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Stacking identical consoles on your ship...bad game design?
baudl
Member Posts: 4,060 Arc User
Cryptic is making the effort of coming up with ever more powerful consoles and sets going along. However, the most effective setup for most ship builds is, even the most novice STO player eventually learns early on, to stack the same tac-consoles to get the most out of your beams/guns and torpedos.
The question I am raising now...or again...since I have been pondering on this issue for years, is WHY are those consoles not unique in the first place?
Why have ships with 5 tac console slots when the only sensible way of using those 5 slots is duplicating the same consoles?
The question I am raising now...or again...since I have been pondering on this issue for years, is WHY are those consoles not unique in the first place?
Why have ships with 5 tac console slots when the only sensible way of using those 5 slots is duplicating the same consoles?
Go pro or go home
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Because there are other means of filling those console slots up. Not everyone stacks tactical damage consoles.
So no. It is not the "sensible thing" because it is not a one size fits all thing. Does that get the most out of more tactical based ships? Yes. Can it make more engie based ships more powerful? Yes. Is it an absolute must do? No.
We have the OPTION to do so. We are not required to do so. The fact most players do is meta choice. Not you must do this to be able to do anything. Because I can tell you for a fact there are sci builds out there that don't care about phaser relays or locators.
It would mean that tactical ships would be able to enhance more weapon types, which they're able to better utilize with their tactical heavy bridge seating. However, it would also mean that a cruiser or science vessel could still match the damage of an escort with a single weapon/damage type. When you throw in set consoles, it would become an interesting choice of what you want to trade-off.
Example;
A Cruiser with 3 tac consoles could slot +phaser, +beam, +quantum
An Escort with 5 tac consoles could slot +phaser, +beam, +cannon, +quantum, +projectile
Likewise, it would mean that Sci vessels would be able to diversify more with their builds. Additionally, the extra slots would meant that they would likely be more naturally inclined to heal/have stronger shields(cruisers would potentially have room for hull healing). Although, secondary deflectors definitely throw a wrench in the parity department.
that is pretty much just another problem the game has...a console you simply have to have. But rest assured, I actually have it too.
And of course you don't have to stack certain consoles to beat the game, that goes without saying... on the other hand it makes it easier.
What I was trying to point out was, that even using console sets can't compensate the advantage of stacking consoles. It isn't sexy to sacrifice performance of my ship. And I'm far from even min-maxin' my ships.
But I have to agree...the game is so easy and so non-competitive, that it really doesn't matter what consoles you put there. Would it even matter if they got rid of the distinction between the slots?
Again, I think it is poor game design to not have stacking restrictions. There is a reason why almost all (if not all) do not allow the stacking of identical gear.
As for games allowing multiple of single item, it's definitely a thing, at least in some other space games. Eve lets you stack modules, though with a stacking penalty. Elite: Dangerous lets you have multiple of certain modules.
The main thing I personally don't like about stacking consoles is that, especially as mark levels continue to increase the stat gains per console, it tends to invalidate a lot of ships from various playstyles. If you're not rocking atleast 4 tac consoles these days, a DEW build isn't really worth going for(looking at you, countless cruisers with 3 tac consoles). Drain builds are particularly exclusive due to the 2x fleet drainX consoles and the extreme drain resists of mobs. Exotic damage builds are probably the most forgiving due to the abundance of cat2 universal consoles available(which is why you can run an exotic torp boat on almost anything).
Outside of raw stats, I also don't like arbitrary abstraction of a glorified runabout like the La Sirena having objectively more firepower than, for example, a Negh'var(an actual warship which has under-mounted weapons probably the size of the entire La Sirena class).
By no means is anyone required to do it, just because something is suggested or recommended doesn't mean you are locked into it. I have had several occasions where I have sacrificed a Locator console for something I just had to have in my build, it's purely up to the individual and always has been.
No matter what though, there will always be a setup that will be considered 'the best' in most cases. If you made Locators unique and limited to one per ship, people would just find the mathematical next best for each slot and that would become the new 'meta.'
As always there is only ever one way to create parity and that's variety. You flood the market with so many good alternatives that people have to make choices. You want to create a new meta, create more choices. The big problem STO has is that you usually have a handful of good items and everything else is trash. That's the real problem.
Nerfing things never creates parity, it simply makes 2nd best move into 1st place. The only thing that creates build diversity is attractive alternatives.
Making things interesting, they could make each type of console as unique/restricted.
For example, you could use only a Vulnerability Locator, a Vulnerability Exploiter, a Protomatter Console and whatever tac consoles they see fit with no duplicates.
It's gonna drop the powercreep and boost the confidence of the users with more variety/Trek-like tint in their ship builds.
The drops in cat1 will also cause all cat2 and final bonuses to yield smaller numbers, which in consequence will make the combat slightly more challenging and make pets more competent by comparison.
And yeah, I'm aware, having a combined of over 100 vulnerability locators over 10 toons ... that we're gonna be left with an excess of locators/exploiters/protomatters running around, but an exchange NPC to help us turn those into other consoles (turn a locator to a exploiter or to a protomatter console) or into 50% of the costs for the console (25k FC and 4250 fleet bound dil per console is still a fine return, if you're no longer using it).
I'm aware it's a lot of work on development's part, but it sounds like a promising shift of meta.
You'd lower DPS a small fraction and instead of 4x phaser locators or relays, there would be an order of consoles to fill the slot, going down the list till you run out of slots but with non fleet players running out of consoles faster.
It would probably hurt science ships significantly more for the non fleet players that don't even have access to the kind of power fleet science consoles offer currently while fleet players can diversify their consoles and lose very little power easily.
So ultimately I don't understand why anyone wants this. If you don't like it, don't do it.
To those who say that you can do it anyway already, I have to say that you are absolutely correct, but you can't say that the game is better because of it. Having more options doesn't automatically equate to a better game.
Also, as others have mentioned, certain unfavourable ships would become more desireable. Many ships are trash from the day of release simply because you can't stack certain desireable consoles. Releasing ships that are considered trash by players is basically the definition of bad game design.
Being tied to fleet consoles a lot of the time it's probably something that would be too risky as the balance passes tend to cause ripples and a perceived loss of players anyway so to lock folk from multiple consoles that they took time to grind out to both buy and upgrade would cause much more of a stooshy.
Oddly though they've never seemingly considered having diminishing returns of any significance to try and nudge folk away from stacking.
Of course, it can be difficult to invent other tactical consoles that would be worth adding. Especially enough to fill a potential 5 different slots. You could do stuff like +CritD or +CritH - but in the end, that's just extra damage with extra steps, and either it is competitive with a +DMG boosting tac console or it is not.
The real mistake IMO was always making universal consoles with clickable abilities. They should use a different type of slot.
But the ship has sailed years ago. And there isn't really any point to change them, because it's not that game-altering that it would miraculously improve the game by a significant margin.
What ships are considered trash because of console slots? I'm not aware of that criticism of any ship. People wish some ships had more tactical console slots, but more often its the BOFF seating that makes a ship weak.
However you're not giving people more options by forcing them to use one copy of a console. You're giving less. Take the Akira as an example, a ship that is popularly seen as a torpedo boat in canon. You can still build it as an energy weapon ship, slotting it full of energy consoles. You can build it as a torpedo ship and slot it full of torpedo consoles. You can hybridize it and do some mix.
What you can't do any longer, if you then make consoles unique, is to do a torpedo heavy or energy heavy ship. You have no choice but to hybridize. Fleeties can use phaser locator, cannon/beam locator, torpedo locator, photon locator (or whatever energy/torpedo types you want.) That's still 4 consoles boosting crit chance and you use the disco rep console for the fifth, which is pretty much no difference to now because the crit chance from those consoles matters most. Non fleet just suffer using standard version of those consoles.
Again, though, science would be an even bigger difference between fleet/nonfleet because of the variety of fleet science consoles, I think most of which give multiple bonuses to various science skills.
I'd say the Europa is not popular for a number of reasons, the tact consoles being one reason of many. That said, I am quite sure it can be used to good effect in spite of the tact console situation as I flew one for a while.
I just want to point out, that implementing new consoles with basically every new ship, but still sticking to the option of stacking the same console multiple times is paradox game design, especially if stacking is the most effective thing to do and not just a flavour option.
Actually having to take a somewhat weaker console (from fleet stores) means you might be inclined to opt for a different one all together, not because "you like the theme of it or klicky", but because it actually synergyses with other consoles as a set or whatever.
To answer your question about which ship is trash...well those you don't see, or only see within the week of their release and then never again. Sure, bad BOFF layout is a huge factor, but don't tell me console layout isn't a factor. Since Universal or Hybrid Boff slots are a common thing now anyway, I'd argue this is less of an issue than previously.
Your theoretical example of a console setup is kind of moot, because you are assuming a restriction you just invented...nobody claimed this combination would be possible. And would it even be a bad thing to put all tac consoles with a crit stat on them into the same category and make them unique? I mean, how this restriction could be implemented is another debate entirely and you raise some excellent points about why they probably should be all one category.
I don't think I follow your first paragraph. You're suggesting that the existence of universal consoles is pointless because you can use multiple copies of consoles of other types? If that is correct, I have no idea how that makes sense. Universal consoles are there to slot wherever you feel like, or not at all. Should you be forced to slot it? Taking in the rest of your ideas on restricting consoles, I get the sense you do think that you should be forced to slot uni consoles somewhere.
Having to work around console restrictions doesn't mean you're finding better consoles to use. The best consoles to use for your build are already the ones you're not allowed to use due to these restrictions you want, because you'd use them if not for the restrictions, wouldn't you? So instead you have to look at the next best options which may do a lot of things you don't care about and only a little of what you do.
And that is where I don't see the value in this. No one forces anyone to stack consoles of the same type. In fact the DPS types around here are going to tell you that you don't need to do so. It isn't a requirement to complete this game; it is arguably a requirement to be the most powerful DPSer you can be, but again that isn't necessary at any point in the game. A lot of my ships don't bother with stacking tactical consoles unless they are tactical ships and they are just as useful in a fight as the ones that do. What I see is not that this is a necessity for more diverse builds, but that you and others are unwilling to break the mold and try a ship build without doing the stacking, and realize just how little it actually matters.
For trash ships, yes they aren't seen often, but suggesting that it is primarily because of the consoles is a reach. I don't particularly like the Europa for how sluggish and ugly it is. The consoles are irrelevant to me. I have no doubt some people look at the consoles and go NOPE! but I've flown the ship and say it isn't that important.
And you started off the thread with the proposal that consoles be unique. That is what I was going off of in my example. It is a mechanic that already exists and we understand how it works. Classes of items, only one of which is allowed is something I'm not sure they can do, nor do I know how it would be implemented, so obviously I go with the assumption on how it would work based on your initial complaint.
Again, though, if you want to limit consoles via classes, you're stretching things even further into the realm of cookie cutter builds because you have an increasingly small number of options to choose from, and I'm still not sure to what end.
Now this I can agree with. A lot of uni consoles are pretty awful, even if you can use the clicky as frequently as it pops up. And some unique consoles like the mentioned undine rep console are too specific to be useful to most builds.
What my initial post was meant to mean, was that the CONCEPT of being able to stack multiple copies of the same console is poor game design...and on top of that, stacking consoles is even meta. (Not stacking is kind of niche)
But on the other hand releasing new consoles with every new ship...ships you want to sell to players. But basically the consoles are the "throw away part".
To me, that makes ZERO sense.
OK, this argument makes sense to me, and I can kinda get behind it, at least partially. Cryptic probably doesn't want entirely ship consoles to be meta though, as that'd very quickly get them the label and stigma of 'pay to win' if you needed 11-12 $30+ ship consoles to be in all your slots to do decent. While there is plenty of power to buy in one way or another, most of it isn't as blatant as straight up buying 11 ships. That means most C-Store ships get only 'fun' consoles you have to opt into using, instead limiting the few highly desireable ship consoles to things like the ground-for DOMINO or the lockbox/cross-console pack DPRM. Still, kinda annoying to be able to maybe use the Trait and nothing else (and usually those are more suited to other ships) of the included stuff when buying a 3000Z or higher ship.
However, I don't think that nerfing Tactical console stacking will achieve making many of the ship consoles all that much more useful for any but a handful. Flagship set, the Vanguard Jem'Hadar consoles, probably, but Rep would be the next in line, if you're not able to go for the very nice Lobi crit consoles instead, before the majority of comes with a ship consoles. Even with zero tac consoles and going for damage, I'd still not use the VATA mentioned earlier or virtually any of the other below T6 stat-less consoles.