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Damage Cap For Weapons (Idea)
roebotsixtyfive
Member Posts: 286 Arc User
I had an idea that would stop the rampant DPS bloat that's happening that wouldn't penalize the majority.
A damage cap.
Suggested Values:
-Cap the amount of damage a shot can do based on weapon type (this system would probably be best, as it would encourage the use of torpedoes, as well as make Cannons a more viable alternative to beams (considering their difficulty to use).
--Torpedoes and Mines: No Cap
--Turrets: 10000
--Single Beams: 12500
--Single Cannons: 15000
--Dual Beams: 17500
--Dual Cannons: 20000
--Dual Heavy Cannons: 22500
--Special Weapons (Tempest Tail Gun, Andorian Escort Wing Cannons, Experimental Proton Weapon, etc): No Cap
--Beam Overload (Overload Blast Part): No Cap
--Heavy Weapons: No Cap
--Exotic Damage: No Cap
--Anything From A Console/Set-Bonus Based Attack: No Cap
--Lance/Javelin/Other Built-In weapons: No Cap
A damage cap.
Suggested Values:
-Cap the amount of damage a shot can do based on weapon type (this system would probably be best, as it would encourage the use of torpedoes, as well as make Cannons a more viable alternative to beams (considering their difficulty to use).
--Torpedoes and Mines: No Cap
--Turrets: 10000
--Single Beams: 12500
--Single Cannons: 15000
--Dual Beams: 17500
--Dual Cannons: 20000
--Dual Heavy Cannons: 22500
--Special Weapons (Tempest Tail Gun, Andorian Escort Wing Cannons, Experimental Proton Weapon, etc): No Cap
--Beam Overload (Overload Blast Part): No Cap
--Heavy Weapons: No Cap
--Exotic Damage: No Cap
--Anything From A Console/Set-Bonus Based Attack: No Cap
--Lance/Javelin/Other Built-In weapons: No Cap
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
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No and frankly Cannons are not hard to use unless you mount them on barges with a slow turn rate. A few words to address this RCS, and Eng gear that boost turn rate. I have a Torkaht that turns so quick it is easy to over turn and miss. No problems keeping targets in the cannon arcs there. Ever fly an Escort? Apparently not as a well built escort also turns on a dime. Try fixing your build or changing your ship choice when it comes to cannons. They are very much viable. I notce all you ideas punish energy weapons boosted by consoles. So with your idea those of us who took the time and money to uprate to epic gear will be capped to laughable levels yeah that's fair right? Maybe figure out through experimenting or by following some of suggestions on how to buld a ship would be a better idea then punishing others. I'll clue you in on smething for the most part nerfs and man you have a whopper of a list of nerfs there are never popular or even a good idea in the long run.
Beams you can sit there in even the fattest ship with no turn rate at maxed impulse and they eternally remain in firing arc as you brainlessly circle your target. Cannons require you to actually THINK about where to position your ship and then move it there and then keep it on target, resulting in downtime where they aren't firing, making their higher damage output irrelevant. Plus, you can spam 8 Single beams, while at most you can use just 5 Dual or Dual Heavy cannons.
Also, what do you see every single DPS barge doing? Oh, right, spamming single beams. I wonder why? Oh, right, it's because the supposed to be 2nd weakest weapon consistently outdamages cannons (and even dual beams) at the higher end.
As for the values. I took the Single Beam value as base from a parse where someone (in a Science Scimitar, so 3 tac consoles) did over 90k (combined, normal and Fire At Will III) DPS with JUST Single Beams (in addition to other sources). The average damage per beam from both firing modes was about 11k per shot.
Also, you think constantly bloating Single Beam damage is the answer? Why not encourage OTHER builds by giving them the chance to compare. It's better to nerf just ONE weapon type (that is supposed to be the 2nd weakest in return for being easy to use), than buff ALL the rest to compete (which would just bloat DPS even more, and it's been bloating ever since Delta Rising).
P.S. I have a lot of old parses of various DPS ships. Only the top few % would even notice a damage cap with these values, and guess what, those are just Tacticals with huge Crit Severity in Single Beam spam barges.
P.P.S These caps would all be Post-Resist, not Pre-Resist (applying them pre-resist would be too much and would hurt the general population and not the small minority who are using their very specific game-breaking Single Beam spam build).
P.P.P.S. These caps would also allow Engs and Scis the ability to come closer to Tacs in terms of DPS without crippling specific abilities. So basically Tacs could get DPS easier but Scis and Engs could still get there if they tried.
P.P.P.P.S. You can have all Mk XIV Epic Gear and still be unaffected by a cap like this. The only people who would be noticeably affected by these damage caps would be the small population of Single Beam spammers with massive Crit Severity and Crit Chance gained through very specific builds that no other build can compete with.
Nice to see I'm not the only one that uses the term "Critwhore".
Also, fun fact, the weapons portion of that build was barely affected by S13, although they did lose the broken Plasma Explosion (which was hit a little TOO hard with the nerf bat, as it rarely ever procs (like sub 10 times in an ISA run) and when it does, it does barely any damage, if it's gonna proc that infrequently, at least make it do some damage) and the even more broken Feedback Pulse (which took this long to be fixed).
End game content is repetitive and boring and part of their enjoyment is finding ways to spank/beat that content as fast and efficiently as possible and thats by measuring DPS. Cap it and thats their fun gone and likely wallets closed as well
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
But what about fun for the majority? I know I hate being in a queue with one of these people, as they zoom in, destroy everything with their beams, and then zoom to the next target before most normal people can even get a few shots in, making everyone else feel totally useless. They would also find other ways to bork DPS, like using cannons, exotic, hangar pets, torpedoes, consoles, etc. There ARE other weapons than single beams you know. The meta CAN move, just look at what they did when FBP was fixed and Plasma Explosion was nerfed, they moved to the older methods of borking DPS with Single Beams.
Also, a damage cap wouldn't stop DPS chasing (since the new challenge would be keeping the damage on the cap (12500 x 8 beams = 100k, multiply that by 4 beams every 5 seconds (thanks to recharge time) (0.8) and you get 80k DPS, which when combined with FaW (which is pretty much 1 Beam Per Second) potential DPS of 100k, that's a potential of around 100k just from single Beam DPS pushed to the cap at all times, in addition to DPS from BOff Damage Abilities, Captain Abilities, Exotic, Pet, etc), but it would stop it being a monopoly belonging only to single beams, as the higher cap on cannons and dual beams would allow them to make up for their limited firing arc.
Special weapons could also include any weapon that is Max One Per Ship, like Reputation Project weapons and Omni-Beams, which have fixed procs (which in most cases limits their DPS anyway).
P.S. With a cap, to get max DPS, you wouldn't fire all your damage buffs at once, you would do them in succession.
No offence here but why do we have to go back to the old DPSer's are spoiling my fun because they are more skilled Players than me, they must be punished for being good at the game.
DPS'ers are using nothing and i mean "NOTHING" that is not available to anyone else in the game. Theres no hacking/cheating or exploiting going on, They simply use the tools of the game better than others. and WORK hard to get good.
If you're concerned about them swooping in and killing everything before you get the chance then my advice is become a better Player. Harsh words but it's true.
Its like a opposition Soccer team saying its not fair Barcelona have Messi in the team, he's far better than anyone we have and ruins our fun because he can beat us on his own. Barcelona are not allowed to Play him anymore.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
Also, OP, after S13 fun readjustment, single beams are not meta anymore.
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I think for actual damage output, your numbers are far too high. My main has everything maxed out, it's a heavy tank oriented engineer using Delta Prime that still manages to push out around 40k-60k as an average, kinda situational, and capable of bursting close to 70k under near perfect circumstances, and I could push it more if I weren't using shield healing Elite Fleet Phaser beams. The max damage my beams dish out is usually between 2k-4k non crit 5k-7k crit, with the occasional 10k+"super crit". I guess my point is, 40k-60k is far more than sufficient even for Elite queues let alone for the average "easy" queue, especially with a full team doing 40k+.
With your numbers I still see it being possible for Tacticals to push out over 200k and that still "breaks the game", it's no fun when everything is dead before you can get there, or before you finish activating all your buffs. And no cap on Torps? Why? I've seen torpedo boats do over 250k DPS, is that not still broken? No cap for exotic? Why?. My sci dishes out over 120k and she's a fresh 60 with only a week or so in rep, no Sci R&D trait, in mostly fleet gear and so on. Once she's done, she should hit well over 200k.
I think if you're going to cap damage, keep it under 100k maximum potential DPS. Perhaps instead of restricting specific weapons, restrict classes potential output with specific weapons. For example, a tactical with beams(cannons, torps etc) would cap at 100k, an engineer with beams would cap at 40k, but generate more threat, and a science would cap at 20k with beams (cannons etc) get a buff to out going healing and a buff to exotic dmg with a cap at 100k. Obviously more complex than that, but I'm on a short time frame. With that, maybe we would see more "role play" as tank/healer/DPS/magician. I love playing the tank and healer/support roles, but it's pointless when everything is dead in seconds, or when tacticals take so much damage they really shine the light on the definition of "glass cannon".
That's not really valid either. As to do that level of damage you need a very specific build, with VERY expensive equipment. Skill has nothing to do with it. Some of the DPS barges are just brainlessly following a guide they found, there is no skill in following a guide someone else has written and then doing super simple piloting like turning around in a circle to gain the max buff from Pedal To The Metal.
Realistically, weapon DPS is only viable for those with deep pockets. The average person with 0 RWM (Real World Money) and a Dil refine cap of 8k a day and an EC Cap of 10mil, is NEVER going to be able to compete, as short of getting insanely lucky on crafting/box opening (for Coalition Disruptors) they are never realistically going to compete because they cannot afford the gear with the required modifiers, without farming dil, EC, crafting materials, etc 24/7 for a long time.
Remind me how following a "How to DPS in STO" guide and following it to the letter is ANY indication of skill or player talent whatsoever?
What really bugs me is not that the DPS levels exist, it's that the easiest and most reliable way is to 8 beam broadside which is about as brainless as it gets (the only thing requiring less braincells is all turrets/omni-beams, but that doesn't perform too great especially now Plasma Explosion was hit out of orbit by the nerf bat), while other builds (Torp, Cannons, Exotic, etc) actually require brainpower to utilise (as timing and choosing targets is more imporant). Beams are supposed to be easy to use with their 270 arc, they are not supposed to hit heaviest (as they are supposed to be the 2nd weakest weapon), and yet, consistently, they do.
We have so many options, but why bother with any tactical console other than the spire ones because those are the best? Why bother with CrtH because every other proc (except some crafted ones like Snare) outperforms it? Why bother using Single Cannons at all (Nothing will fix THIS one I'm afraid, as Duals and Dual Heavys will always outdo them, except maybe being able to equip them on the rear of a ship as well)? Why run any Tactical BOff that DOESN'T have Superior Romulan Operative as one of their traits?
That's the real problem, massive DPS is just the indicator of someone using these clearly "the best" options. A damage cap would make some of these "the best" options redundant (overkill), and would allow for other equipment/BOffs/etc to take their place and allow for builds other than the cookie-cutter single beam Scimitars/Vengeances we currently have.
Raise the floor and keep the ceiling or lower the ceiling and keep the floor to encourage more variety in builds. People generally won't run Option B if Option A is the same as Option B but with extra power (E.g. Regular Tactical Consoles as Option B, and Fleet Spire ones as Option A).
Example of raising floor but not ceiling would be to make all base weapon damage higher, but get diminishing returns after a while, tuned so that current high DPS ships wouldn't feel the change, but would allow for lesser builds to reach a more useful state without having to rely on the "the best" equipment, BOffs, etc to get there.
I average 20k+ DPS (across over 70 chars) by the way, but I like to run more varied builds that tend to stick to canon.
Equally annoying as having a super critwhore roll in and kill everything in sight (some I swear have a bot or a macro rolling off their abilities for them) before you can click all your abilities, is having that sub 5k person (who doesn't draw aggro or heal others) who really shouldn't be in Advanced and makes you wonder how they are that weak.
The football analogy doesn't work very well either, as DPS in STO has less to do with Skill and far more to do with equipment, BOffs, traits, etc. A lot of which will end up costing a fortune unless you have incredibly good luck. A better analogy would be a potato of a PC that costs £150 going against a £3000 gaming PC in terms of performance, or a Family Hatchback drag racing a top fuel dragster, there's no possible chance the two can compete in either example because one has a tight budget, and the other has a nearly bottomless budget. You could flip the users, but the hardware just can't compete no matter how hard you try.
I tried to make the numbers so the critwhore crowd (which refers to the cookie-cutter Scimitar/Vengeance single beam builds) wouldn't instantly hate (they do, because it seems they are very resistant to seeing their clearly broken damage output being reduced by even the smallest amount).
As for Torp/Exotic no cap, both have many different sub-types which would need it's own cap. A Transphasic would likely never hit a universal torp cap, while a tricobalt would hit it quite often and rather nullify the point of a tricobalt. Exotic is the same sort of thing, some are tick based, while some are a huge lump.
I'm starting to think a cap isn't too great an idea, but a general raising of base damage and tuning buffs down would be better, as it would let the max DPS lot keep their bloated numbers, but would give the masses a chance to compete. It wouldn't end the cookie-cutter Scimis/Vengeances though, but it would encourage other builds.
Engineers on the other hand, seem to really be the only semi-balanced class. With decent survivability and if you build it to DPS, you're gonna have a hard time getting more than 80k, and that's squeezing out every ounce of "defense" in exchange for damage, and parsing in a perfect situation with lots of team buffs, even still, 80k will only be a burst and not sustainable. And that's why I play mostly engineer, they're more fun and things like a Borg Tactical Cube doesn't die from a single BO hit, or a single volley of FAW.
The other problem is there is no penalty on focusing on DPS and nothing else, with the only real threat being feedback pulse or an enemy that is quick to react before it is destroyed in the next 4 seconds. While focusing on defensives makes you hit like a feather duster and has diminishing returns on some stats.
The other part of this is if you implemented such a difficulty based hard cap on dps output (even other forms of output), than we might see more ques open up as the time for completing them may very well even out increasing the appeal to play the other stf ques with the closing of the time to reward ratio.Then you have also that if you knew going into certain stf difficulties had a hard cap on the damage you could deal, it would make it more appealing to shift your focus away from just dps to other areas like defensive and supportive areas.
So I guess you somehow miss that Tactical is the Damage Skill set. Tac should always be far and above the top damage dealing skill set. Engineers fix things and reduce damage to thier ships so they can stay in a slug match longer. Science gets rid of shields and other systems so they can whittle away at the target with not much real fear of damage. Get it? I guess not you and the OP just do not understand what the classes are supossed to do. So stop whining about Tac if you want top damage be Tac . But no you want to punish players who out DPS you or play different then you. So learn to be more effective in the class you picked instead of screaming nerf nerf nerf...
No need to be a rude little TRIBBLE when people are trying to make the game better. You're right, Tac are the DPSers. The problem is, they find exploits and stack everything they can so high that they ruin the game for everyone else who, like me, DOESN'T WANT TO MIN/MAX DPS. I want to enjoy the game as a tank. I am the guy who takes all the threat so your pathetic glass cannon can survive long enough to activate your buffs. It's not about making tacticals on the same dmg level as everyone else. It's about making them not do game breaking numbers and ruining the game for the people who want to play legit and enjoy queues that aren't over in two minutes. If you really want to get technical, a tacticals job isn't to dish out 500k DPS, their job to stealthily approach a situation and tactfully espionage a target(s).
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this is the best reason to do it
Tacs doing almost double the damage of other classes is the problem. Engineers can't take anywhere near double the damage a Tac can, and Sci's are actually supposed to be a balanced class that can do both roles (Damage and Tanking) equally well.
Control Effects, Drains, Heals, Etc are based far more on what type of Ship you fly, rather than what type of Captain you are. You can put a Sci in an Andorian Escort for example, and it won't be able to do much (if anything) to get rid of enemy shields and other systems (which is what you seem to think Scis are for), but you can put a Tac in any Science Vessel and be able to do pretty much anything a Sci could do in it, as well as broken DPS.
Each Captain Type has 5 abilities unique to them.
-Tacs have 2 sizeable all damage buffs, a sizeable teamwide damage buff, a sizeable single target damage resist debuff and a move that reduces cooldown on Tac BOff abilities by almost 50%.
-Engs have a small shield regen/resist buff, a sizeable power level buff, an energy drain resist buff (situational at best), a moderate teamwide hull resist/regen buff, and a sizeable Hull/Shield heal.
-Scis have a single target outgoing damage and buff stripping debuff (which is useless on all but "Boss" type enemies), A sizeable damage resist and small all damage buff, a moderate AoE damage resist debuff, a teamwide shield resist/heal buff, and the ability to summon 3 pets that will do some damage before dieing/timing out.
So,
Tacs get 5 strong abilities.
Engs get 2 strong, 2 moderate, and one really weak abilities.
Scis get 3 strong and 2 moderate (although one is very situational) abilities.
Don't see any discrepancy there? All tac abilities are useful in any situation, while some Eng/Sci ones are situational and are generally less potent.
A Tac can tank or be a support role almost as well as an Eng or a Sci. Meanwhile Eng and Sci can fill each other's role equally well, but cannot come remotely close to the damage output of a Tac. That's not unbalanced at all is it? *Sarcasm*
So either lower Tac (not being able to stack APA, Go Down Fighting and Tac Fleet would probably do it), or drastically buff Eng + Sci. I would say lower Tac, since that would be changing one class rather than two, and we have enough bloated damage as is at the moment anyway.
I agree, definitely lower Tact. As a primary Engineer, and occasional Sci support, I don't want those to be buffed. I enjoy their respective level of potency, but Tact does 2-5 times as much damage on average with, at times, the same level of survivability. The amount of potential DPS a tactical can use, is indeed game breaking and should be addressed.
There are some out-of-date information here as well. As it stands, the current top DPS parse is at 208k (held by a Tac) but given time (and some Nanny Runs), I think 300k will be the cap, not 400k. After the balance pass, Tacs can definitely not tank as well as Engineers can. Their current high DPS builds are glass cannons (and they should be) so there is a drawback. I know some Tacs that still try to Tac, and it results to a massive hit to their DPS just to survive.
Thing is, the current levels seem just right for the game's Elite content because while DPS numbers in an Advanced queue can still be high, they'll all need to sacrifice some of that damage to keep up in an Elite run. Several heals got nerfed so on top of lower DPS, NPCs have more time to hit you, so the difficulty in Elite is definitely higher than it was pre-patch. Case and point, Korfez, which was recently adjusted up to proper Elite levels. Try bringing your 40-60k ships there and see if you can complete it.
What the game needs more at this point, are more Elite STFs.
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I have no problem running my 40k-60k DPS tank in elite queues. 208k DPS is the current highest DPS SINCE THE UPDATE, believe me, that will be broken soon enough. Max DPS was at 240k for the longest time, and gradually went up over time, hitting over 500k. It's only a matter of time before people find the exploits yet again, and the hardcore min/maxers will utilize them to make the new average even more ridiculous than 200k, yes, more ridiculous than 200k.
Let's be real though, with the lack of elite queues, those 200k+, which isn't even needed for elite, still overkill, come to normal queues and completely ruins the fun of doing queues for those of us not attempting to min/max. That's where the problem lies. Considering Normal queues are the most frequently farmed for marks due to "ez mode" and the fact that the wait times are considerably less, normal queues are far more abundant than elite, even advanced, as I'm noticing lately with 10+ minute wait times for advanced and elite. 200k+ DPS breaks those and you know it, hell even 100k, as my Sci does, breaks normal queues, By breaking, I mean one person killing everything and a single match being over in just a couple minutes, or even seconds in some.
If you want/need higher damage for the few elite queues available, no need to break the rest of the game with 100k+ DPS. Actually balance it out, and then give a team wide buff during elite queues to make up for the "missing damage".... Or you know, actually challenge yourself and go in doing 50k DPS, ya know, there's a whole team, not just you.
I think the underlying problem is, with the "DPS Race", there's no room in the multiplayer PvE OR PvP content for people who A. Haven't blown a ton of money. B. Are new to the game. C. Role players/themed players. I think that brings us to the conclusion that min/maxers are extremely selfish.
Since you've not read, let me point it out. In multiplayer situations, your TRIBBLE high DPS, it affects other peoples game play experience.... That's why. If a person comes into a match that does.. .let's say 200k DPS, and they run around killing everything in mere seconds, before any other player has a chance to kill anything, do you know what happens? Everyone else gets an AFK penalty for not doing damage. Granted I've only seen that done once, but it most certainly happens to new and "poor" players.
See, the problem you have isn't high DPS, it's that high DPSers are ruining Normal (which could also be due to the horrible queue UI). I personally don't know any high DPSer that would run in a normal map unless there was no other option than Normal (like Fleet Alert, or the Red Alerts). But if they do go to Normal queues to farm or troll, then I'd say the opposite is also true: undergeared players entering Advanced or Elite. In which case, the newfangled player matching system should eventually sort that out (if that actually works).
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I just don't agree that it's a problem that needs to be fixed in this manner. The fix is to educate your fellow man. Teach him that running beam arrays on the front of his ship with turrets on the rear while using target subsystems buff is not desirable. Help him to learn the benefits of using cloned emergency power to weapons while he saves up for his damage control engineers or A2B doffs.
Knowledge is power. Spreading knowledge is the key. Placing limits that destroy revenue streams is not the best path.