Ten Forward Weekly 07.08.2019

thegrandnagus1

Credit to andrey_159 on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/cnedbp/ten_forward_weekly_07082019/

Theme: Ten Forward Weekly: 2019/2020 Roadmap! (but also new Voth ships and adv beams)

Guest: executive producer Andre Emerson, ship designer Donny Versiga and system designer Jette Leavens

​

Andre Emerson:

• Mike showed 25th century Somerville. Nacelles look flat and IMO is much better.
• They weren't wiling to give out full-spec ship as an event reward.
• They felt that general idea with ship-earning event was well-received and they'll probably do it again, but ship may be not from C-Store.
• Awakening and Elachi ship: all new activities should count towards earning the ship.

New patrols:

• Some of them would feature same scene, but with different enemies each time.
• Choice of marks, but smaller amount that TFO.
• Double ship XP earn rate.
• They won't necessarily be combat encounters.

New plot:

• we're going back to the future!
• October - Kobayashi Maru.
• Likely start of the new season of ship-earning event.

November FTFO:

• they expect that having EV suit would be required for it and that by that point they'll finish the system that would allow to wear suit and regular armour at the same time.
• New livetimer things would arrive around that time. Among other thing they would do something pleasant to multi-char people.
• DIS heads are likely post-anniversary. They got new team member in art department to ease the load.
• New Fek'Ihri would be something huge (carrier? dreadnought?)
• Anniversary: ships we were waiting for would become directly accessible, rather then indirectly. Mote that 10 ships is to be expected.

They feel endeavour system was a success and numbers show that significant portion of people are doing them actively.

• They're considering adding some midway prises for endeavour ranks. Retroactively available.
• They're considering de-randomising personal endeavour system and controlling it so that they can give out event-related tasks if there are any active (right now - no control, 100% randomness).

Various things:

• They're working on returning old missions. Some would be back in the same place, some may be regrouped, some were deemed beyond repair.
• There are plans to start releasing convention-exclusive items to a wider public after some period of exclusivity passes.
• There may be an event where borgs (and later other enemies) would randomly attack you during other activities and defeating enough of them would give a prise.
• They didn't say no to recruitment rerun, but rather "we're looking into it". They're worried because recruitments are faction exclusive. Timeframe: not earlier than anniversary.
• They have "fragments of ideas" about expanding boff functionality, including captaining ships.
• Something including Enterprise-F crew is in works.

Donny Versiga and Jette Leavens

• Updating Voth ships' models took about a month.
• He tried to preserve the old general design, but refresh it and empathise several things, like ending some depressions or much more visible deflectors that affect hull shapes.
• Donny tried adding fire ports at the sci ship.
• Currently lacks windows, it's a bug. Donny is fixing them.
• (I wish Jette would've come to stream in that green shirt. That would've looked fun.)
• Trait on flight-deck is supposed to make pets behave a little like voth ships.
• Palisade and Bastille are supposed to be tankier sci ships.
• Sci ship's trait is supposed to exploit cloak, which is a thing for Voth too, but since some people can't use cloak they also tied trait to EtS, since shields are also a Voth thing.
• They're nerfing the advanced beams because great players were able to buff them TOO much. It'll be done by shuffling buff groups.
• They're buffing beams in general and beam overload specifically. Instead if one huge beam it'll be more like surgical strikes: less RoF, bigger flat damage (2 times less RoF, but 3~4 times more damage).

Fanart:

• Kael likes receiving drawn art.
• Stream was horribly unstable for me, but worth it.

crypticspartan

I have a few comments to add onto some sections:

Sci ship's trait is supposed to exploit cloak, which is a thing for Voth too, but since some people can't use cloak they also tied trait to EtS, since shields are also a Voth thing.

In general, with starship traits, we tend to have a thematic thing traits activate from, and them a more generally available one. This is why you see traits that activate on "Any Command Bridge Officer Ability or Auxiliary to Structural" - some ships lack command seating, but no T6 ship can't use a Lieutenant rank Engineering ability.

(I wish Jette would've come to stream in that green shirt. That would've looked fun.)

It was really funny, but ultimately it's not great production value, and messing with Mike's hair was fun enough for us. Certainly a thing to remember for next time!

They're nerfing the advanced beams because great players were able to buff them TOO much. It'll be done by shuffling buff groups.

I want to clarify this and expand on it because this is an important subject - it's the opposite of what you described here. Before release, we specifically talked about high-end players and looked at the data on how these beams performed relative to other players in high-end setups. The data we have showed and continues to show that these weapons are at least in the range of reasonable on the high end, especially compared to Spiral Waves. We specifically looked at that group of players because things that overperform tend to do so very obviously on high-end characters, and may not be nearly as obvious on lower end characters.

These beams were an exception to that; they currently look to be relatively fine for high-end players, and more problematic the less dps optimized your build is. Since many players at the high end aren't using beams right now (and the very high end is not, by definition, the majority of our players), the overwhelming majority of the feedback on these beams was coming from players not running optimized DPS setups, and for whom the current state of these beams is problematic.

The change made was targeted at making the relative effectiveness of these beams not scale so wildly with where you are on the scale from a new character to a fully optimized Borg killer. As the images showed, the intent isn't to decrease their effectiveness at the high end, where we don't believe there was a significant problem. The intent of this change is to address the fact that they had unhealthy amounts of effectiveness on less dps focused builds, while ensuring they stay useful to higher-end characters.

We read a lot of community math and feedback before making this change, because we know these weapons represented a significant investment for many players, one that needs to remain valuable. That needs to be balanced against the needs to allow players who don't use these weapons, either because can't make that investment, they don't want to, they like the looks of a different weapon, or whatever other reason, to remain relevant in the gameplay space. Looking at this on a whole, we believe this change does a good job of balancing both factors, and will continue to listen to feedback on them.

They're buffing beams in general and beam overload specifically. Instead if one huge beam it'll be more like surgical strikes: less RoF, bigger flat damage (2 times less RoF, but 3~4 times more damage).

Tomorrow's patch just buffs beam overload. We're keeping an eye on beams, like we keep an eye on other things, so as I said on the stream, feel free to give feedback on Beam Overload, Fire at Will, Torpedoes, science vessels, carriers, whatever else you have feedback on.

seaofsorrows

crypticspartan#0627 wrote: »

I want to clarify this and expand on it because this is an important subject - it's the opposite of what you described here. Before release, we specifically talked about high-end players and looked at the data on how these beams performed relative to other players in high-end setups. The data we have showed and continues to show that these weapons are at least in the range of reasonable on the high end, especially compared to Spiral Waves. We specifically looked at that group of players because things that overperform tend to do so very obviously on high-end characters, and may not be nearly as obvious on lower end characters.

These beams were an exception to that; they currently look to be relatively fine for high-end players, and more problematic the less dps optimized your build is. Since many players at the high end aren't using beams right now (and the very high end is not, by definition, the majority of our players), the overwhelming majority of the feedback on these beams was coming from players not running optimized DPS setups, and for whom the current state of these beams is problematic.

The change made was targeted at making the relative effectiveness of these beams not scale so wildly with where you are on the scale from a new character to a fully optimized Borg killer. As the images showed, the intent isn't to decrease their effectiveness at the high end, where we don't believe there was a significant problem. The intent of this change is to address the fact that they had unhealthy amounts of effectiveness on less dps focused builds, while ensuring they stay useful to higher-end characters.

We read a lot of community math and feedback before making this change, because we know these weapons represented a significant investment for many players, one that needs to remain valuable. That needs to be balanced against the needs to allow players who don't use these weapons, either because can't make that investment, they don't want to, they like the looks of a different weapon, or whatever other reason, to remain relevant in the gameplay space. Looking at this on a whole, we believe this change does a good job of balancing both factors, and will continue to listen to feedback on them.

Thank you for putting so much time into the issue.

I will admit, as someone that runs these beams in a high end build, I was not happy to see the change as I don't see anything about these beams that makes them as powerful as people were claiming. Unlike you though, I am not privy to the effects of these beams in lower end builds where apparently, they were over performing.

My first reaction is that I am unhappy to see them changed, while they weren't super great, I felt they were more on par with how Beams should be at the higher end since 'normal' beams are so badly under powered. I was hoping that things would be balanced more by buffing other beams to close the gap, but I know that was hoping for too much. Overall, I will reserve judgement until I test the beams with the new changes, but you guys really need to look into the performance of beams in relation to cannons. They're in really bad shape, and the Advanced Phasers were the closest thing we had to an actual 'fix' up to this point.

Hopefully, they still perform well in high end builds, especially since this ship is limited to beams as it's only options. Thank you again for taking the time to analyze the data, hopefully we can keep an eye on the performance post change to make sure they continue to function well in high end builds.

legendarylycan

what do you people have against the [Over] mod? this is now the SECOND buff to beam overload that the mod is not benefiting from in any way, making it an even BIGGER steaming pile than it already was when it got nothing from the first buff

can we PLEASE get some love for the poor [Over] mod?

and how is this change going to affect the https://sto.gamepedia.com/Specialization:_Energy_Weapons_Officer#Beam_Overload_variant doff?​​

lordmerc22

The Feh'kiri may be a T6 Kar'fi(catfish) carrier is my guess

lexusk19

(Flaming, demanding comments moderated out. - BMR)

baddmoonrizin

Nope. We're not going to come in here to flame/bash the devs and make demands about a change that was advertised well in advance.

ltminns

They said they were going to do something but didn't know what it would be. No Tribble build either.

The fact that they said something was going to be done was the reason why I banked the Arrays until they did what they decided what they were going to do.

crypticarmsman

As usual its one of two things:

- Cryptic DESIGNER incompetence (Sorry we've been down the: "No really, we didn't realize this would be THAT OVERPOWERED..." road too many times for this to be a coincidence in the past 9+ years. You'd think after such a long period of development you'd have a Dev team and QA team that could catch something like this before release...)

OR

- Part of the usual Cryptic Lock Box paradigm (that we've seen TIME AND AGAIN since STO went F2P and brought in 'Lock Box Ships"; and that is: Release something they KNOW is OP and will need adjustment; but hey, we'll do it 1 to 2 months later and it'll really drive key sales and really spike our revenue stream.

Anyone who didn't see this coming (as it has SO MANY TIMES before) is either brand new to STO (IE - Welcome to how Cryptic does business); or clueless themselves as again, this isn't the first time (nor will it be the last) that we see this cycle play out.
^^^
This is "Cryptic Corporate Culture" at work.

thay8472

Still no Typhoon Class?

rattler2

somtaawkhar wrote: »

Good. A dedicated EV suit has been one of the biggest QOL features we have needed for awhile.

Ground and space spec loadouts being the other big one.

Also a Pet Tab.

srbin666

(Discussion of moderation removed. - BMR)

rattler2

They don't announce things like that in game. Never have. Why should this be any different?

They tried something new, and something wasn't working right. We even had a Dev explain in detail how it wasn't working right. So what is it that you want? Something that's working or something that's broken?

crypticarmsman

srbin666 wrote: »

(Discussion of moderation removed. - BMR)

The only announcement was a quick comment on one of their Wednesday afternoon STO Livestreams; and they specifically said only that they were 'looking into reports of the Beams being too effective in comparison to existing ones and that they MIGHT (not would); MIGHT end up taking some sort of action.'

For some of the Community Mods to claim "They directly advertised a Nerf was incoming..." is just not true, until yesterday's Livestream.

(And if the Community Mods claim: "That WAS an advertisement..." - it's only because they too have seen this cycle play out with new Lockbox ship equipment or mechanics as soon as Cryptic feels they've made the lion's share of money they're going to make from said Lockbox item.)

seaofsorrows

srbin666 wrote: »

(Discussion of moderation removed. - BMR)

There was a comment made on a live stream about 2 months ago. That is supposed to serve as official notice to everyone.

As for discussion, you might want to try reddit. The moderation team here does their best, but discussion of any topic related to Cryptic is heavily moderated. I understand, they work with/for the devs (unpaid) and they seek to protect them, but I agree.. it's not done out of spite or to 'silence' anyone. Still, you can't discuss issues here.. best to just accept it and know it's not malicious.

jcox2

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

Nope. We're not going to come in here to flame/bash the devs and make demands about a change that was advertised well in advance.

"Advertised" ??? Where in the game did it state that? Is your point that one has to scour the internet to find 'possible' changes to items you must buy?

thevampinator

Stuff could have been communicated better on the forums but given cryptic did respond to one post about it yestorday I think that is hope they might do more of that. Maybe making it part of a blog post if it wasn't already would have helped players know about it coming. I'm sure most didn't even know till yesterdays livestream. I don't think as many watch them but more possibly did watch the last one because of the live streams nature talking about whats going to come. I'm kinda really happy with the direction they are going and what I heard coming from them. As they did mention something about new hires. The possibility for more content like new races and other things. New Patrols and other stuff. Ability to just use one shot for ev suits is very promising. So much to look forward too as well. Watching them talk makes me have more respect for them. Randomized mobs and possible unique events. For some patrols also seem to hopefully make it less boring to some players. I don't really care about the weapons there is so many types out there. Others might moan or complain and maybe to the point it becomes fct. But in the end does not change that they are actually listening to us and changing things to be better for the player base which is a very good sign. If anyone has not seen it here it is.

seaofsorrows

I was expecting something like this.. so I wasn't hit as hard by it.

I honestly think a good portion of the anger over the change was people that feel they were not informed before hand, even though Cryptic actually did attempt to communicate to people that a change was likely.

Personally, I would like to see Cryptic work a little more on communication with the player base. I think it would improve their image, overall player satisfaction, and ultimately make the jobs of the forum moderators easier. Communication like the one that Spartan posted here in this very thread are a great example of things I wish we saw more of. The response was greatly appreciated and did a great job explaining they how and the why of what was done.

Sure, I don't always agree.. but despite that, I thank Spartan for posting and communicating the change to the player base. It was most appreciated and something I hope to see more of. I also hope that forum users will encourage this type of dialogue by being respectful to the staff when they do take the time to post.

thevampinator

seaofsorrows wrote: »

I was expecting something like this.. so I wasn't hit as hard by it.

I honestly think a good portion of the anger over the change was people that feel they were not informed before hand, even though Cryptic actually did attempt to communicate to people that a change was likely.

Personally, I would like to see Cryptic work a little more on communication with the player base. I think it would improve their image, overall player satisfaction, and ultimately make the jobs of the forum moderators easier. Communication like the one that Spartan posted here in this very thread are a great example of things I wish we saw more of. The response was greatly appreciated and did a great job explaining they how and the why of what was done.

Sure, I don't always agree.. but despite that, I thank Spartan for posting and communicating the change to the player base. It was most appreciated and something I hope to see more of. I also hope that forum users will encourage this type of dialogue by being respectful to the staff when they do take the time to post.

Yeah I do appreciate them doing that too. I'm happy they did. Even if some might not agree with it. At least it gives us their reasoning for doing things and does help build up player trust and hopefully this can become more common so there can be two way communication and hopefully cryptic will be do more of this and hopefully work with the player base when tie comes to such adjust things to make the majority of the player base happy I'm very hopeful from what I heard from that last live stream. I agree with you on the respect thing as this can help improve relations and at least keep the forum mods from having to overwork themselves and have more time playing the game like BMR. Who I really do like as a Forum mod. Would like to see his job and other forum mods jobs a lot easier. Even if we might not make it as easy for him and others we should attempt as a community to make it so. I agree with you 100%. Doing this might make it so the devs will post more on the forums and would be a win for us and them. Can even give them ideas for new storylines that they might be able to see or take in account and maybe use.

jcox2

anyone else notice that since the patch, beam overload 2 and 3 no longer work with the advanced phasers?

chaosgod777

(Flaming, insulting, accusations moderated out. - BMR)

rattler2

somtaawkhar wrote: »

That's fairly low on my personal list since I don't carry pets around.

If you saw my bank...
lol

ltminns

Did it used to be automatic 10% damage stacking to 60%, or was it 5% chance of that? The new one is 5% chance of 10% critical stacking to 60%.

Without an Upgrade Weekend and their intimations that they were going to look at them and make changes, I immediately stored them on another ship. I'll look to see about upgrading and using after the next Upgrade Weekend later in the month.

jcox2

(Response to moderated comments removed. - BMR)

ltminns

Look at the original announcent for it:

'Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays
The Miracle Worker Flight Deck Cruiser comes standard with six Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays and unlocks the purchase of additional Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays in the Dilithium store. These all new Beam Arrays have the unique visuals seen in the Season 2 finale of Star Trek: Discovery, and come with a special new proc that increases the damage of your Advanced Phaser Beam arrays. This buff scales in effectiveness with the number of Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays you have equipped.'

jcox2

ltminns wrote: »

Look at the original announcent for it:

'Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays
The Miracle Worker Flight Deck Cruiser comes standard with six Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays and unlocks the purchase of additional Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays in the Dilithium store. These all new Beam Arrays have the unique visuals seen in the Season 2 finale of Star Trek: Discovery, and come with a special new proc that increases the damage of your Advanced Phaser Beam arrays. This buff scales in effectiveness with the number of Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays you have equipped.'

Yep. They have never marketed a ship implying it was just a space Barbie. The Disco Enterprise's stats aside, its selling points included -
Console – Universal – Reinforcing Squadrons,Starship Trait – Polarized Lattice-Optimized Tritanium Armor,Advanced Phaser Beam Arrays,Hangar Pets: Tactical Flyers

jcox2

somtaawkhar wrote: »

jcox2 wrote: »

...Sorry but the weapons and bonuses were all part of the marketed selling points on the Disco Enterprise

I never said they weren't. Please try again.

you sure did in your post
somtaawkhar Member Posts: 6,034 Arc User
11:54AM edited 11:55AM
"The primary selling point of the Disco enterprise was the ship itself, and its visual look. Not any weapons, or powers tied to it, those were just bonus. "