Dear Cryptic – A view from a DPS addict on the Ascension nerfs for Agony, Eddies and Chain Web

drhusten

Some might agree, some won’t, others will get mad or even laugh at me but this is my opinion and you are free to add yours!

Star Trek Online is or was something very important to me. It was a huge part of my life, sometimes more important than my job or even my family.
I was laying in bed during the night thinking what I can improve, I wanted to become the number one of DPS which I became for a certain period of time, I met people in STO I care about, we evolved and grew during those years, became mates, had laughs, watched Star Trek TV shows together, had real life discussions, talked until 4am about tactics, did theory crafting on how we can improve our DPS as a team and in the end we made it happen!

But things have changed and I think this is mostly your fault Cryptic, based on wrong decisions, being understaffed, not talking to your community and, most important, technical issues (esp. rubberbanding and server performance).
But this is an other story which does not belong to this topic today I want to rant about, this is about the nerfs which have been done yesterday with the Ascension update to the meta consoles we in the DPS community care, use and talk about!

I am part of a very successful DPS team for about three years; we dominated Hive Space Elite lately and on Infected Space Elite we hold the record for Left-Right-Runs. We might even say: We are one of the most successful DPS teams out there in STO - but yesterday we got slapped into the face very hard - and it come from nowhere!

Changes have been done to meta DPS consoles and I want to talk about it. Three consoles have been hit, those are:
- Agony Redistributor
- Neutronic Eddy Generator
- Tholian Webspinner Array (Chain web)


Let’s begin with the Agony Redistributor:
When the stats and the description of this console were leaked before the official announcement, the DPS community was thrilled, especially one person who already did plans on how to use it for the near perfect run. *wink*
Some players, especially including me, feared the console as it would change everything on the, at that time, meta and would change ISE and HSE runs for ever. (spoiler alert: and it did!)

Every casual STO player was now able to get high DPS numbers from it on ISA or ISE without really doing something for it; they got the DPS from it as others did the job; that’s how the console also works. You use it on an enemy and all incoming damage does count for you (and only for you!)

I even made memes about it how ridiculous this console is.
We as a team often wished it didn’t exist as it made stuff possible we didn’t like.
Yes, we also used it (very successful); we had to, to stay at the top of the tables but we all knew it needed a nerf.
And this nerf came yesterday out of nowhere!

We did some tests yesterday under utmost bad server performance and the console went from BIS (best in slot) to a complete waste of TRIBBLE.
Good DPS players were able to do 400 thousand DPS with it, or maybe even more.
Now this console has been capped and after some tests we were able to get 2 thousand DPS out of it. Yes, from 400k to 2k. The console is now completely useless!
Some are happy about it, I am too a little bit, but this nerf changes EVERYTHING in the DPS meta again.
The Agony did a HUUUGE DPS step forward and now it will fall back to WAY lower numbers and we are forced to adapt.

Moreover what might me more important is: Most of us bought the ship (with zen maybe) ONLY for the console. So this is in my opinion a SCAM! Imagine to buy something for real money (yeah I know, dil farming, playing the exchange etc does give you the ship kinda ‘free’) and afterwards it gets updated to become useless. Isn’t this a scam? Wouldn’t you like to have your money back if this happens IRL? I bet you would!

So we all agree the Agony needed a nerf, but not a 99% damage nerf.
It did overkill damage, means you could do more damage to an enemy than having hitpoints.

Maybe an alternative fix would have been only damage YOU do to the target gets counted or the overkill could have been fixed.
But no, there is a cap now which is a bad joke. The console won’t be used by anyone ever again at the current state!

There was a bug where you could stack the Agony which made crazy high buggy DPS numbers; maybe this is Cryptic’s idea on how to fix that? If yes, you FAILED!

To sum it up on the Agony: Many hate this console, including me, it needed a fix, but not a 99% damage debuff – Cryptic: You need to put your hands again on this console to make it at least worth slotting it! Cap it to idk 200k max one hits but not 2k!

The Eddies:
To be fair the Eddies are, no wait… were hard hitting as hell. They had to be in every meta EPG boat and was the top damage console on HSE next to the Agony.
It got buffed some while ago not to spin or whirl around enemies and that helped a lot on HSE.
Also people got less angry as enemies stayed on their position and weren’t thrown around the map in random TFOs. This fix or buff was very welcome to any STO player I´d say.
Now the damage has been drastically lowered which is very sad for our EPG lovers out there.
From #1 EPG player Cay 180k to ~80k yesterday with crappy tests.
So more than half of the damage was taken away.
Question remains: Why? No one was asking for it, on daily TFOs no one really has any downside on it.. the animation is still the same, so is the sound so why did you nerf it Cryptic?
Some people might even have bought the ship from Mudd's market for a tremendous amount of money just for the console.. just saying.

Let’s talk about the Tholian Webspinner Array:
When this event console came out the passive of 50% dmg increase to held targets was incredible! At least on paper because… it did not work that way!
I did dozens of test, again less than a month ago, and proved that the passive damage buff does NOT WORK AT ALL! On anything!
I remember doing tests with Tenore (oh man I miss you, really) about two? years ago and we thought this would only boost exotic damage, but after rethinking this recently I think we haven’t tested it properly. So I went back to tribble the other month and was able to confirm that no hold from what ever source does increase the damage when the Webspinner is slotted. Yes, really!
You now know I am a DPS addict and for becoming #1 on HSE I do lots of testings now and then and believe me, the passive of the Webspinner does not work! At least not lately.

Okay so with the passive away, which didn’t work at all (and I think the console was touched after the release?), what else is on the Webspinner so nice:
Yes, it hits five enemies with increased damage based on EPG. But where is that important other than on DPS maps?
On daily content you get 70 to 80 enemies per map and the console hits five!
So why nerf it that bad? In our tests from yesterday it went from 200k DPS to around 45k DPS. The question is again: Why? Normal STO players will kill with it 5 random ships and won’t think further about it so why did it get nerfed? Whats the reason?

Cryptic you are just nerfing high damage consoles now? Is that your new plan?
What’s next?
The Seed?
Thalaron?
The memrane for torp runs?

You hit the DPS community very hard yesterday, discussions started on multiple discord DPS servers and are still going on. So what the heck were you thinking?

We, the DPS community, are your most LOYAL players, I bet we put more money into your game than any other casual player. We are the wales which carry your salary. Sure, some are dil farmers and ‘paying’ with real life time to play your game but what about the rest?

What are your plans in the near future? Should we even buy new stuff which gets nerfed to death afterwards? Can we have a refund on stuff you nerf to death?

The DPS community is already dying and you hit in the last nail in the coffin.

Congratulations!

This post will be published on the official STO feedback forum and on reddit.
Go ahead and discuss. Thanks for reading!
Aaaand I expect feedback from you Cryptic!

qultuq

I am surprised how little discussion this is getting. Maybe because many players don’t parse regularly, there isn’t a lot of concern about it. I have used the eddies and the web spinner. The eddies even at half power, sound like they may still be viable. But it is really hard to see what you are shooting after you activate it. The web spinner was really useful, especially for weaker alts. I hope they walk back some of these cuts. So many event rewards are just not too useful. Soot is nice to get something decent for free every now and again. Those consoles were over a year old and really expensive on Mudd’s Market. It seems like an odd time to nerf them. I wonder what the motivation was.

pottsey5g

The nerf was needed but this does feel like a major over nerf. Not that I use the console but still, I don't understand why it was nerfed as hard as it was. Yes the consoles where overpowered and needed scaling back but this was not the right way to do it.

pcubed

Why would I spend any more money on this game? I spent my time on the events and money on the ships to have you nerf them to the ground. Your Support Dept wont refund me for the Terran Adamant Heavy Raider I bought a week ago just for the console. I almost started looking for replacements, but I figured why would I spend more money on ships and consoles that you might nerf into the ground in a future patch. This is not okay. These nerfs need to be rolled back into something more reasonable.

conclusiveninja

I'd like to throw out a reality check. I wasn't happy about the nerfs to the plasma generating weapon signature nullifiers back when the DPS record was about 300k. Yes, nerfs are annoying and these are no exception, but life goes on. The DPS community will do what it usually does with something like this, reset the tables and create a new leader board for after the nerfs because everyone is on the same level playing field. Power creep will happen and the numbers will eventually get higher. Even the DPS community has at times excluded certain things because they were broken. This whole discussion is really just a debate about what should be considered "too broken."

You would also do well to temper your tone! Sure this stuff is frustrating, but you would make it a heck of a lot farther if you were level headed and not demanding a response from Cryptic! Look at this thread from Borticus where he outright compliments people highlighting bugs in detail. He also complimented this video as a great example on feedback.

The hull image nerf is massive to the PVP community that spends probably even more than the DPS people, but it makes sense because it fundamentally breaks the idea of different durability between ship classes. The DPS chasers aren't the only people spending money in the game and they're not the only people affected. Out of respect for your fellow players, please don't act like the world revolves around the DPS community.

Eddies dropped by about half. Personally, that seems reasonable and makes sense. Yeah it hurts DPS cap but it's not like they made the console not viable. From a design standpoint, having a list of consoles that can do that kind of damage isn't healthy for the game because it makes the power creep problem an even bigger issue.

The webspinner as a single console still does more damage than a huge chunk of players. It seems like they pulled it back in a way that made sense, but didn't realize the bonus damage was broken. If the effect of bonus damage is broken, you have a great model of what good feedback on bugs looks like above. Might help your case to be diplomatic and point out the bug.

By the number, the agony console nerf seems excessive at face value. I think that's easy to see that the other two are toned down in ways that make sense, but something seems off about this one because of the extent. The tool-tip says 2k DPS, the patch notes say 244k. Something isn't right one way or the other. You'd do better to come up with well considered, non-hostile feedback about in-game vs. patch notes with a detailed reproduction of the issue. Adding to that a reasonable expression of your frustration about taking the best DPS console in the game to useless would probably help because it seems like it got nerfed more than the patch intended.

These nerfs are not why the DPS community is slowly dying. It's because the level of obsession required to be competitive in that realm requires so much of an investment of time and money it's an obsession. DPS chasing is simply not viable for anyone that hasn't been here to get major meta stuff. Legit I'd have a build that I'd join a team with, but to me it's a waste because I don't have the webspinner as I was on hiatus at that time. So in the meantime I have a build that does a few hundred k and more casually play parts of the game I enjoy like the economy and PVP.

moirayne

Hi, i read your original post, and i agreed on many aspects. On sundayevening i was finally convinced i should get the terran adamant for the agony console. So i was happy. And then 2 days later, they nerfed it to pieces, and launched a zensale and shipsale. I was gutted. I sent a ticket to support to ask for my money/zen (or a ship T6 token) back. But they didnt reward that, and told me to just post on this forum with any feedback. Well here it is, the console is nerfed to 0 and i feel scammed. Could have saved me like almost 40 euros if i had waited like 2 days with that buy. Ok rant over. :) I m over it but still.

herbertobadiah

for me it's nerf time frames, if it not nerf'd in the first 3 mths it stays. your selling these items for real money so why o why are you selling them only to nerf them mths and now years later, its real money your taking from people for these items it should be near perfect on release not o we're changing this 6mths plus down the line. it feels like this to me, i buy a V8 car then see engineers outside my house 6 mths later going sorry we just swapping out the engine to a 1.6 we got it wrong sorry. you'd be outside stopping them in seconds. just here we cant stop you but the feeling is the same.

bluemaxx9

I'm not terribly upset that these consoles got nerfed. I am, however, very confused about why these consoles were chosen and why they were allowed to continue un-changed for such wildly varying periods of time. Is there some sort of balance pass going on? Is there a bug-hunt going on where Cryptic is trying to clean up longstanding issues? Were these just randomly found when they were testing other content? Having a little context about why these bug and not others, and why now rather than months or years ago would help to make it feel less like these consoles just got randomly pulled out of a hat.

The way I see it, the nerfs themselves aren't a problem. The lack of communication and setting expectations is the problem. There are a dozen or so meta DPS consoles on a top-tier EPG build, so why were only Neutronic Eddy Generation and Tholian Webspinner Array singled out for nerfs? Why Agony Redistributor and not DPRM? For NEG, why now and not at any time in the past eight or nine years? These nerfs came out of the blue, and we are left to speculate about why they happened and what future changes they might foreshadow. THAT is what annoys me. I don't mind that these consoles were nerfed; I mind that we had no idea they were going to be nerfed, or even that they were being looked at.

If Cryptic wants to make changes, that's fine. Just give us some idea WHY so many things are being nerfed in relatively quick succession, and help us understand what else might be affected.