, energy credits and fleet credits of A LOT of players.
- It removes the choice of certain DrainX dedicated builds completely from the game.
Well said! Bort did not just nerf DrainX a bit (or a lot even), he just outright killed it. This Leech nerf renders every bit of DrainX gear COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!
And don't give me 'But you can still drain NPCs.' For one, nobody cares about that. Besides, lest ppl forget, you can never really drain a NPC the way you can a player; NPCs cheat. This was never a problem, really, as the beauty of the Leech was, that even when the game had decided the NPC was drained enough, you, the player, would still leech power off of it (as if the NPC had an infinite supply; so, the NPC cheating a bit, so as to never fall completely dry, was not a real issue). So, what's left now is a +6 power cap, and NPCs that never could be really drained in the first place. Sigh.
Alex, you do realize that a dedicated drain build was using and still will use the leech, right? Dedicated does not mean a ship that happens to have 300 drainX solely to benefit the leech, it means 700+ with an energy siphon 3 that can shut down a boss, and a Tyken's rift that can hold a group of small targets in place as surely as gravity well.
Mei, as with Alex...dedicated drain boats do care about using it on npc's. My ship with a drain build gets almost 56 power drained from everything hit by my beams, which on top of a 30/tick tyken's, can shut down all systems on even an npc with larger power pools than a player.
Honestly, rather than this irresponsible approach of killing plasmonic leech outright by making it a flat buff they should have adjust the DrainX scaling or the number of stacks. That would have been the responsible thing to do, as it would not just instantly devalue and make peoples DrainX gear COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!
Because it is now unless you are specifically building a drainboat build. All my science consoles and my deflector and DrainX universal consoles on my Command Warbird are now just vendor trash, as they no longer serve any kind of function whatsoever in my build.
As such the way they have nerfed the Leech directly violates their goals.
- It completely destroys some builds completely and tells people that "their fun is wrong".
- It completely destroys the investments of zen, dilithium, energy credits and fleet credits of A LOT of players.
- It removes the choice of certain DrainX dedicated builds completely from the game.
Well said! Bort did not just nerf DrainX a bit (or a lot even), he just outright killed it. This Leech nerf renders every bit of DrainX gear COMPLETELY WORTHLESS!
And don't give me 'But you can still drain NPCs.' For one, nobody cares about that. Besides, lest ppl forget, you can never really drain a NPC the way you can a player; NPCs cheat. This was never a problem, really, as the beauty of the Leech was, that even when the game had decided the NPC was drained enough, you, the player, would still leech power off of it (as if the NPC had an infinite supply; so, the NPC cheating a bit, so as to never fall completely dry, was not a real issue). So, what's left now is a +6 power cap, and NPCs that never could be really drained in the first place. Sigh.
Alex, you do realize that a dedicated drain build was using and still will use the leech, right? Dedicated does not mean a ship that happens to have 300 drainX solely to benefit the leech, it means 700+ with an energy siphon 3 that can shut down a boss, and a Tyken's rift that can hold a group of small targets in place as surely as gravity well.
Mei, as with Alex...dedicated drain boats do care about using it on npc's. My ship with a drain build gets almost 56 power drained from everything hit by my beams, which on top of a 30/tick tyken's, can shut down all systems on even an npc with larger power pools than a player.
Passive buffing + significant draining with just one console... I am only surprised that they've let it be for so long. Should have been corrected a long time ago.
And precisely because "they've let it be for so long" is what made ppl, rightly so, believe the item was WAI.
That's nonsense. Just because something has been for a while, doesn't mean that it's justified. Besides, you could be grateful for having benefitted from something that's clearly overperforming rather than angry because it's finally fixed. It will likely be a lot easier for you then.
Energy Siphon is, by no stretch of the imagination, even remotely comparable to the always-on character of the Leech.
Nah, Mei. Energy Siphon is pretty great. With no Drain bonuses at all and base Aux Levels, the Siphon 1 should give you around +12 to each Subsystem. If you specced out for the Leech's Drain, your Siphon should work wonders. A Rank 1 can give you around +50 each system. Rank 3 can max every subsystem and zero out the enemy.
Then there are the Breen Ship Traits, I think all of which add additional effects to Energy Siphon. You can make an entire build out of it.
Energy Siphon is, by no stretch of the imagination, even remotely comparable to the always-on character of the Leech.
Nah, Mei. Energy Siphon is pretty great. With no Drain bonuses at all and base Aux Levels, the Siphon 1 should give you around +12 to each Subsystem. If you specced out for the Leech's Drain, your Siphon should work wonders. A Rank 1 can give you around +50 each system. Rank 3 can max every subsystem and zero out the enemy.
Then there are the Breen Ship Traits, I think all of which add additional effects to Energy Siphon. You can make an entire build out of it.
Yeah, Energy Siphon, in and by itself, is not bad. But compared to the Leech?! It's on a 30sec cd, so, for that reason alone, cannot compete with the Leech. +50 per subsystem might be worth looking into, though, even if it can't be sustained.
In addition to the Breen ships, the Ferengi Nandi's ship trait grants -50% weapon power cost (and a small amount of additional power) for 10 seconds when you use Energy Siphon or Tachyon Beam. Hmm... wiki says Siphon only lasts 5 seconds, but that's long enough to get a big burst of damage in if you trigger enough other abilities. Given that most content involves going from group to group of enemies, it might have a good bit of uptime relative to how long you're actually engaged.
at 125 aux, it lasts for 23.3 seconds - so just 7 that you won't have massive power levels
but that's only at 125 aux, mind, and the duration doesn't retroactively scale - so the aux you gain from the siphon won't change the remaining duration
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Yeah, Energy Siphon, in and by itself, is not bad. But compared to the Leech?! It's on a 30sec cd, so, for that reason alone, cannot compete with the Leech. +50 per subsystem might be worth looking into, though, even if it can't be sustained.
30 seconds is not as long as you may thing since it runs for most of time. And, yeah, Leech is works as long as you are firing. But then, how long do enemies live when under fire?
wiki says Siphon only lasts 5 seconds, but that's long enough to get a big burst of damage in if you trigger enough other abilities.
5 Seconds is the activation time. The enemy loses their energy, then you gain it after that short delay. Like Shadowfang said, the buff duration is influenced by your Aux Level when you activated the skill.
hey, if you guys have a spare $3 billion or so you can just BUY cryptic from pwe and make the changes that you want to this game.......until then QUIT YOUR B.I.T.C.H.I.N.G. !!!!!!!
Oh look! It's someone who's complaining about people complaining!
"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
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.
No, it's an indicator that your sick nerfs are having an impact on hundreds - possibly thousands - of other mechanics. Aka, you didn't just nerf Leech, you nerfed everything built around it! That Epic Terran Space Set I got for DrainX? utterly useless now when the 1 item that can actually use it, is capped at +6 power. Or the Delta Alliance Ordnance set. Or the crafted consoles with DrainX, or pretty much everything. Not your problem, right?! You got your money out of us already.
I have multiple ships on each of my toon who has drainX exploders that are maxxed out. Yeah, this change makes them all pretty much useless. So what? I will find what else works for me and move on. MMO changes. It's a part of playing a game lile this.
Maybe that works for you, but not for me. Me, I spend a good $1,000 or so a year on gear/upgrades, etc. And even though their EULA gives them the right (btw, when was a EULA ever written with the interest of the end-user in mind?), I don't like running into the "Haha, fooled you!" middle finger of Bort like this. Especially since he apparently planned this all along. Regardless of what they're legally entitled to, there needs to exist some sort of trust, some sort of reassurance that what you buy will more or less keep its value. When said trust is met with derision, by the Devs, just laughing it up in my face, then there's little I can do about that, of course; except to not give them any more of my money.
And, to add insult to injury, there's not even a balance pass: it's just one grotesque, across-the-board nerf of everything good. Just so I will start spending on the new goodies again. Well, the latter ain't gonna happen.
Yeah, Energy Siphon, in and by itself, is not bad. But compared to the Leech?! It's on a 30sec cd, so, for that reason alone, cannot compete with the Leech. +50 per subsystem might be worth looking into, though, even if it can't be sustained.
The problem with Siphon is that the duration got nerfed during the idiotic normalization that Borticus did. It used to be up about 25-26 secs when using Aux at 125. Now it's 22.5.
May I suggest the Warp Core Engineer DOff? It causes Emergency Power To X abilities to increase all Power Levels. A Blue Quality one should be about as powerful as the current Leech.
And then that takes away the functionality of another officer which is needed to keep up the insane levels of DPS the current content is scaled for....
I respectfully disagree with your assessment. The current content is most assuredly not scaled for insane levels of DPS. Queue are not intended to be completed in under twenty seconds. The content is scaled to way back when you would sometimes not even get to a chance to see the V'ger in Borg Red Alerts because the time limit would run out before you defeated the preamble Cubes.
Back then... that was when the game was the most fun, in my opinion. You had a team. You fought hard with your team. And if you all worked together then you earned the opportunity to try your hand against a massive Boss who could derez your ship in a single hit if you let your guard down.
I miss those days.
I'm going to have to call BS on this. The two most recent reputations, which generated what the last four space maps and QUEUES are Lukari and Temporal.
And nobody is completing those in under 20 seconds.
The only maps getting completed that fast are two of the oldest maps in the game.
In fact, I can't think of a single map in the Undine, Delta, Terran, Iconian, Temporal or Lukari offerings that can be cleared in under a minute. They are absolutely scaled for the current end-game.
But everyone PUGs the old/easy maps. Either to chase damage parse records, or to do something fast and easy.
Energy Siphon is, by no stretch of the imagination, even remotely comparable to the always-on character of the Leech.
Nah, Mei. Energy Siphon is pretty great. With no Drain bonuses at all and base Aux Levels, the Siphon 1 should give you around +12 to each Subsystem. If you specced out for the Leech's Drain, your Siphon should work wonders. A Rank 1 can give you around +50 each system. Rank 3 can max every subsystem and zero out the enemy.
Then there are the Breen Ship Traits, I think all of which add additional effects to Energy Siphon. You can make an entire build out of it.
And the gear set gives you a clickie power version of Siphon as a set bonus.
well, come on now, the reason for the most part is time gates. The old maps don't have them. And even the new ones that might not have hard time gates have 'soft time gates.' Even if they put the usual sit here for a minute twiddling your thumbs at the beginning of ISA CCA I bet their play would go down 50%.
personally, I think 5 minutes is a desirable run. Cryptic stated long ago they are looking for 20-30 minutes. Few will participate in that.
what i think is unfortunate is all the work that goes into these new queues and 90% of them are dead in a few weeks after the rep has moved on. to be brutally realistic, though, i don't see any way of preventing this anymore. the game has to move on to something different to survive. maybe this space balance is paving the way for that with some sort of pvp or something. i really don't know. will hang in as long as it lasts.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Comments
I honestly found the Aceton Assimilator console to be more useful (especially in shuttle missions).
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
Pray-tell, then, how will I go about making a specialized drain boat now, when Bort has capped Leech at +6? Not partgens too, or any other sh*t, but just focussed on getting power. Guess what!? Bort killed that outright,
Bort says a lot of things, all of which, in my book, now rank below the things he nerfed to death, even.
Yeah I noticed that PL has benefits, but I honestly don't think I would ever have paid the 70-80 million that it used to go for.
If players are interested in buffing their own power systems, Energy siphon can still easily do that.
Energy Siphon is, by no stretch of the imagination, even remotely comparable to the always-on character of the Leech.
It is. If one is prepared to sacrifice something for it, like a Doff slot or more than one sci console slot. And that's how it should be.
Passive buffing + significant draining with just one console... I am only surprised that they've let it be for so long. Should have been corrected a long time ago.
And precisely because "they've let it be for so long" is what made ppl, rightly so, believe the item was WAI.
Alex, you do realize that a dedicated drain build was using and still will use the leech, right? Dedicated does not mean a ship that happens to have 300 drainX solely to benefit the leech, it means 700+ with an energy siphon 3 that can shut down a boss, and a Tyken's rift that can hold a group of small targets in place as surely as gravity well.
Mei, as with Alex...dedicated drain boats do care about using it on npc's. My ship with a drain build gets almost 56 power drained from everything hit by my beams, which on top of a 30/tick tyken's, can shut down all systems on even an npc with larger power pools than a player.
Well said.
That's nonsense. Just because something has been for a while, doesn't mean that it's justified. Besides, you could be grateful for having benefitted from something that's clearly overperforming rather than angry because it's finally fixed. It will likely be a lot easier for you then.
Nah, Mei. Energy Siphon is pretty great. With no Drain bonuses at all and base Aux Levels, the Siphon 1 should give you around +12 to each Subsystem. If you specced out for the Leech's Drain, your Siphon should work wonders. A Rank 1 can give you around +50 each system. Rank 3 can max every subsystem and zero out the enemy.
Then there are the Breen Ship Traits, I think all of which add additional effects to Energy Siphon. You can make an entire build out of it.
Yeah, Energy Siphon, in and by itself, is not bad. But compared to the Leech?! It's on a 30sec cd, so, for that reason alone, cannot compete with the Leech. +50 per subsystem might be worth looking into, though, even if it can't be sustained.
but that's only at 125 aux, mind, and the duration doesn't retroactively scale - so the aux you gain from the siphon won't change the remaining duration
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
30 seconds is not as long as you may thing since it runs for most of time. And, yeah, Leech is works as long as you are firing. But then, how long do enemies live when under fire?
5 Seconds is the activation time. The enemy loses their energy, then you gain it after that short delay. Like Shadowfang said, the buff duration is influenced by your Aux Level when you activated the skill.
Oh look! It's someone who's complaining about people complaining!
Maybe that works for you, but not for me. Me, I spend a good $1,000 or so a year on gear/upgrades, etc. And even though their EULA gives them the right (btw, when was a EULA ever written with the interest of the end-user in mind?), I don't like running into the "Haha, fooled you!" middle finger of Bort like this. Especially since he apparently planned this all along. Regardless of what they're legally entitled to, there needs to exist some sort of trust, some sort of reassurance that what you buy will more or less keep its value. When said trust is met with derision, by the Devs, just laughing it up in my face, then there's little I can do about that, of course; except to not give them any more of my money.
And, to add insult to injury, there's not even a balance pass: it's just one grotesque, across-the-board nerf of everything good. Just so I will start spending on the new goodies again. Well, the latter ain't gonna happen.
The problem with Siphon is that the duration got nerfed during the idiotic normalization that Borticus did. It used to be up about 25-26 secs when using Aux at 125. Now it's 22.5.
I'm going to have to call BS on this. The two most recent reputations, which generated what the last four space maps and QUEUES are Lukari and Temporal.
And nobody is completing those in under 20 seconds.
The only maps getting completed that fast are two of the oldest maps in the game.
In fact, I can't think of a single map in the Undine, Delta, Terran, Iconian, Temporal or Lukari offerings that can be cleared in under a minute. They are absolutely scaled for the current end-game.
But everyone PUGs the old/easy maps. Either to chase damage parse records, or to do something fast and easy.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
personally, I think 5 minutes is a desirable run. Cryptic stated long ago they are looking for 20-30 minutes. Few will participate in that.
what i think is unfortunate is all the work that goes into these new queues and 90% of them are dead in a few weeks after the rep has moved on. to be brutally realistic, though, i don't see any way of preventing this anymore. the game has to move on to something different to survive. maybe this space balance is paving the way for that with some sort of pvp or something. i really don't know. will hang in as long as it lasts.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."