It kinda was before DR wasn't it? I used to be able to take chunks out of cruisers but actually taking them down required help or waiting for them to make a mistake.
I have to say, there's some old design decisions in the game that have been removed/overturned that could still improve the situation we see today. At one point canons were plainly better than beams for doing damage, and what made Tac captains better at the job of 'DPSing' was less their every situation easy mode damage bonuses and more that they could make any ship more maneuverable... thus allowing them to capitalize on cannons better. That was a model actually suggested by and supported by canon, and might be something to look at reinstituting. So far it doesn't look like the FAW down-tuning and the Beam Overload changes are going to do much of anything to shift the entrenched 'beams uber alles' meta. Which is unfortunate, as outside of actual efficiency, cannon-boat captains simply feel more engaged with the game, as they're working harder to make their weapons pay off.
In terms of what the canon of the show actually suggested is that cannons in just pure raw damage could do more than beams, BUT required an ultra fast ship or the enemy to be still in order to make use of them. Beams were used on the big cruisers because they offered the largest targeting arc which was important to cruisers that weren't moving anywhere fast. The canon story also made clear that beams were just as devastating in the hands of a cruiser as cannons were to escorts, perhaps even more so. Cannons were always shown to be greater at burst damage since they fire in the form of a bolt where as the beams can be just as nasty but require the full beam to deal damage. In fact in the DS9 episode Sacrifice of Angels we see 2 Galaxy classes lay the smackdown to a Galor as though it was nothing. Each of the Galaxy Class ships put 3 shots each into the Galor. The first 3 shots put the Galor down disabling the ship outright, and the final 3 shots from the second Galaxy class made sure it wasn't getting up again. The Defiant which was loaded with cannons was only ever shown to have that kind of firepower against birds of prey or similar type ships. The Defiant cannons pack a punch, but they can't deliver the same amount of knockdown power that a Galaxy class with such a massive warp core can deliver. If anything it suggests that the firepower of the weapon types are pretty much the same with cannons taking a slight edge due to burst damage potential.
Cannons already, or should have a slight edge against beams in terms of damage output in game. Cannons also have the drawback of the ship needing to be very maneuverable to make efficient use of them, otherwise you're wasting your time. I can see a bit of a penalty to using firing modes like FAW and Scatter Volley as you're pretty much trying to smack anything in range at that point as fast as you can. So instead of trying to nerf beams, why not focus on buffing cannons. As far as to the current meta of beams, this happens because of how various powers interact with cannons vs beams. About the only way you're going to fix this without completely TRIBBLE over beam users, would be to equalize the dropoff between cannons and beams, and give a slight buff to the base damage of cannons.
I also feel strongly that the 'value' the Science and Engineering professions are supposed to bring to play simply cannot exist while so much of the game is an easy-mode shooting gallery. We don't need survivability, heals, or crowd control in most scenarios. One basic, harkens back to the early days change that would help is re-applying a small (5-8 seconds?) shared cooldown between the "Team" abilities (Engineering, Science, Tactical, Intelligence, etc.). Putting players in a place where they have to make moment to moment decisions between more damage and easy heals (instead of the does-it-all ships we have now) makes base survivability from a profession a more meaningful and desirable quality.
At the lower difficulties and with certain missions you are correct that heavy survival or cc ability isn't needed. However go into a Hive Space Elite, Korfez, Procyon V, or similar type of mission and see if you still think some survivability isn't needed. The shared cooldown on team abilities was removed because it made no sense and did more to harm than it did help. It made no sense to use a tactical team ability, yet my science and engineering teams both go on cooldown. These ships in Trek canon have several teams operating around the ships at once.
One of the appeals that has always been great about STO is that any of the 3 captain types can do fairly well at any role in game without being pigeonholed into a specific type of ship or specific type of playing. If I want to tank as a tac captain, then I can do it, but I will have more innate abilities to work with as an engineer. If I want to throw exotic type abilities around I can do it but sci has/should have the advantage in that department. Tac needs to have a decent amount of survival just as the other 2 do, but survival is not the primary focus of the tactical captain. Each of the 3 captains should be able to accomplish the base roles in game with reasonable efficiency but each of the captains should also have an edge in their respective roles.
Tac should have an edge in dealing damage with weapons and energy based attacks.
Sci should have the edge in use of science powers and exotic type damage
Engineering should have the edge in use of engineering powers and keeping the ship from blowing apart.
To give an edge to one of the captain types in a specific area is not a bad thing when done correctly. At the same time you can't give one an edge to the point it screws over the other 2 captain types.
Even with all the changes now on test, Tactical captains are still going to do 33-50% more damage than any other profession on its best day ever. If tactical captains were to die 5% more often while pulling those number we could at least pretend there's some sort of parity between the professions. If clicking Tactical Team came with a more tangible draw back in terms of survivability, we might actually see that.
Nerf everybody's survivability slightly. Engineers and Science can both overcome that kind of setback more readily, while making team red either have to play a bit better or see some value in having yellow and blue allies on the field.
Why should I as a tactical player have to eat a survivability nerf when the damage numbers themselves are the problem? If the buffs to exotic damage were removed from most tac abilities, save a very select few, that would go a long way to close that gap. The chief issue is that science and engineering don't have as many innate damage increasing abilities as tac does. All 5 of the tac captain abilities are geared strictly towards upping damage. Science and engineering don't have that kind of tool set. What they need is some type of damage increases that allows them to keep up with tac. All you're going to do with what you're suggesting is cause alot of tac players to quit playing the game. And no before you say it, it wouldn't be because we can't top the charts or whatever, it would be that we were screwed over to appease science and engineers when the sci and engineers should've been buffed to be within range of our level. Each captain should have about an edge of about 5-10% in their respective areas as just one hypothetical set of numbers.
I've agreed that removing the exotic boosts from tac powers is an option that can be utilized as exotic powers should never have been our primary focus. A tac should be able to use a gravity well for decent control and damage, but a grav well fired by a science toon should absolutely outperform that of the tac.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Hmm, nope. The whole point of speccing into drain is to do exactly that, take the target to zero power. Since these abilities are mostly used vs. things that have larger power pools than players, they need to suck a lot of power. That, and since drain abilities don't really deal damage, they have to rely on the strength of their effect to be useful.
Also worth noting, assuming I was trying to drain you...what's the functional difference between draining 2 more power than you have and 20? Or 50?
You are not understanding . Tykens did not need a 200% increase buff to make drain builds more effective in any situation .
Why should I as a tactical player have to eat a survivability nerf when the damage numbers themselves are the problem?
Why? Because the profession GROSSLY outperforms all other options. Tactical is begging for a nerf, it practically screams for one. In a live game rather than a land of pure theory, its easier to present that nerf as a global reduction in survivability than a targeted hack off the end of the single dimension Tacticals use to measure everything - DPS. If you penalize everyone, there's less complaint than if you go after the golden child of the system. It has the appearance of being less punitive. Given the huge number of Tactical captains in the playing population, maintaining that appearance is not trivial. That the change happens to hit them harder is something most people won't even realize, and some might even grudgingly accept as establishing the place in the game Engineering and Science have long needed. Either as the captain that can take those hits and keep dishing damage, or as the guy that can keep you alive while you burn the enemy to ash.
I'm with @darkbladejk in this one. Tactical captains must have the ability to deal greater burst damage in their class. Whereas engineer should be better at surviving and supporting the team and science at controlling and debuffing. Granted, this kind of play doesn't satisfy everyone's need for DPS and to be the hero but it is very effective. Players also forget that there are 2 main ways of dealing damage in STO, wether it's weapons or sci voodoo.
Spike damage and pressure damage.
Tac captains excel at spike damage. It's what makes an alphastrike so deadly and gives tactical captains the edge. However, the drawback is a lack of survival (immunities unfortunately unbalance this a bit) and being extremely prone to science debuffs and control effects.
Engineers excell at pressure damage. Their innate ability to maintain high power levels and resist power drain to an insane degree makes them deadly to anything but another engineer. Even in a PvP match with alphastrikers or vapers zooming around, it was often the case that a tactical captain in an escort would get more kills than anybody else but the engineering captains in cruisers would put down the most damage in total, way more in fact. Tactical captains in an escort used to struggle, and still do, to deal with pressure damage due to only being able to carry a couple of heals. Having to carefully choose when to use them, risking getting taken out, because a low health target screams for an alpha or simply having to leave the fight and run.
But... playing tactical lets you be the hero in PvE so therefore everyone plays it without realising that the other 2 classes trump tactical especially in PvP. Bumping up the damage of the other 2 classes is shortsighted and will throw balance out of the window (research zombie tank A2B builds, they used to crush vapers in season 7-8).
Science is especially good with pressure dmg and so is engineering. The relevant traits and captain buffs all put together actually mean that scientists come out on top for average exotic dmg dps over the other 2 classes now that we have the scattering field change. Science needed this.
Why should I as a tactical player have to eat a survivability nerf when the damage numbers themselves are the problem?
Why? Because the profession GROSSLY outperforms all other options. Tactical is begging for a nerf, it practically screams for one. In a live game rather than a land of pure theory, its easier to present that nerf as a global reduction in survivability than a targeted hack off the end of the single dimension Tacticals use to measure everything - DPS. If you penalize everyone, there's less complaint than if you go after the golden child of the system. It has the appearance of being less punitive. Given the huge number of Tactical captains in the playing population, maintaining that appearance is not trivial. That the change happens to hit them harder is something most people won't even realize, and some might even grudgingly accept as establishing the place in the game Engineering and Science have long needed. Either as the captain that can take those hits and keep dishing damage, or as the guy that can keep you alive while you burn the enemy to ash.
What you fail to understand is that survival for tactical is not the problem. The problem is that at the moment science and engineering do not have the amount of damage increases that tactical has. You can infer what each type of captain is intended to do based off their 5 innate captain powers. Engineering is built more towards survival and pressure damage through use of technical based attacks and such. Science is built towards debuffing and exotic damage. Tactical is built towards burst and team damage. You can reduce survival across the board, but all you will do is cause folks to leave the game in mass droves without addressing the underlying problem.
I've said several times, as have other primary tactical players, remove the exotic boosts from tactical abilities save for possibly a very select few powers, and make it purely energy and kinetic weapon damage. With your post all you did was prove you have a vendetta against tactical. Your final 2 sentences hint at setting up a trinity based system in game. We could eventually get there but the way you're wanting to do it will only cause it to fall flat.
The problem with science and engineering right now, is they have very few powers that can close the gap. A big reason alot of folks play and enjoy STO is the fact that you can play virtually any role as any of the captain types. Purely because I'm tactical doesn't mean I have to fly escorts, purely because someone is sci doesn't mean they have to stick to purely sci ships, and purely because someone is an engineer doesn't mean they have to stick to cruisers. As a tactical captain I may get a bit more out of my tactical powers if I went with a more tactical heavy ship, however I CHOOSE to fly cruisers and forgo that slight edge because cruisers fit more with how I prefer to fly. What you're proposing would essentially pigeonhole the 3 captain types into flying a specific set of ships only and that's not something that they will appreciate, nor would it be fun.
What needs to happen is that science and engineering needs to have some abilities given to them that allows them to have a bit more damage to close the gap between them and tac. To allow the 3 captain types to have an edge in their respective areas is not a bad thing. Science and Tac can survive very well, but the innate set of Engineering captain powers allow Engineers an edge in that area. Science and Engineers can deal great damage, but tactical has greater burst damage. Tac and Engineers can make fair use of exotic powers and debuffs, but Science should always have the edge.
Your entire argument can essentially be summarized as, "tacs are doing more damage than me and surviving long, nerf them please." You can't make drastic changes to a game without considering how it will effect the game as a whole. I fail to see why tac should have to eat a survival nerf simply to soothe the ego of a few people.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
((chuckle)) What makes you think my main isn't a Tac? Honestly, do I strike you as so ignorant of the game's systems that I wouldn't have noticed one choice out of three grossly outperforms the other options? You can try to dismiss my position as personal ego and vendetta (hilarious!), but I'm not even remotely concerned that the only readers in this thread that matter know perfectly well my interest is the wellbeing of the game as a whole, not bulldogging some personal favorite among the three Professions.
My argument is "we have an irrevocable decision made in the first 1 minute of gameplay that's NOT EVEN CLOSE to offering parity in performance in every game mode." That's the sucking chest wound in the side of the game's opportunity cost design. You have three options when creating a new captain. One overperforms. That means nerf the outlier. Not "bring the other two up" because that way lies power spiral madness. Not "bring the other two up" because the game is already far, far down the road to trivial. NERF TAC. That's not in question. The only question is how to go about it so as to get closer to parity without sending that segment of the population into total revolt. Which suggests hit them in other places than their DPS. A global reduction in survivability is one of MANY ways you could nerf Tac and move towards some parity, but it has the advantage of being an approach that looks fair and egalitarian while still actually flattening the disparity we see on the Live server now.
I think whether or not tac is nerfed or Sci and engineering is.buffed more has to depend on how many are going to be affected by it and whether it works. Most people play tac because the game primarily requires death and destruction left right and centre. But it's only one class out of three classes that performs better. This creates a dilemma between buffing two or nerfing one.
They did both!
The devs have buffed every single engineering captain space ability making it tank more and do more dps, and some science captain space abilities have also been buffed, increasing support for units and provide aoe extra dps. This closes some of the dps gap. And to top it off, APA lasts 33% less time, 1 minute 100% dmg bonus gdf has been replaced with 15second gdf with scaling bonus, which overall reduces tac dps and further closes the gap. And as consolation they've now got a sligjtly increased last ditch effort res buff.
I think a change in AI and gameplay would be more appropriate, a change that would necessitate the usage of the other classes instead of damage being the only requirement. That's the problem here.
I don't see why tac abilities are still buffing science and exotic damage though... who thought that was a good idea!? It gives players free damage without the need of a console. Tactical should boost weapons only not other forms of damage.
They already changed feedback pulse in that it doesn't benefit from damage buffs. This was a huge step in the right direction. But you can't expect tac captain abilities to be worthless in science ships, just like you can't expect them to worthless in cruisers or escorts. That's why they should buff exotic dmg too.
We are also finally seeing content such as the new Escalation pvevp queues, which emphasises less tactical and more strategy, which begins to give engineers and science their rightful place in the game. I hope they expand on this, following the 'success of the arena of sompek...'
Which tactical captain abilities would be worthless in science ships?? They'd still buff the weapons to get more damage from them, they just wouldn't buff abilities that require Aux power and science consoles to boost. It's only fair.
Science ships main dps comes from science boff abilities, that's why a tactical with weapons-only bonuses would be subpar, not to mention that it would only affect 6 weapon slots. It doesn't make sense to put a tactical captain into a ship whose job it is to make the most destructive force out of that ship, to not buff it's main dmg source.
It's like putting an engineer into a science ship and saying that he can't buff weapons and aux subsystems together because he's not allowed energy weapon and exotic dmg bonuses together when it's an engineers job to boost power levels!
Which tactical captain abilities would be worthless in science ships?? They'd still buff the weapons to get more damage from them, they just wouldn't buff abilities that require Aux power and science consoles to boost. It's only fair.
Isn't it obvious? Hint: Buffing 6 weapons is worse than buffing 8 weapons.
The thing that seems to be really hard to understand is that this "solution" just nerfs one thing: Science Vessels. It gives an entire class less reason to fly Science Vessels. My Science Captains will not fare a tiny bit better in Science Vessels than before. The only thing everyone will be saying: "Oh, science vessel is the weakest ship class, don't fly them. Play a Tac in a Cruiser or in one of these Escorts with Heavy Weapons. That's where you get the big ticket DPS."
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Engineers get to boost exotic and energy types of dmg with power levels and drains resistance, with the drawback of no torpedo dmg bonuses because engineers are heavily geared to survival.
Science gets to boost exotic dmg, all dmg and debuff all damage resistance on a target with some varying healing and tanking on the side which is why there is less all dmg buff.
It's only fair that a tactical should be able to buff every type of dmg because this class has almost none of the aforementioned extra abilities.
Which tactical captain abilities would be worthless in science ships?? They'd still buff the weapons to get more damage from them, they just wouldn't buff abilities that require Aux power and science consoles to boost. It's only fair.
Stop being disingenuous here. If you make tactical powers only affect weapons, then they are GIMPED in ships that have:
Raiders have 4/2 weapon setups and can use dual cannons. Science vessels have 3/3 weapon setups and CANNOT use dual cannons. With your change, a Tactical captain in a science vessel would be dropping their potential massively. It would be detrimental to be a Tactical Captain in a science vessel.
Additionally, if you don't give Science Captains "Science Pattern Alpha", they will do just as poorly with "exotic" damage as your new improved "escorts or GTFO" Tactical Captains.
I really don't see the problem, it's a good disadvantage for the massive advantage to being able to dish out massive amounts of damage from 6-8 weapons.
I'm more afraid of a science captain in a science ship than a tactical in a science ship. I can't hide from a science captain, it's hard to hit a science captain because of scatter field, they can drain all my power and/or control my ship, they can get far more use of a science ship than tactical. However, as a tactical captains, all I need is a gap in their buffs and I'll take them out in under 3 seconds, if they subnuc me, I'll wait a couple of seconds and use science team to clear it, worse comes to worse I can outrun them.
Why do tactical captain abilities need to buff science abilities!? It doesn't make sense. In PvE 30k DPS is more than enough to do any STF, in PvP a 50K spike is enough to take out an escort, science vessel and cripple a cruiser. You don't need to be able to buff science powers.
If you're playing as a science captain you can debuff the hell out of anything to the point that a grav well will eat a Borg cube, think outside the box. Why do you think science and engineering are the most powerful figures in PvP?? Sure tactical captains get more kills but mostly against other escorts. Messing with a science captain in a science ship is asking for trouble if you decide attack it as if it's an escort and you will be taken out in seconds for trying even if you're cloaked.
Not only that, why should a tactical captain be flying a science ship for serious play !? It's not making the most out of his abilities. You still can for fun but it won't be as efficient.
Honestly other than seeing the damage buff from scattering field moved over to sensor scan as a buff to incoming damage, which is more to have abilities with a similar cd length possess a similar capacity (which would also help balancing them abit), I can't see much else to do with science. Even just the shift of having deflector overload turned into a boff ability that fits the feel of the ability abit better, is not a huge thing.
Though I will say that I would not mind if we saw a bit of a versatility given to how eps power transfer buffs our engineer kinda. Like that either it would give the the user a severa, of buffs based off each of the four subsystems, and each of the sub=system's power level when using eps determined the strength of the buff given. Though even the idea that eps power transfer gives the engineer a buff based off the ship type, and that this buff's strength is based on one/two of the sub-system types. Both Ideas would make eps more comparable to the strength of apa. But in the end even in the current ptr version of eps is quite comparable to apa, and so such a change would be a bit more of a flavor change.
Is that a real question? Are people still really asking "Why, after spending an entire year stocking the shelves with new science vessels in the golden age of exotic damage would they avoid telling the game's super-majority of Tactical captains in definitive terms 'DO NOT EVER FLY A SCIENCE SHIP'?"
They are NOT GOING TO CRIPPLE SCENCE SHIPS in the process of tackling the inequities of the profession system. They've only just gotten science ships to the point where people are excited about them enough to open their wallets. You can either get that or stay puzzled. But the real financial landscape we're working in is not going to change. Just like right now they're chipping away at the 'Cruisers Online' meta with a heavy-weapon revamp to escorts.
I think whether or not tac is nerfed or Sci and engineering is.buffed more has to depend on how many are going to be affected by it and whether it works. Most people play tac because the game primarily requires death and destruction left right and center. But it's only one class out of three classes that performs better. This creates a dilemma between buffing two or nerfing one.
They did both!
True. We're seeing a move towards normalization and that's nice. It's coming at the cost of some power creep, but I'll take what (little) I can get. For me, every single time I see some new player ask "So what's the best class?" in ANY online game I think to myself "If there's a correct answer to that question, you should be playing some other game."
STO still has a correct answer to that question.
The devs have buffed every single engineering captain space ability making it tank more and do more dps, and some science captain space abilities have also been buffed, increasing support for units and provide aoe extra dps. This closes some of the dps gap. And to top it off, APA lasts 33% less time, 1 minute 100% dmg bonus gdf has been replaced with 15second gdf with scaling bonus, which overall reduces tac dps and further closes the gap. And as consolation they've now got a sligjtly increased last ditch effort res buff.
What more could anybody want??
Honestly? I'd like to see a balance review cycle shorter than half a decade. STO is making a push to appeal on the consoles, to present itself to a market that respects gameplay more than IP nostalgia. Cryptic needs to come to grips with the idea that healthy online games with a competitive element see review cycles in the 2-6 weeks range, not stretched out over multiple YEARS. If we are going to see such glacial progress then I want to see the bold, authoritative changes that highlighted the very first set of Space Balance patch notes. I want that wailing and gnashing of teeth as the old meta catches fire and burns. What we're getting has been slowly ground down to a couple of entirely safe moves and is frankly a little limp. At least it's progress. But its NOT enough progress to let sit and fester for another five years.
So what do I want? I want to see a bold and public announcement that they'll be launching another hard balance pass before the end of the year after they gather data from this round of changes. I want people to know this is not all there is. I want to kick the legs out from under the people that think bad decisions in opportunity-based design are invulnerable to change just because they're OLD bad decisions.
But as an immediate action item on my 'want list', I still want to hear if anyone's parsed the latest version of B:FAW now that the accuracy penalty has actually been turned on. The one button corrupt meta that ability has cursed this game with needs to die in a fire and it's not clear if anything has really changed...
Regarding bfaw. They shouldn't nerf bfaw to the ground as much as you might like because that ability is still a cruiser captain's main multitarget ability and would affect engineer dps more than anything. We don't want another uprising of engineers and pitch forks.
On your point of balance passes. It would be thorough to do a balance pass every 2-6 weeks, or another by the end of this year. However it would make sense to keep tabs on balance particularly after main sales of new power creep stuff has been introduced. This point in time would be the best time to assess where people are residing most. In order to maintain overall balance, devs should make sure they're bringing out new stuff that buffs or changes the gameplay of each class in equal proportions. This would help them avoid another balance pass like this which has upset a few tacs.
Regarding bfaw. They shouldn't nerf bfaw to the ground as much as you might like because that ability is still a cruiser captain's main multitarget ability and would affect engineer dps more than anything. We don't want another uprising of engineers and pitch forks.
On your point of balance passes. It would be thorough to do a balance pass every 2-6 weeks, or another by the end of this year. However it would make sense to keep tabs on balance particularly after main sales of new power creep stuff has been introduced. This point in time would be the best time to assess where people are residing most. In order to maintain overall balance, devs should make sure they're bringing out new stuff that buffs or changes the gameplay of each class in equal proportions. This would help them avoid another balance pass like this which has upset a few tacs.
Where did I say "into the ground"? It needs to be nerfed until its still the best tool for multi-target fights on beam boats WITHOUT eclipsing Beam Overload and Surgical strikes for single target. It needs to be nerfed until it's clearly inferior to Cannon: Scatter Volley I-III which takes up higher rank seats! And then throw in a side order of it needs to not simultaneously offer massive defensive value sweeping the sky clean of incoming projectiles. Given the content designers' persistent over-reliance on swarms of enemies, there's room for and cause for even MORE of a nerf, since its optimal situation is pretty much the universal norm...
I thought the initial changes were pretty on track except that the accuracy penalty seemingly did nothing. Which makes sense since it appears that drawback wasn't actually being applied and no one's checked it and reported their results since the accuracy penalty was hooked up in a later patch.
Devs please look at your data mine of my last few pvp matches on tribble, can you tell me what's wrong with that parse ? Why does eng need a buff ? I'm being out dpsed, and out healed by an eng now......
Devs please look at your data mine of my last few pvp matches on tribble, can you tell me what's wrong with that parse ? Why does eng need a buff ? I'm being out dpsed, and out healed by an eng now......
you need to add more context , if you're running a single target set up , you wont out dps a aoe tank you cant look at overall dps in pvp you have to look at the spike dps , quantum phase torps are fine as is you "might" be able to strip a whole shield facing down with a fully buffed spread
Devs please look at your data mine of my last few pvp matches on tribble, can you tell me what's wrong with that parse ? Why does eng need a buff ? I'm being out dpsed, and out healed by an eng now......
you need to add more context , if you're running a single target set up , you wont out dps a aoe tank you cant look at overall dps in pvp you have to look at the spike dps , quantum phase torps are fine as is you "might" be able to strip a whole shield facing down with a fully buffed spread
Comments
In terms of what the canon of the show actually suggested is that cannons in just pure raw damage could do more than beams, BUT required an ultra fast ship or the enemy to be still in order to make use of them. Beams were used on the big cruisers because they offered the largest targeting arc which was important to cruisers that weren't moving anywhere fast. The canon story also made clear that beams were just as devastating in the hands of a cruiser as cannons were to escorts, perhaps even more so. Cannons were always shown to be greater at burst damage since they fire in the form of a bolt where as the beams can be just as nasty but require the full beam to deal damage. In fact in the DS9 episode Sacrifice of Angels we see 2 Galaxy classes lay the smackdown to a Galor as though it was nothing. Each of the Galaxy Class ships put 3 shots each into the Galor. The first 3 shots put the Galor down disabling the ship outright, and the final 3 shots from the second Galaxy class made sure it wasn't getting up again. The Defiant which was loaded with cannons was only ever shown to have that kind of firepower against birds of prey or similar type ships. The Defiant cannons pack a punch, but they can't deliver the same amount of knockdown power that a Galaxy class with such a massive warp core can deliver. If anything it suggests that the firepower of the weapon types are pretty much the same with cannons taking a slight edge due to burst damage potential.
Cannons already, or should have a slight edge against beams in terms of damage output in game. Cannons also have the drawback of the ship needing to be very maneuverable to make efficient use of them, otherwise you're wasting your time. I can see a bit of a penalty to using firing modes like FAW and Scatter Volley as you're pretty much trying to smack anything in range at that point as fast as you can. So instead of trying to nerf beams, why not focus on buffing cannons. As far as to the current meta of beams, this happens because of how various powers interact with cannons vs beams. About the only way you're going to fix this without completely TRIBBLE over beam users, would be to equalize the dropoff between cannons and beams, and give a slight buff to the base damage of cannons.
At the lower difficulties and with certain missions you are correct that heavy survival or cc ability isn't needed. However go into a Hive Space Elite, Korfez, Procyon V, or similar type of mission and see if you still think some survivability isn't needed. The shared cooldown on team abilities was removed because it made no sense and did more to harm than it did help. It made no sense to use a tactical team ability, yet my science and engineering teams both go on cooldown. These ships in Trek canon have several teams operating around the ships at once.
One of the appeals that has always been great about STO is that any of the 3 captain types can do fairly well at any role in game without being pigeonholed into a specific type of ship or specific type of playing. If I want to tank as a tac captain, then I can do it, but I will have more innate abilities to work with as an engineer. If I want to throw exotic type abilities around I can do it but sci has/should have the advantage in that department. Tac needs to have a decent amount of survival just as the other 2 do, but survival is not the primary focus of the tactical captain. Each of the 3 captains should be able to accomplish the base roles in game with reasonable efficiency but each of the captains should also have an edge in their respective roles.
Tac should have an edge in dealing damage with weapons and energy based attacks.
Sci should have the edge in use of science powers and exotic type damage
Engineering should have the edge in use of engineering powers and keeping the ship from blowing apart.
To give an edge to one of the captain types in a specific area is not a bad thing when done correctly. At the same time you can't give one an edge to the point it screws over the other 2 captain types.
Why should I as a tactical player have to eat a survivability nerf when the damage numbers themselves are the problem? If the buffs to exotic damage were removed from most tac abilities, save a very select few, that would go a long way to close that gap. The chief issue is that science and engineering don't have as many innate damage increasing abilities as tac does. All 5 of the tac captain abilities are geared strictly towards upping damage. Science and engineering don't have that kind of tool set. What they need is some type of damage increases that allows them to keep up with tac. All you're going to do with what you're suggesting is cause alot of tac players to quit playing the game. And no before you say it, it wouldn't be because we can't top the charts or whatever, it would be that we were screwed over to appease science and engineers when the sci and engineers should've been buffed to be within range of our level. Each captain should have about an edge of about 5-10% in their respective areas as just one hypothetical set of numbers.
I've agreed that removing the exotic boosts from tac powers is an option that can be utilized as exotic powers should never have been our primary focus. A tac should be able to use a gravity well for decent control and damage, but a grav well fired by a science toon should absolutely outperform that of the tac.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Why? Because the profession GROSSLY outperforms all other options. Tactical is begging for a nerf, it practically screams for one. In a live game rather than a land of pure theory, its easier to present that nerf as a global reduction in survivability than a targeted hack off the end of the single dimension Tacticals use to measure everything - DPS. If you penalize everyone, there's less complaint than if you go after the golden child of the system. It has the appearance of being less punitive. Given the huge number of Tactical captains in the playing population, maintaining that appearance is not trivial. That the change happens to hit them harder is something most people won't even realize, and some might even grudgingly accept as establishing the place in the game Engineering and Science have long needed. Either as the captain that can take those hits and keep dishing damage, or as the guy that can keep you alive while you burn the enemy to ash.
Tactical captains must have the ability to deal greater burst damage in their class. Whereas engineer should be better at surviving and supporting the team and science at controlling and debuffing.
Granted, this kind of play doesn't satisfy everyone's need for DPS and to be the hero but it is very effective.
Players also forget that there are 2 main ways of dealing damage in STO, wether it's weapons or sci voodoo.
Spike damage and pressure damage.
Tac captains excel at spike damage. It's what makes an alphastrike so deadly and gives tactical captains the edge. However, the drawback is a lack of survival (immunities unfortunately unbalance this a bit) and being extremely prone to science debuffs and control effects.
Engineers excell at pressure damage. Their innate ability to maintain high power levels and resist power drain to an insane degree makes them deadly to anything but another engineer. Even in a PvP match with alphastrikers or vapers zooming around, it was often the case that a tactical captain in an escort would get more kills than anybody else but the engineering captains in cruisers would put down the most damage in total, way more in fact.
Tactical captains in an escort used to struggle, and still do, to deal with pressure damage due to only being able to carry a couple of heals. Having to carefully choose when to use them, risking getting taken out, because a low health target screams for an alpha or simply having to leave the fight and run.
But... playing tactical lets you be the hero in PvE so therefore everyone plays it without realising that the other 2 classes trump tactical especially in PvP. Bumping up the damage of the other 2 classes is shortsighted and will throw balance out of the window (research zombie tank A2B builds, they used to crush vapers in season 7-8).
@risingwolfshadow
What you fail to understand is that survival for tactical is not the problem. The problem is that at the moment science and engineering do not have the amount of damage increases that tactical has. You can infer what each type of captain is intended to do based off their 5 innate captain powers. Engineering is built more towards survival and pressure damage through use of technical based attacks and such. Science is built towards debuffing and exotic damage. Tactical is built towards burst and team damage. You can reduce survival across the board, but all you will do is cause folks to leave the game in mass droves without addressing the underlying problem.
I've said several times, as have other primary tactical players, remove the exotic boosts from tactical abilities save for possibly a very select few powers, and make it purely energy and kinetic weapon damage. With your post all you did was prove you have a vendetta against tactical. Your final 2 sentences hint at setting up a trinity based system in game. We could eventually get there but the way you're wanting to do it will only cause it to fall flat.
The problem with science and engineering right now, is they have very few powers that can close the gap. A big reason alot of folks play and enjoy STO is the fact that you can play virtually any role as any of the captain types. Purely because I'm tactical doesn't mean I have to fly escorts, purely because someone is sci doesn't mean they have to stick to purely sci ships, and purely because someone is an engineer doesn't mean they have to stick to cruisers. As a tactical captain I may get a bit more out of my tactical powers if I went with a more tactical heavy ship, however I CHOOSE to fly cruisers and forgo that slight edge because cruisers fit more with how I prefer to fly. What you're proposing would essentially pigeonhole the 3 captain types into flying a specific set of ships only and that's not something that they will appreciate, nor would it be fun.
What needs to happen is that science and engineering needs to have some abilities given to them that allows them to have a bit more damage to close the gap between them and tac. To allow the 3 captain types to have an edge in their respective areas is not a bad thing. Science and Tac can survive very well, but the innate set of Engineering captain powers allow Engineers an edge in that area. Science and Engineers can deal great damage, but tactical has greater burst damage. Tac and Engineers can make fair use of exotic powers and debuffs, but Science should always have the edge.
Your entire argument can essentially be summarized as, "tacs are doing more damage than me and surviving long, nerf them please." You can't make drastic changes to a game without considering how it will effect the game as a whole. I fail to see why tac should have to eat a survival nerf simply to soothe the ego of a few people.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
My argument is "we have an irrevocable decision made in the first 1 minute of gameplay that's NOT EVEN CLOSE to offering parity in performance in every game mode." That's the sucking chest wound in the side of the game's opportunity cost design. You have three options when creating a new captain. One overperforms. That means nerf the outlier. Not "bring the other two up" because that way lies power spiral madness. Not "bring the other two up" because the game is already far, far down the road to trivial. NERF TAC. That's not in question. The only question is how to go about it so as to get closer to parity without sending that segment of the population into total revolt. Which suggests hit them in other places than their DPS. A global reduction in survivability is one of MANY ways you could nerf Tac and move towards some parity, but it has the advantage of being an approach that looks fair and egalitarian while still actually flattening the disparity we see on the Live server now.
They did both!
The devs have buffed every single engineering captain space ability making it tank more and do more dps, and some science captain space abilities have also been buffed, increasing support for units and provide aoe extra dps. This closes some of the dps gap. And to top it off, APA lasts 33% less time, 1 minute 100% dmg bonus gdf has been replaced with 15second gdf with scaling bonus, which overall reduces tac dps and further closes the gap. And as consolation they've now got a sligjtly increased last ditch effort res buff.
What more could anybody want??
I don't see why tac abilities are still buffing science and exotic damage though... who thought that was a good idea!? It gives players free damage without the need of a console.
Tactical should boost weapons only not other forms of damage.
We are also finally seeing content such as the new Escalation pvevp queues, which emphasises less tactical and more strategy, which begins to give engineers and science their rightful place in the game. I hope they expand on this, following the 'success of the arena of sompek...'
It's like putting an engineer into a science ship and saying that he can't buff weapons and aux subsystems together because he's not allowed energy weapon and exotic dmg bonuses together when it's an engineers job to boost power levels!
The thing that seems to be really hard to understand is that this "solution" just nerfs one thing: Science Vessels. It gives an entire class less reason to fly Science Vessels. My Science Captains will not fare a tiny bit better in Science Vessels than before. The only thing everyone will be saying: "Oh, science vessel is the weakest ship class, don't fly them. Play a Tac in a Cruiser or in one of these Escorts with Heavy Weapons. That's where you get the big ticket DPS."
Science gets to boost exotic dmg, all dmg and debuff all damage resistance on a target with some varying healing and tanking on the side which is why there is less all dmg buff.
It's only fair that a tactical should be able to buff every type of dmg because this class has almost none of the aforementioned extra abilities.
-Fewer Weapon Slots
-Fewer Tactical Consoles
-Fewer Tactical Bridge Officer Powers
Raiders have 4/2 weapon setups and can use dual cannons. Science vessels have 3/3 weapon setups and CANNOT use dual cannons. With your change, a Tactical captain in a science vessel would be dropping their potential massively. It would be detrimental to be a Tactical Captain in a science vessel.
Additionally, if you don't give Science Captains "Science Pattern Alpha", they will do just as poorly with "exotic" damage as your new improved "escorts or GTFO" Tactical Captains.
I'm more afraid of a science captain in a science ship than a tactical in a science ship. I can't hide from a science captain, it's hard to hit a science captain because of scatter field, they can drain all my power and/or control my ship, they can get far more use of a science ship than tactical.
However, as a tactical captains, all I need is a gap in their buffs and I'll take them out in under 3 seconds, if they subnuc me, I'll wait a couple of seconds and use science team to clear it, worse comes to worse I can outrun them.
Why do tactical captain abilities need to buff science abilities!? It doesn't make sense. In PvE 30k DPS is more than enough to do any STF, in PvP a 50K spike is enough to take out an escort, science vessel and cripple a cruiser. You don't need to be able to buff science powers.
If you're playing as a science captain you can debuff the hell out of anything to the point that a grav well will eat a Borg cube, think outside the box. Why do you think science and engineering are the most powerful figures in PvP??
Sure tactical captains get more kills but mostly against other escorts. Messing with a science captain in a science ship is asking for trouble if you decide attack it as if it's an escort and you will be taken out in seconds for trying even if you're cloaked.
Though I will say that I would not mind if we saw a bit of a versatility given to how eps power transfer buffs our engineer kinda. Like that either it would give the the user a severa, of buffs based off each of the four subsystems, and each of the sub=system's power level when using eps determined the strength of the buff given. Though even the idea that eps power transfer gives the engineer a buff based off the ship type, and that this buff's strength is based on one/two of the sub-system types. Both Ideas would make eps more comparable to the strength of apa. But in the end even in the current ptr version of eps is quite comparable to apa, and so such a change would be a bit more of a flavor change.
They are NOT GOING TO CRIPPLE SCENCE SHIPS in the process of tackling the inequities of the profession system. They've only just gotten science ships to the point where people are excited about them enough to open their wallets. You can either get that or stay puzzled. But the real financial landscape we're working in is not going to change. Just like right now they're chipping away at the 'Cruisers Online' meta with a heavy-weapon revamp to escorts.
True. We're seeing a move towards normalization and that's nice. It's coming at the cost of some power creep, but I'll take what (little) I can get. For me, every single time I see some new player ask "So what's the best class?" in ANY online game I think to myself "If there's a correct answer to that question, you should be playing some other game."
STO still has a correct answer to that question.
Honestly? I'd like to see a balance review cycle shorter than half a decade. STO is making a push to appeal on the consoles, to present itself to a market that respects gameplay more than IP nostalgia. Cryptic needs to come to grips with the idea that healthy online games with a competitive element see review cycles in the 2-6 weeks range, not stretched out over multiple YEARS. If we are going to see such glacial progress then I want to see the bold, authoritative changes that highlighted the very first set of Space Balance patch notes. I want that wailing and gnashing of teeth as the old meta catches fire and burns. What we're getting has been slowly ground down to a couple of entirely safe moves and is frankly a little limp. At least it's progress. But its NOT enough progress to let sit and fester for another five years.
So what do I want? I want to see a bold and public announcement that they'll be launching another hard balance pass before the end of the year after they gather data from this round of changes. I want people to know this is not all there is. I want to kick the legs out from under the people that think bad decisions in opportunity-based design are invulnerable to change just because they're OLD bad decisions.
But as an immediate action item on my 'want list', I still want to hear if anyone's parsed the latest version of B:FAW now that the accuracy penalty has actually been turned on. The one button corrupt meta that ability has cursed this game with needs to die in a fire and it's not clear if anything has really changed...
Regarding bfaw. They shouldn't nerf bfaw to the ground as much as you might like because that ability is still a cruiser captain's main multitarget ability and would affect engineer dps more than anything. We don't want another uprising of engineers and pitch forks.
On your point of balance passes. It would be thorough to do a balance pass every 2-6 weeks, or another by the end of this year. However it would make sense to keep tabs on balance particularly after main sales of new power creep stuff has been introduced. This point in time would be the best time to assess where people are residing most. In order to maintain overall balance, devs should make sure they're bringing out new stuff that buffs or changes the gameplay of each class in equal proportions. This would help them avoid another balance pass like this which has upset a few tacs.
More positive note: I really like the new loading screens
Where did I say "into the ground"? It needs to be nerfed until its still the best tool for multi-target fights on beam boats WITHOUT eclipsing Beam Overload and Surgical strikes for single target. It needs to be nerfed until it's clearly inferior to Cannon: Scatter Volley I-III which takes up higher rank seats! And then throw in a side order of it needs to not simultaneously offer massive defensive value sweeping the sky clean of incoming projectiles. Given the content designers' persistent over-reliance on swarms of enemies, there's room for and cause for even MORE of a nerf, since its optimal situation is pretty much the universal norm...
I thought the initial changes were pretty on track except that the accuracy penalty seemingly did nothing. Which makes sense since it appears that drawback wasn't actually being applied and no one's checked it and reported their results since the accuracy penalty was hooked up in a later patch.
Are you a dev ?