so they go from sub-2K to MAYBE 2K in a mission that requires over 7x that for the EASIEST advanced...**** players will still be so no matter what they do
ISA can be done with a group of 3 10kers...so for a group of 5, that is 6k a piece they need. So it's more like 3x...but the rest...fair point.
i recall it being 15K per player - but then, that was shortly after DR and cryptic did change a lot of NPC-related stuff since then, among other things
Yeah...ISA right after DR and now are completely different beasts. You will fail the optionals with 5 6kers...but you can beat the map if you all play well. Now the chances of 5 6kers being able to play this game well while having such shoddy builds is about zero. But it is possible...kinda.
I remember a time, far removed, when the players in an Infected Space, *Elite at the time, would actually coordinate and talk to each other even in pugs.
Seven years ago, the WORLD has changed, the playerbase has changed, those days could have been saved six and a half years ago but they're not going to be fixed now without changing human beings. You can't code that...
I can carry most PuG's, and I wish there were more soloable ones so I didn't have to put up with AFK'ers! At the moment, the only decent STF where I can test my ship solo is SB24 if I'm on my Fed. I never use ISA as benchmark as I need to see if the ships survivability is good, DPS is not a consideration at all as just getting equipment to MK14 suffices. But here-in lies the problem, I want challenging content that doesn't rely solely on DPS, not Farmville STF's that are overly heavy on token rewarding, as they are now. In the days of the old order where Omega equipment had to be 'salvaged', it was more rewarding. Now all people do is hit Borg RA's or Battlegrounds to get Marks. This 'elite-alien' equipment should be rare and hard to get, not handed out like candy!
Regardless, power creep is one of the most complained about things recently, and I am aghast that those verciferous complainers refuse to acknowledge this. If they have already EPIC'd their equipment, they haven't and won't lose out. This balancing, which is both nerfs AND buffs, was going to happen soon or later!! The STF benchmark is around 15k-20k for an easy run, anything over 30k is OP.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
There will always be good and bad players, but PUGs will be all right since contrary to popular believe people are capable of learning and adjusting their build and play style.
Some of the chances like the SST integration with all energy weapons (beams and canons) have incredible potential. It's crunching the numbers for tribble ATM
Play style can't overcome everything. This is like saying a wooden shack can overcome a nuclear blast if you just "believe" it will. This is cold hard math, and it's NOT pretty. No one can make +6 = +40 or 50.
Elite and advanced pugs will be non-extant in a week, and they won't come back unless either content is scaled back or this idiocy is rolled back.
Except this balance pass is not a nuclear blast and the players are not a wooden shed.
For the first week everyone will be searching and tweaking, but there are enough gems in the rough visible in the tribble notes and i dare say that with the exception of the top 20% and the parsers few people will take notice.
The only "challenge" will be to learn how to fly and fight without being cuddled with constant 100+ (125+) power levels and immunity half of the time.
In fact i use a few builds which do not make use of this and may actually become the new meta.
Bottom line is that it is still being tested, but it will not be as bad as the doomsday prophets like us to believe.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Can you post your build? Because if you use FAW, leech, embassy consoles, or EPS you WON'T be carrying any more.
I use numerous builds. I don't do 'cookie cutter'. I can tell you I haven't used Embassy consoles in years and I don't focus on EPS. My main is Sci. On all my 11 toons I use Beams and 1 torp fore and aft and I build round the energy type that is native to that ship and the only cannons I use are Quads. FAW nerf won't affect me too much as I have plenty of bonus ACC to offset that. Leech is used only to improve power to affect AMP cores boost and, with some testing on Tribble, I can still achieve it.
EDIT: As for the increased drain on Weapons, as I mentioned, I use torps in my build, so the 'loss' to me with regard to Energy Weapon Damage will be minimal.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
There will always be good and bad players, but PUGs will be all right since contrary to popular believe people are capable of learning and adjusting their build and play style.
Some of the chances like the SST integration with all energy weapons (beams and canons) have incredible potential. It's crunching the numbers for tribble ATM
Play style can't overcome everything. This is like saying a wooden shack can overcome a nuclear blast if you just "believe" it will. This is cold hard math, and it's NOT pretty. No one can make +6 = +40 or 50.
Elite and advanced pugs will be non-extant in a week, and they won't come back unless either content is scaled back or this idiocy is rolled back.
Except this balance pass is not a nuclear blast and the players are not a wooden shed.
For the first week everyone will be searching and tweaking, but there are enough gems in the rough visible in the tribble notes and i dare say that with the exception of the top 20% and the parsers few people will take notice.
The only "challenge" will be to learn how to fly and fight without being cuddled with constant 100+ (125+) power levels and immunity half of the time.
In fact i use a few builds which do not make use of this and may actually become the new meta.
Bottom line is that it is still being tested, but it will not be as bad as the doomsday prophets like us to believe.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Can you post your build? Because if you use FAW, leech, embassy consoles, or EPS you WON'T be carrying any more.
I use numerous builds. I don't do 'cookie cutter'. I can tell you I haven't used Embassy consoles in years and I don't focus on EPS. My main is Sci. On all my 11 toons I use Beams and 1 torp fore and aft and I build round the energy type that is native to that ship and the only cannons I use are Quads. FAW nerf won't affect me too much as I have plenty of bonus ACC to offset that. Leech is used only to improve power to affect AMP cores boost and, with some testing on Tribble, I can still achieve it.
If you're main is a sci that uses cannons I doubt you carry pugs. Sorry but you lack credulity. If you use leech you can't achieve ANYTHING like what you've been doing (incidentally that would be the wooden shed in the nuclear blast)....period. That's the math.
Can you post your build? Because if you use FAW, leech, embassy consoles, or EPS you WON'T be carrying any more.
I use numerous builds. I don't do 'cookie cutter'. I can tell you I haven't used Embassy consoles in years and I don't focus on EPS. My main is Sci. On all my 11 toons I use Beams and 1 torp fore and aft and I build round the energy type that is native to that ship and the only cannons I use are Quads. FAW nerf won't affect me too much as I have plenty of bonus ACC to offset that. Leech is used only to improve power to affect AMP cores boost and, with some testing on Tribble, I can still achieve it.
If you're main is a sci that uses cannons I doubt you carry pugs. Sorry but you lack credulity. If you use leech you can't achieve ANYTHING like what you've been doing (incidentally that would be the wooden shed in the nuclear blast)....period. That's the math.
Considering I've been playing 6 years, you can't question my credulity. I know what works and testing on Tribble shows that my builds are perfectly viable.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Coming soon to a theater near you. Not only will you fail them, but virtually every time.
Unless they are changing the mission fail condition, there simply isn't any way to fail it. Sure, after the rebalance hits, it could take you (a lot) longer and you could fail the optional with a bad pug, but that's about it. No way to get "mission failed" on them.
Coming soon to a theater near you. Not only will you fail them, but virtually every time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe failure conditions have been removed from most queues? Obviously, optionals and thus overall reward would be at risk, but I don't think you can fail any of the queues anymore.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
The FaW accuracy nerf from most tribble testers doesn't seem too bad, but it could still be adjusted further which could mean a shift in mods and in that case people may need to replace their entire weapon loadout. That could be quite costly. We won't really know the total cost for gear until they finalize the balance pass.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
There will always be good and bad players, but PUGs will be all right since contrary to popular believe people are capable of learning and adjusting their build and play style.
Some of the chances like the SST integration with all energy weapons (beams and canons) have incredible potential. It's crunching the numbers for tribble ATM
Play style can't overcome everything. This is like saying a wooden shack can overcome a nuclear blast if you just "believe" it will. This is cold hard math, and it's NOT pretty. No one can make +6 = +40 or 50.
Elite and advanced pugs will be non-extant in a week, and they won't come back unless either content is scaled back or this idiocy is rolled back.
Except this balance pass is not a nuclear blast and the players are not a wooden shed.
For the first week everyone will be searching and tweaking, but there are enough gems in the rough visible in the tribble notes and i dare say that with the exception of the top 20% and the parsers few people will take notice.
The only "challenge" will be to learn how to fly and fight without being cuddled with constant 100+ (125+) power levels and immunity half of the time.
In fact i use a few builds which do not make use of this and may actually become the new meta.
Bottom line is that it is still being tested, but it will not be as bad as the doomsday prophets like us to believe.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Oh come on. Players can get help everywhere - there is no steep learning curve, not for the stuff that's getting corrected here. Everyone can hit the spacebar and use an ability that shoots in all directions + benefit from a dozen buffs at the same time.
Things that are getting corrected are for example
- Continuous shutting down of enemies
- Instant correction of enemies shutting down our ships (with the Iconian core for example)
- Insane stacking of own power level buffs
- Shield ignoring damage buffs from Embassy Sci consoles that don't require any sacrifice at all
- Subspace Vortex, the #1 Exotic damage ability that doesn't require continuous targeting - you just drop it and it will deal the damage for you
- Hard minimum cooldown on captain abilities (thus making stuff like APA less often available for those who have tons of ways to reduce cooldowns)
- etc.
Add to that that countless things are actually getting buffed and I fail to see how any of this would affect the average player. The average player doesn't even use or know about half of the stuff that is getting corrected here. Even if they use something like a cooldown reduction thing, they won't be stacking it so much that they would currently be below this new hard cooldown.
Same thing with the ground corrections: most of it involved placing hard cooldowns, removing stacking of multiple generators, exploits like entire armies of security escorts who played the content for you and so on. These were not corrections that hit normal players, the new corrections for the space part of the game will probably not different in that regard.
There will always be good and bad players, but PUGs will be all right since contrary to popular believe people are capable of learning and adjusting their build and play style.
Some of the chances like the SST integration with all energy weapons (beams and canons) have incredible potential. It's crunching the numbers for tribble ATM
Play style can't overcome everything. This is like saying a wooden shack can overcome a nuclear blast if you just "believe" it will. This is cold hard math, and it's NOT pretty. No one can make +6 = +40 or 50.
Elite and advanced pugs will be non-extant in a week, and they won't come back unless either content is scaled back or this idiocy is rolled back.
Except this balance pass is not a nuclear blast and the players are not a wooden shed.
For the first week everyone will be searching and tweaking, but there are enough gems in the rough visible in the tribble notes and i dare say that with the exception of the top 20% and the parsers few people will take notice.
The only "challenge" will be to learn how to fly and fight without being cuddled with constant 100+ (125+) power levels and immunity half of the time.
In fact i use a few builds which do not make use of this and may actually become the new meta.
Bottom line is that it is still being tested, but it will not be as bad as the doomsday prophets like us to believe.
It will mostly be the absolute top performers who are going to be hit by this, and I don't think we need to feel sorry for them. They, and I'm sure most of us here on the Forum, will be fine even if it means they need to reconsider some parts of their builds. The lower tier players are unlikely to even notice much of these changes.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
Where ARE you getting this from?
Seven years? BFAW hasn't been OP for seven years. That happened relatively recently, with the introduction of various consoles, abilities and traits. I don't think you've even been around for seven years or else you'd remember when this game was known as 'Escorts online'.
Stop acting as if acting as if Big Bad Cryptic is replacing everything on our ships with non-upgradable white MkX equipment and following it up with an inbox message saying 'LOL'.
You aren't in the conversation again. When you address my point I'll be happy to respond.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
Where ARE you getting this from?
Seven years? BFAW hasn't been OP for seven years. That happened relatively recently, with the introduction of various consoles, abilities and traits. I don't think you've even been around for seven years or else you'd remember when this game was known as 'Escorts online'.
Stop acting as if acting as if Big Bad Cryptic is replacing everything on our ships with non-upgradable white MkX equipment and following it up with an inbox message saying 'LOL'.
actually, escorts online was five years ago; immediately after game launch and up until season 1.2, it was science online, i believe (but not sure since i wasn't around then)
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.
so they go from sub-2K to MAYBE 2K in a mission that requires over 7x that for the EASIEST advanced...**** players will still be so no matter what they do
ISA can be done with a group of 3 10kers...so for a group of 5, that is 6k a piece they need. So it's more like 3x...but the rest...fair point.
I wouldn't be so sure that will still hold true after the change. Apart from a damage drop, we also get a number of nerfs to heals, so survival may become a deciding factor. Also, depending on what Cryptic eventually deems to be a "hold", we may see NPCs immune to crowd control so players can't chain CCs as well.
So in otherwords, it might just become a challenge again. You know what? Good.
It will be indeed, across multiple levels.
So far from what I have read, the low-end won't be seeing much of a change, maybe even a buff. It's the meta builds that got hit hard (like 60% hard) but they are already finding ways to adapt. That said, people are still parsing high in Tribble. There are people parsing at the 130-150k range. It's an improvement from the current 250k+ PUG parses people are pushing out in Holodeck.
The FaW accuracy nerf from most tribble testers doesn't seem too bad, but it could still be adjusted further which could mean a shift in mods and in that case people may need to replace their entire weapon loadout. That could be quite costly. We won't really know the total cost for gear until they finalize the balance pass.
Even if the shift is enough to actually change the mods meta (which as you say, seems not to be the case) your current weapons don't suddenly become garbage. They're just a couple of percent off of absolute max. If we were looking at content where you're in dire risk of failing and that couple of percent were genuinely crucial, the yeah, there might be a case to be made that we should have some sort of way (probably through the crafting system) to go in and alter/swap mods on existing items (wouldn't that be nice?). But since that's not the case, it's mostly given you an new "to-do list" item of "Slowly cycle out really good guns with absolutely perfect ones" as a thing to work on at your leisure for a while.
And while resting on your laurels is fun, having a to-do list has its charms too. Most people play MMOs for the sense of progression. So as much as people might complain, the reality is its a good call for the health of the game.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
Where ARE you getting this from?
Seven years? BFAW hasn't been OP for seven years. That happened relatively recently, with the introduction of various consoles, abilities and traits. I don't think you've even been around for seven years or else you'd remember when this game was known as 'Escorts online'.
Stop acting as if acting as if Big Bad Cryptic is replacing everything on our ships with non-upgradable white MkX equipment and following it up with an inbox message saying 'LOL'.
actually, escorts online was five years ago; immediately after game launch and up until season 1.2, it was science online, i believe (but not sure since i wasn't around then)
Sadly, according to narasil I imagined Escorts Online. It must have been a figment of my imagination or something. Apparently the likes of BFAW and Plasmonic leech and everything that made them OP have always been in place and the game hasn't change at all in the past seven years.
Ah well, c'est la vie.
Been here since launch, I remember when escorts were OP. Feel free to continue to compare apples to oranges though.
For what it's worth I enjoyed the game more then than now, despite all the bugs and Klinks basically being monster play. You can't go back though....
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
Where ARE you getting this from?
Seven years? BFAW hasn't been OP for seven years. That happened relatively recently, with the introduction of various consoles, abilities and traits. I don't think you've even been around for seven years or else you'd remember when this game was known as 'Escorts online'.
Stop acting as if acting as if Big Bad Cryptic is replacing everything on our ships with non-upgradable white MkX equipment and following it up with an inbox message saying 'LOL'.
actually, escorts online was five years ago; immediately after game launch and up until season 1.2, it was science online, i believe (but not sure since i wasn't around then)
Sadly, according to narasil I imagined Escorts Online. It must have been a figment of my imagination or something. Apparently the likes of BFAW and Plasmonic leech and everything that made them OP have always been in place and the game hasn't change at all in the past seven years.
Ah well, c'est la vie.
Been here since launch, I remember when escorts were OP. Feel free to continue to compare apples to oranges though.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
Where ARE you getting this from?
Seven years? BFAW hasn't been OP for seven years. That happened relatively recently, with the introduction of various consoles, abilities and traits. I don't think you've even been around for seven years or else you'd remember when this game was known as 'Escorts online'.
Stop acting as if acting as if Big Bad Cryptic is replacing everything on our ships with non-upgradable white MkX equipment and following it up with an inbox message saying 'LOL'.
actually, escorts online was five years ago; immediately after game launch and up until season 1.2, it was science online, i believe (but not sure since i wasn't around then)
Sadly, according to narasil I imagined Escorts Online. It must have been a figment of my imagination or something. Apparently the likes of BFAW and Plasmonic leech and everything that made them OP have always been in place and the game hasn't change at all in the past seven years.
Ah well, c'est la vie.
Been here since launch, I remember when escorts were OP. Feel free to continue to compare apples to oranges though.
You know, I am sick and tired of your smug little replies. You show no evidence of having been here that long ago - your whiney, snide, comments, attempts at being clever and failed attempts at misdirection are those of a child who is having his favorite toys taken away.
"I remember escorts online" - so why do you think the game isn't still escorts online?
Changes like this have happened before. They'll happen again.
Anyway - please bring forth another predictable smug non-response.
No, literally changes haven't happened like this before....and moreover this scale hasn't even been approached before.
The FaW accuracy nerf from most tribble testers doesn't seem too bad, but it could still be adjusted further which could mean a shift in mods and in that case people may need to replace their entire weapon loadout. That could be quite costly. We won't really know the total cost for gear until they finalize the balance pass.
Even if the shift is enough to actually change the mods meta (which as you say, seems not to be the case) your current weapons don't suddenly become garbage. They're just a couple of percent off of absolute max. If we were looking at content where you're in dire risk of failing and that couple of percent were genuinely crucial, the yeah, there might be a case to be made that we should have some sort of way (probably through the crafting system) to go in and alter/swap mods on existing items (wouldn't that be nice?). But since that's not the case, it's mostly given you an new "to-do list" item of "Slowly cycle out really good guns with absolutely perfect ones" as a thing to work on at your leisure for a while.
Indeed. The very idea of striving for certain mods, despite ridiculous costs, is something that would only come up in the mind of players who are not average. Players who are aiming for this will be fine, since they are not average players.
And it may be costly, but I've always maintained that it's a choice to spend so much on unnecessary small/marginal improvements. Maybe I should feel sorry for people who lost their mind, but at this moment I'm not really feeling it. Everyone could have known that specific mods might become more or less interesting one day.
I remember a time, far removed, when the players in an Infected Space, *Elite at the time, would actually coordinate and talk to each other even in pugs.
Yep - the 10 second rule. Something absolutely unknown to most who frequent ISA these days.
It took some time to get people trained there, but eventually most figured it out. At least most of the PuGs I played with at the time. I rarely, if ever, ran with premades. And those that struggled a bit you carried with a Gravity Well to the nanite spheres that dropped in too early. (Not with massive DPS requiring gold-laced items, just with sensible and fairly straightforward use of abilities.)
But when I came back to STO, a year of power creep had happened and it seems it wasn't necessary, you just needed a Scimitard in the team to DPS you through the mission.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I remember a time, far removed, when the players in an Infected Space, *Elite at the time, would actually coordinate and talk to each other even in pugs.
Yep - the 10 second rule. Something absolutely unknown to most who frequent ISA these days.
It took some time to get people trained there, but eventually most figured it out. At least most of the PuGs I played with at the time. I rarely, if ever, ran with premades. And those that struggled a bit you carried with a Gravity Well to the nanite spheres that dropped in too early. (Not with massive DPS requiring gold-laced items, just with sensible and fairly straightforward use of abilities.)
But when I came back to STO, a year of power creep had happened and it seems it wasn't necessary, you just needed a Scimitard in the team to DPS you through the mission.
Well you got what you wished for remember that....
so they go from sub-2K to MAYBE 2K in a mission that requires over 7x that for the EASIEST advanced...**** players will still be so no matter what they do
ISA can be done with a group of 3 10kers...so for a group of 5, that is 6k a piece they need. So it's more like 3x...but the rest...fair point.
I wouldn't be so sure that will still hold true after the change. Apart from a damage drop, we also get a number of nerfs to heals, so survival may become a deciding factor. Also, depending on what Cryptic eventually deems to be a "hold", we may see NPCs immune to crowd control so players can't chain CCs as well.
So in otherwords, it might just become a challenge again. You know what? Good.
It will be indeed, across multiple levels.
So far from what I have read, the low-end won't be seeing much of a change, maybe even a buff. It's the meta builds that got hit hard (like 60% hard) but they are already finding ways to adapt. That said, people are still parsing high in Tribble. There are people parsing at the 130-150k range. It's an improvement from the current 250k+ PUG parses people are pushing out in Holodeck.
So already much better.
I haven't really been able to test on Tribble yet due to the character copy issue, but from what I've seen being mentioned, it won't be really problematic.
The FaW accuracy nerf from most tribble testers doesn't seem too bad, but it could still be adjusted further which could mean a shift in mods and in that case people may need to replace their entire weapon loadout. That could be quite costly. We won't really know the total cost for gear until they finalize the balance pass.
Even if the shift is enough to actually change the mods meta (which as you say, seems not to be the case) your current weapons don't suddenly become garbage. They're just a couple of percent off of absolute max. If we were looking at content where you're in dire risk of failing and that couple of percent were genuinely crucial, the yeah, there might be a case to be made that we should have some sort of way (probably through the crafting system) to go in and alter/swap mods on existing items (wouldn't that be nice?). But since that's not the case, it's mostly given you an new "to-do list" item of "Slowly cycle out really good guns with absolutely perfect ones" as a thing to work on at your leisure for a while.
Indeed. The very idea of striving for certain mods, despite ridiculous costs, is something that would only come up in the mind of players who are not average. Players who are aiming for this will be fine, since they are not average players.
And it may be costly, but I've always maintained that it's a choice to spend so much on unnecessary small/marginal improvements. Maybe I should feel sorry for people who lost their mind, but at this moment I'm not really feeling it. Everyone could have known that specific mods might become more or less interesting one day.
I've noticed quite a few people here making assertions about the playerbase at large. Your claiming that average players don't care about mods, but I know this to be untrue. I know several "average" players that aim for the perfect or close to perfect mods. It just seems to take them a lot longer to get there then it does the hardcore player. Additionally, I am of the opinion that most players do want the small/marginal improvements from epic weapons. They just don't have the resources to get their quickly if at all. That is of course the nature of the game though. If you play a lot or pay a lot you can get the stuff you want faster.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
Where ARE you getting this from?
Seven years? BFAW hasn't been OP for seven years. That happened relatively recently, with the introduction of various consoles, abilities and traits. I don't think you've even been around for seven years or else you'd remember when this game was known as 'Escorts online'.
Stop acting as if acting as if Big Bad Cryptic is replacing everything on our ships with non-upgradable white MkX equipment and following it up with an inbox message saying 'LOL'.
actually, escorts online was five years ago; immediately after game launch and up until season 1.2, it was science online, i believe (but not sure since i wasn't around then)
Sadly, according to narasil I imagined Escorts Online. It must have been a figment of my imagination or something. Apparently the likes of BFAW and Plasmonic leech and everything that made them OP have always been in place and the game hasn't change at all in the past seven years.
Ah well, c'est la vie.
Been here since launch, I remember when escorts were OP. Feel free to continue to compare apples to oranges though.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
Where ARE you getting this from?
Seven years? BFAW hasn't been OP for seven years. That happened relatively recently, with the introduction of various consoles, abilities and traits. I don't think you've even been around for seven years or else you'd remember when this game was known as 'Escorts online'.
Stop acting as if acting as if Big Bad Cryptic is replacing everything on our ships with non-upgradable white MkX equipment and following it up with an inbox message saying 'LOL'.
actually, escorts online was five years ago; immediately after game launch and up until season 1.2, it was science online, i believe (but not sure since i wasn't around then)
Sadly, according to narasil I imagined Escorts Online. It must have been a figment of my imagination or something. Apparently the likes of BFAW and Plasmonic leech and everything that made them OP have always been in place and the game hasn't change at all in the past seven years.
Ah well, c'est la vie.
Been here since launch, I remember when escorts were OP. Feel free to continue to compare apples to oranges though.
You know, I am sick and tired of your smug little replies. You show no evidence of having been here that long ago - your whiney, snide, comments, attempts at being clever and failed attempts at misdirection are those of a child who is having his favorite toys taken away.
"I remember escorts online" - so why do you think the game isn't still escorts online?
Changes like this have happened before. They'll happen again.
Anyway - please bring forth another predictable smug non-response.
No, literally changes haven't happened like this before....and moreover this scale hasn't even been approached before.
There have even been changes that were far more thorough then what we have now. When @snix#6028 was still known as stosnix and worked on this game, he made a serious, major rebalanced of everything and completely destroyed some OP stun-lockbuilds, altered the game play of some commonly used powers, and also made game powers that were non-functioning or terribly weak into common staples of the game. Do you still remember when people used Science Teams to buff up their shields for the massive shield damage reduction? Or combined SNB + VM for stunlocks?
The Duty Officer system suddenly - by accident basically - created a whole new cooldown reduction meta focused around Aux2Bat (a formerly useless power) and Delta Rising basically expanded on the cooldown reduction meta and provided more avenues with the same goal.
The game has changed a lot, some of the changes were gradual, some of them were due to sweeping changes in one big patch. Some changed majorly because of a minor feature, even...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
Seven years ago, the WORLD has changed, the playerbase has changed, those days could have been saved six and a half years ago but they're not going to be fixed now without changing human beings. You can't code that...
Regardless, power creep is one of the most complained about things recently, and I am aghast that those verciferous complainers refuse to acknowledge this. If they have already EPIC'd their equipment, they haven't and won't lose out. This balancing, which is both nerfs AND buffs, was going to happen soon or later!! The STF benchmark is around 15k-20k for an easy run, anything over 30k is OP.
Can you post your build? Because if you use FAW, leech, embassy consoles, or EPS you WON'T be carrying any more.
Except this balance pass is not a nuclear blast and the players are not a wooden shed.
For the first week everyone will be searching and tweaking, but there are enough gems in the rough visible in the tribble notes and i dare say that with the exception of the top 20% and the parsers few people will take notice.
The only "challenge" will be to learn how to fly and fight without being cuddled with constant 100+ (125+) power levels and immunity half of the time.
In fact i use a few builds which do not make use of this and may actually become the new meta.
Bottom line is that it is still being tested, but it will not be as bad as the doomsday prophets like us to believe.
I use numerous builds. I don't do 'cookie cutter'. I can tell you I haven't used Embassy consoles in years and I don't focus on EPS. My main is Sci. On all my 11 toons I use Beams and 1 torp fore and aft and I build round the energy type that is native to that ship and the only cannons I use are Quads. FAW nerf won't affect me too much as I have plenty of bonus ACC to offset that. Leech is used only to improve power to affect AMP cores boost and, with some testing on Tribble, I can still achieve it.
EDIT: As for the increased drain on Weapons, as I mentioned, I use torps in my build, so the 'loss' to me with regard to Energy Weapon Damage will be minimal.
You're assuming everyone wants to put as much though and effort into a game that you do. Most people DON'T, believe it. They play a game to have fun, not to be told they have to relearn after seven years and an EXTREMELY steep curve.
If you're main is a sci that uses cannons I doubt you carry pugs. Sorry but you lack credulity. If you use leech you can't achieve ANYTHING like what you've been doing (incidentally that would be the wooden shed in the nuclear blast)....period. That's the math.
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.
Coming soon to a theater near you. Not only will you fail them, but virtually every time.
Considering I've been playing 6 years, you can't question my credulity. I know what works and testing on Tribble shows that my builds are perfectly viable.
Unless they are changing the mission fail condition, there simply isn't any way to fail it. Sure, after the rebalance hits, it could take you (a lot) longer and you could fail the optional with a bad pug, but that's about it. No way to get "mission failed" on them.
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.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe failure conditions have been removed from most queues? Obviously, optionals and thus overall reward would be at risk, but I don't think you can fail any of the queues anymore.
Exactly how steep is the curve of "I copied someone's blueprint" to "I copied the new blueprint"?
'Cause to me that that looks like a flat line plus some "Hmm, I may need to buy 3 new officer manuals and go through the upgrade gear process for a new deflector and 2 consoles."
The FaW accuracy nerf from most tribble testers doesn't seem too bad, but it could still be adjusted further which could mean a shift in mods and in that case people may need to replace their entire weapon loadout. That could be quite costly. We won't really know the total cost for gear until they finalize the balance pass.
You assume it's that simple. A nerf like this will require coordination, communication, and a fundamental change to everyone's play style. This is rolling back SEVEN years of habits, playstyle, and even the base. That initial base that used to do all those things is GONE. This won't be overcome by using a blueprint....not even close.
Oh come on. Players can get help everywhere - there is no steep learning curve, not for the stuff that's getting corrected here. Everyone can hit the spacebar and use an ability that shoots in all directions + benefit from a dozen buffs at the same time.
Things that are getting corrected are for example
- Continuous shutting down of enemies
- Instant correction of enemies shutting down our ships (with the Iconian core for example)
- Insane stacking of own power level buffs
- Shield ignoring damage buffs from Embassy Sci consoles that don't require any sacrifice at all
- Subspace Vortex, the #1 Exotic damage ability that doesn't require continuous targeting - you just drop it and it will deal the damage for you
- Hard minimum cooldown on captain abilities (thus making stuff like APA less often available for those who have tons of ways to reduce cooldowns)
- etc.
Add to that that countless things are actually getting buffed and I fail to see how any of this would affect the average player. The average player doesn't even use or know about half of the stuff that is getting corrected here. Even if they use something like a cooldown reduction thing, they won't be stacking it so much that they would currently be below this new hard cooldown.
Same thing with the ground corrections: most of it involved placing hard cooldowns, removing stacking of multiple generators, exploits like entire armies of security escorts who played the content for you and so on. These were not corrections that hit normal players, the new corrections for the space part of the game will probably not different in that regard.
So agreed with this:
It will mostly be the absolute top performers who are going to be hit by this, and I don't think we need to feel sorry for them. They, and I'm sure most of us here on the Forum, will be fine even if it means they need to reconsider some parts of their builds. The lower tier players are unlikely to even notice much of these changes.
You aren't in the conversation again. When you address my point I'll be happy to respond.
actually, escorts online was five years ago; immediately after game launch and up until season 1.2, it was science online, i believe (but not sure since i wasn't around then)
#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!"
It will be indeed, across multiple levels.
So far from what I have read, the low-end won't be seeing much of a change, maybe even a buff. It's the meta builds that got hit hard (like 60% hard) but they are already finding ways to adapt. That said, people are still parsing high in Tribble. There are people parsing at the 130-150k range. It's an improvement from the current 250k+ PUG parses people are pushing out in Holodeck.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Even if the shift is enough to actually change the mods meta (which as you say, seems not to be the case) your current weapons don't suddenly become garbage. They're just a couple of percent off of absolute max. If we were looking at content where you're in dire risk of failing and that couple of percent were genuinely crucial, the yeah, there might be a case to be made that we should have some sort of way (probably through the crafting system) to go in and alter/swap mods on existing items (wouldn't that be nice?). But since that's not the case, it's mostly given you an new "to-do list" item of "Slowly cycle out really good guns with absolutely perfect ones" as a thing to work on at your leisure for a while.
And while resting on your laurels is fun, having a to-do list has its charms too. Most people play MMOs for the sense of progression. So as much as people might complain, the reality is its a good call for the health of the game.
Been here since launch, I remember when escorts were OP. Feel free to continue to compare apples to oranges though.
For what it's worth I enjoyed the game more then than now, despite all the bugs and Klinks basically being monster play. You can't go back though....
No, literally changes haven't happened like this before....and moreover this scale hasn't even been approached before.
Because you don't like it, or because you're ready to join the conversation now and actually offer a counter point other than "you're a whiner"?
Indeed. The very idea of striving for certain mods, despite ridiculous costs, is something that would only come up in the mind of players who are not average. Players who are aiming for this will be fine, since they are not average players.
And it may be costly, but I've always maintained that it's a choice to spend so much on unnecessary small/marginal improvements. Maybe I should feel sorry for people who lost their mind, but at this moment I'm not really feeling it. Everyone could have known that specific mods might become more or less interesting one day.
It took some time to get people trained there, but eventually most figured it out. At least most of the PuGs I played with at the time. I rarely, if ever, ran with premades. And those that struggled a bit you carried with a Gravity Well to the nanite spheres that dropped in too early. (Not with massive DPS requiring gold-laced items, just with sensible and fairly straightforward use of abilities.)
But when I came back to STO, a year of power creep had happened and it seems it wasn't necessary, you just needed a Scimitard in the team to DPS you through the mission.
Well you got what you wished for
So already much better.
I haven't really been able to test on Tribble yet due to the character copy issue, but from what I've seen being mentioned, it won't be really problematic.
I've noticed quite a few people here making assertions about the playerbase at large. Your claiming that average players don't care about mods, but I know this to be untrue. I know several "average" players that aim for the perfect or close to perfect mods. It just seems to take them a lot longer to get there then it does the hardcore player. Additionally, I am of the opinion that most players do want the small/marginal improvements from epic weapons. They just don't have the resources to get their quickly if at all. That is of course the nature of the game though. If you play a lot or pay a lot you can get the stuff you want faster.
The Duty Officer system suddenly - by accident basically - created a whole new cooldown reduction meta focused around Aux2Bat (a formerly useless power) and Delta Rising basically expanded on the cooldown reduction meta and provided more avenues with the same goal.
The game has changed a lot, some of the changes were gradual, some of them were due to sweeping changes in one big patch. Some changed majorly because of a minor feature, even...