Many of the problems being cited as "overpowered skills" or "balance issues" have nothing to do with the skills themselves. Instead, the problem comes down to the average length of combat, and how it plays to the strengths/weaknesses of different ships.
For reasons of simplicity, we're comparing 1-on-1 encounters, but these principles easily apply to groups as well (in the same way that adding people to both sides of a Tug-of-War doesn't change the fundamental game)
CRUISERS vs ESCORTS
Escorts are about heavy up-front damage to "beat the clock." Cruisers are about survivability to "outlast the clock." I'm oversimplifying a bit, but in principle this is true. For sake of example, I will only use these two extremes. Science Vessels are discussed later.
- This means Cruiser effectiveness is
DIRECTLY proportional to the length of the encounter. The longer the fight, the more effective the Cruiser.
We could say that Cruisers tend to do best in fights that are 2 minutes or more.
- This also means Escort effectiveness is
INVERSELY proportional to the length of the encounter. Get it done fast, or risk losing the burst advantage.
We could say that Escorts tend to do best in fights that are shorter than 1 minute.
With the current damage scale, available combos, and unbalanced skills,
the average length of a ship-to-ship encounter is 45 seconds. Note well: AVERAGE. There is a spread, and there are outliers.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR BALANCE
This means that current game mechanics HEAVILY favor the Escort over the Cruiser. Fights already tend to be short, so the Escort doesn't have to do much to push that advantage... whereas the Cruiser has to work impossibly hard to make the fight last into its own territory. This is like starting a Tug-Of-War with one team already standing on the center line.
Another side-effect of short combat means people don't have time in which to use some of their coolest and most fun abilities and strategies. It reduces variety, because any plan that's longer than two steps just won't see the light of day. We have all this fun stuff, and we just need a slightly larger window in which to see it all used!
HOW TO FIX IT, WITHOUT NERFS
The ideal thing to do would aim for most encounters being around the 90 second (1.5 minute) "mid-range" mark. This means that NEITHER side has the clear advantage, and it's their job to either:
a) Pull the fight up/down into their ideal territory.
b) Bolster themselves to fight better in the "mid-range" and just keep the fight from bleeding into the opponent's territory.
c) Have a way out if things are getting out of hand.
The best ways to do this are to lower overall damage, and increase Hull strength across the board. Additionally, shallow out the curve between Escort and Cruiser on both damage AND hull strength--still give each an advantage on one, but not by so wide a margin. Escorts would also still have the maneuverability advantage to boost attack power, and Cruisers would still have the higher hull regen (via crew) advantage to boost defensive power.
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Special Consideration: Cloak/Battle Cloak - This combination of skills currently allows the BoP to decide to start combat when best for the BoP, and ALSO to end combat and run as soon as the situation becomes disadvantageous. Conversely, the Cruiser (or any non-cloak ship) cannot do EITHER of these. Steps need to be taken to allow the Cruiser to choose to begin combat in a more advantageous position, AND/OR to escape a disadvantageous situation.
This comes back to the idea of sharing INITIATIVE. Think back to chess--white moves first, and white wins more often. This is statistical fact, and most tournament chess players will tell you that "black plays for the DRAW more than the WIN" because of it. If one side always gets to decide how the fight starts (and they also get a "reset" button for when it doesn't go right), they are too heavily favored to be considered balanced.
Please note. I don't want to see cloak taken away. I don't want to see it given to both sides. I think there are better, more creative ways to allow both sides the chance to seize initiative, so that they remain different and true to canon.
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SCIENCE VESSELS
As support ships, Science vessels can fit easily into one of two roles. As a Debuff ship, they can be used to decrease the length of the fight--assisting an Escort with gaining the advantage, or bolstering a Cruiser's ability to compete in the mid-range. As a healing ship, they can increase the length of the fight--assisting a Cruiser with gaining the advantage, or helping an Escort last longer in the mid-range.
Currently, several Science Abilities seem overpowered (particularly VM and SNB). While balance is a concern, and SLIGHT changes should be made, there are other things that lead to the APPEARANCE of overpower:
1) They are being used most often in Escort-type ships, coupling CC with high damage. This is a COMBINATION that is rarely ever balanced. The problem isn't specifically the abilities, but rather the combination of the two in one ship.
2) The current state of the game is such that combat only lasts about 40 seconds.... so a 20-second hold of ANY kind seems extremely unfair. The problem, however, isn't the length of the hold. It's clearly the length of combat. If the ideal length of combat shifts closer to 90 seconds, a 20-second hold (breakable by Sci Team) is reasonable. This is also why global cooldowns feel so punishing to some--they take up a larger percentage of current combat.
In short, don't nerf Science abilities. They were designed well for a combat system in which fights lasted longer, as was most of the stuff in this game, so we should instead strive to make combat a more appropriate length (on average).
EDIT: Handy visual aids! This chart shows the balance of ships--combat effectiveness in relation to combat duration. The black line represents the duration, with the white hashes marking the 60-second and 120-second marks. The center would be 90 seconds, or what my colleagues and I are finding to be the ideal "mid-range" duration for combat given the current balance of abilities.
Current Balance
The red area--Escorts--represents a damage-oriented strategy. You can see it is coupled with the debuff side of Science. The blue area--Cruisers--represents the defensive, survivability strategy, and it is coupled with Science heals.
The white area is what I'd call the "sweet spot," in which all strategies have an equal chance to run things. Tactics, then, are all about trying to pull the length of combat into YOUR advantage zone.
Right now, with an encounter averaging 30-45 seconds, you can see that the system strongly favors one side of the balance--indicated with the blue target dot along the line. And honestly, the 45-second average is generous--that's if everyone took every kind of encounter, as with our testing. In reality, folks avoid many of the encounters that would be longer, or they use abilities that let them run away when it's no longer advantageous... and only the damage side of things gets to make those decisions.
Comments
You are correct in that a 1v1 battle generally only lasts about 45 seconds. This does not heavily favor the escort as you have stated in your well thought out post. You failed to factor in player skill.
I have noticed that when it comes to PvP and people wanting to make adjustments they always fail to factor in player skill. I play a RA5 Federation Engineer in a Star Cruiser. 1v1 against a BoP or a Raptor is no contest except in the few occassions that the other player is better than I am. When it comes to a cruiser v cruiser battle now that is a long and drawn out battle and generally who knows their ship better and what skills are readying up. I have come out of those with barely 5% hull victory or a loss with the other at roughly the same.
I also play a RA5 Klingon Tactical in a BoP. As you have stated my intent is to destroy you before my attack pattern Alpha, rapid fire, attack pattern beta wears off(which is about 15 seconds I believe). Again I generally get my pray 1v1, but there is that occasion that the other player is more skilled than I and fends me off then destroys me (provided I can't speed away and cloak out, with a skilled player though that does not happen).
So in essence 45 seconds is about right for a ship on ship battle. Where in any Sci-fi movie has a ship on ship battle lasted longer than a minute? Other than two very large cruisers pounding on each other?
Torpedos are not OP when the enemy ships shields are down. They are working properly. Again, when in any of the movies have you ever seen a torpedo bounce off of the hull of a ship? Generally it rips right through the ship ripping a huge chunk from it. Now with shields on the Torpedo just makes a bright flash as the shields deflect it.
So to summerize. Ship combat is fine. A few skills need tweeking. But the major factor that everybody forgets to factor in is........ wait for it........... "PLAYER SKILL"
Edit: Above is in a PvE context, obviously. But we need to consider both sides when talking balance. If you change things to make PvP more challenging, what does that do for the PvE side of the game - and vice versa.
Ouila, everyone is happy and content! "Fight Club for Nerdz" crowd gets to endlessly pound on each other and the STO gamers get to enjoy STO endlessly. And Cryptic gets to focus on adding content and making more ships, weapons and abilites available to everyone since they won't be endlessly making coding changes in pursuit of the famously epic perfect balance monster!
That makes for a realistic battle. That doesn't make for a fun game of tactical combat.
I've factored in player skill. In cases where skill is radically different, the fights are much, much shorter.
It is a common assumption that people make when someone asks that something be balanced--they assume the other side hasn't considered "player skill." I have, and will always continue to do so. And I also make sure to consider many other factors. You may notice this is why I'm not calling for a broad sweep of nerfs, but rather a change in how combat flows.
The original design of the game was INTENDED to produce tactical positional combat. Any reasonable viewer can easily see nothing of the sort is happening--the only position that matters is that your target is in front of you when you mash the stun and the burst damage. There isn't enough shield/hull power in the world for you to survive undivided attention like that, so the fight is already over because the damage-to-hull ratio is so skewed.
For everyone. Not just for cruisers. I stated clearly I used them as extremes of the spectrum, not as sole examples.
Every sci-fi movie. Because 45 seconds wouldn't make for a very interesting battle. They allow time for bizarre maneuvers, witty quips back and forth, all the stuff that makes the final explosion satisfying and makes the scene one that people really remember.
It's very easy, when you're on the favored side, to think that it's a matter of skill that keeps you "usually getting your prey." It's hard to look at it objectively when any changes would make your "usually" a bit harder to maintain. If you look at the math, and you dig into the design, the flaws are very easy to see. When you're looking at your record, things are a bit cloudy and people get defensive.
Pyryck:
There is not enough sensible substance to your post for me to formulate any kind of useful reply. I do see, however, that you have no understanding of how design teams work (ie, the guys that work on tuning are NOT the same guys that work on content). They're not even in the same room. So, doing the tuning work in no way keeps content from rolling out. But you heard the word "balance" and assumed you knew what this thread was about. You were incorrect.
Besides, how can you add "new ships, weapons, and abilities" to a system in which the current ones are so poorly balanced? All you're doing is stapling broken pieces to a broken machine. PvP is currently that broken machine.
Other people are calling for "nerf this" and "nerf that." I'm saying that, looking at things clearly and practically, it's an issue of how FAST combat is. Scaling damage and hull to bring the average length of combat to the MIDDLE ground goes a far longer way toward balance than any nerf.
The game favors short combat, and short combat favors cloak+burst damage. Rather than nerfing anything, let's make a change so that the game favors neither short NOR long combat--it favors mid-range combat, and we use tactics to pull things into our favor.
Current situation, graphically represented. "Short" and "Long" refer to the length of combat, where short favors escort-style fighting and long favors cruiser-style fighting. Short = 1 minute or less Long = 2 minutes or more.
SHORT _______AVERAGE____________________________________________________CRUISER
What would work better is:
SHORT________________________________AVERAGE_____________________________CRUISER
Where did you come up with this? Where is the documentation? This is Crusier/Crusier? Escort/Escort? Any 1 vs 1 combo? Same BOs? Different BOs? Same skills? Different skills? (add in group play and you have loads of possible combos)
You seem to paint the Cruiser/Science ship as weak kneed against an initial Escort attack, which is simply not true. Cruiser/Science ship survivability (and offensive capibilities) from 1st salvo of an Escort is tremendous, and it just goes up from there with the right skills/BOs.
Who has a clear advantage?..a well defended Cruiser/Science ship or an offensive Escort? Well, that would be decided by the pilot.
Ahhh, i see now...the "in short, don't nerf Science abilities" at the end of your flawed post gave you away.
I apologize for the player skill factor remark in my post but you do have to agree there are a ton of posts on here where somebody jumps in and complains because they were melted away in a PvP battle.
Your argument on this not being a tactical positioning game is incorrect as well. For Klingons you are correct the need to be head on with you and then they just need to mash the shoot button..... Sometimes..... Some Klingons run a cruiser with beams but it is rare. As a fed cruiser Position for me is everything. I do my most damage when I have a broadside on you. if you get behind me I have some torpedos or a mine to deter you. If I get a frontal again I have some torpedos and some choice science or engineering skills to hit you with.
I love the fact that a Klingon bird of pray trys to come in at my fore or aft and then I have to try to reposition to get my optimal firing line on him. And the same goes when I am running my Klingon. I love lining up my shot for my "Alpha Strike". Now mind you I think twice 9 times out of 10 before taking on a cruiser in my BoP. They are tough to take down and if you can't get him in that burst you just ran into an expierienced player that was baiting you and will kill you in the end.
Your comment on the movies the battle lasts longer because they keep cutting into cut scenes and drama. But when it actually pans out the real battle only lasted 45 seconds to a minute and a half. Just cut the cut scenes out and there is your short dirty little battle. Now you get 2 good cruiser Captains pounding on each other that battle is very long. I had one that lasted 3 minutes. It felt like forever.
In the end you have some valid points. I just disagree with them and that is my opinion. I am a PvP player but by far not the best. I do more PvP in an MMO's than I PvE and out of the box this system is by far the best (again OUT of the BOX and this is my opinion). give it longer than the month and a half it has been out and it will fine tune. Unless they side with the crying masses to nerf everything.
But alas I do have to preach what my fleet mates in DOB preach. if you want to have fun in PvP you have to do it in a pre-made group. Some PuG's are good but those are way to far and few. I love PvPing with my fleet mates the team work and cohesion cannot be beat. Yes we get nasty messages from players and there are forum battles currently ongoing, but that is all besides the point. You want that awsome battle you need to get into a fleet and avoid PuG's (unless you know some of the people you are PuGing with that is).
And I am not factoring player skill in this because it is a variable that cannot be defined, each player plays in a different way we are not automatons we are people, so what has to be evaluated is the raw impersonal data, which right now shows that combat is simply too short.
Make the system in its core more long lasting, and then this will fluctuate based on player skill some will reduce it some will make it longer, but as the OP evaluates, on average it should be longer than it is right now.
You're trying to strike some "balance" between nerfing abilities and using tactics by extending the match a few seconds more by nerfing damage output and increasing hull strength. Yes, my post was a tad bit flippant as well as very simplistic. Let me expound a little more deeply...
The PvP crowd that I've encountered during my gaming journey are always asking to have a game changed / recoded / redone / remade / rebuilt / reprogrammed in order to better facilitate what they want to be able to do which boils down to a Rock'em-Sock'em Robot match. They will bring forth legitimate and logical facts, figures, scientific data, charts and graphs in an effort to create optimal balance in game coding in order to perfect the ultimate PvP scenario to achieve the impossible task of boiling down the contest to only player skill. (Hence the term I use for PvP - "Fight Club for Nerdz").
Yet the answer to their never-ending quest of the perfect PvP match simply eludes them. Use the exact same setup for both (or all) PvP'ers in order to remove all differences and make the match entirely about player skill.
Oh, and btw, I'm not a member of the "Fight Club for Nerdz" crowd.
I would love to see space combat being more of a struggle, a tug of war between the unstoppable force and the immovable object.
I do foresee a rather large cry for more in the way of shielding if and when they introduce a death penalty that will drastically change PvP combat.
I think the problem is that play-testing may have showed that players got bored with the timescale of encounters so they increased dmg or reduced hull strength (or both) to achieve a faster encounter. Without balancing all the skill timers and cool-downs to the new pace of combat you end up with the situation we are in where dps is too strong.
I think your suggestion of increasing combat time by increasing hull strength and reducing dmg is a good one and would go a long way to making combat more tactical, where different strategies besides "cripple and nuke" are more useful.
Alternatively, they could reduce the cool-downs and effective times on all the skills to balance to the pace of combat that we have now.
I don't know which tweak would be easier or more effective, but I agree with your analysis. Let's hope the system is balanced more generally instead of nerfing/buffing individual skills. (btw I am not a science officer defending snb/vm)
Some people seem to be missing the idea that I believe in the CURRENT system, things like SNB and VM are overpowered. I agree that they would need a nerf, if nothing else was changed.
But I believe that's the wrong solution. The abilities were created with these long durations because the original INTENT was for combat to last longer. Due to a bit of poor planning, that isn't how things ended up. Rather than nerfing the abilities, lengthen combat.
Short combat means most of the cool abilites (ie, the ones that don't FREEZE or DAMAGE you) are completel overshadowed. No one wins with that system, because even those using the super-combos won't have anyone to fight once it dies out via boredom.
On hull/shields:
I think the increase should be to hull, rather than shields. There are so many ways to fix shields already. Hull heals should be rarer... but also there should be more hull to begin with. This would do more for balance than an increase to shields.
All the evidence you'll find points to a system that was designed with LONGER FIGHTS in mind. It's like a dog that was bred for running in wide open areas. Put it in a tiny area, and it will cause you problems. Rather than "nerfing" the dog by tying it down and trimming its legs, let's just move it to a more open area and see what it can really do.
I mostly agree with you, but shields need to be like 10% or 20% stronger; whatever's necessary to keep torpedoes launched simultaneously with a cannon volley from impacting hull.
We could probably deal with every ship having double or triple their current hull strength. It would make torpedoes a lot more important, but currently once shields are down the fight is pretty much over.
While i agree with what you said in general.. thats also mostly because the average person is either not skilled in defense or not using it effectively. That starts of with the peeps that don't redistribute their shield power and thus die superquick and ends with not using defensive skills preventively but reactively. Theres quite a couple of ways to stay alive way longer then 45 seconds even against multiple opponents (at least until you get stun-locked) stacking rsp is one way, going for maximized shield heals while keeping up mitigation is another or using fbp effectively to become untouchable by beam users or by using teamplay with extend shields.
Whenever i see someone die quick in pvp its either because of lacking skill/wrong setup or missing teamplay on either the victims or the teams behalf.. i.e. as escort stay within 5km to your HE & extend shield mates etc.
I totally agree with you about "SLIGHT changes" about snb/VM, both of them fulfill a purpose (breaking def stackers with stuns) and as such imo are needed, however snb should be curable and for vm sci should either be boosted to fix more then one debuff of prioritize vm, also any stun imo needs to cause a short stun immunity on the victim to avoid chain locks.
Lowering dmg in general could make fights last forever.
Im not sure where you see the higher hull regen advantage. I can easily tank better in my science ship then in a cruiser with the right bo skills.. the base hull regen is a joke in pvp, once shields are down your usually dead within seconds regardless of the ship type.
The advantage of choosing the side they attack me from hasn't bothered me much in a cruiser or science ship yet (thanks to using all beams + 1 torp.. yea thats going suck after the unnecessary eps nerf..).. the "advantage" of running with battle cloak often enough easily turned into a disadvantage by having a scan up (that even works in a cruiser occassionally).. the only cloak involving scenario that really bothers me is having an all sci team on other side that stuns/cc's the hell outa the own team without having any chance at all.
-mike
Folks, player skill has been accounted for. Those who talk about people "not using defense effectively" are focusing their attention on the low end of the spectrum--or they consider the only effective defense to be stacking multiple copies of a defensive skill.
When one side has to stack many copies of a heal to survive single copies of offensive combos, what you have is a balance problem--a system that too heavily favors burst damage. When skill is equal, we're (those collecting data with me in multiple situations and all sides) are seeing that ON AVERAGE, fights are maybe 45 seconds long. There are some that are longer, some that are shorter, a few that are MUCH longer, and a handful that are MUCH shorter--usually, it depended on the combination of ships fighting each other.
It became very easily apparent that Escorts are the clear winners in the "less than 1 minute" category and that Cruisers tend to be the winners in the "more than 2 minutes category." The spread was much less predictable BETWEEN 1 and 2 minutes.
To me, it seems that a MUCH better solution to this problem than "nerf a billion things" is just to adjust the average length of combat. You can still make it super short, Escort folks... you're just going to need to try a little harder, since the ball won't automatically START in your court. It will start in that "neutral zone," and each side will work to pull the advantage to their own side.
Regarding Shields:
Still not sure it's shields that need the buff. Remember, shields are a SYSTEM. That means someone SHOULD be able to shut them down with the right combination of skills and timing. Buffing shield strength will only serve to make torpedoes LESS important--since people will still too heavily favor beams, which it's obvious the Devs are trying to correct by making energy more tactically relevant.
Buff the hull by quite a bit, though. This way, a drop in shields isn't INSTANT death. I would say rather than just doubling the hull, increase it by half AND increase the hull repair rate granted by crew. This would finally make crew a true combat consideration.... right now, in nearly all situations, it's just completely unimportant.
Summarizing the changes I'm proposing, for the TL;DR crowd:
1) Narrow the difference in damage between classes of ship. Escorts still have the advantage, but not by so huge a margin.
2) Lower overall damage by maybe 10%.
3) Increase Hull strength across the board by around 50%, with a little extra for Escorts. Cruisers still have the advantage, but not by so huge a margin.
4) Increase hull regeneration from crew by quite a bit, so that attacking/defending crew becomes as important as it ought to be.
5) Investigate the Cloak/Battle Cloak systems so that combat initiative can be shared between both sides of the game without just having to give everyone cloak, or nerfing it to uselessness.
6) Add a "resist chance" for debuffs based on auxiliary power levels. During a debuff's duration, run a check every X seconds during which the "resist chance" can clear the debuff early. This chance should never be able to exceed 60%.
This has been my experience with pvp in MMo's as well. I say let the chips-fall-where -they-may. The Dev's should design the different faction ships, powers, equipment and only concern themselves with fixing the things that are obvisously over-powered. The players should learn to use what they have and not try to have things changed to thier advantages just because they feel underpowered.
I can agree with this though. Hull strength should be (imo) ranked thusly;
Escort > Cruiser > Science
Shields should be (imo) thusly;
Science > Cruiser > Escort
I don't think that would be very balanced at all, because it is failing to take damage into account. Giving escorts the highest hull survivability AND the highest damage would create a TREMENDOUSLY imbalanced game given the variety of shield heals and shield damage resistance buffs available.
You were talking about fixing things that are "obviously overpowered." My entire point here is that the data shows these things are only "overpowered" because combat is unintentionally too short on average. Increasing the length of combat brings ALL of those skills back in line without having to nerf anything.
The "overpowered" skills were designed with longer combat in mind. And then I think the folks in charge of itemization went a bit overboard with the DPS on weapons. In a system where an encounter doesn't usually break 45 seconds, a 30-second stun (VM) is absolutely GAMEBREAKING. If combat were more often in the 90 second range, with lower damage and higher hull strengths, a 30-second stun is just standard crowd control.
The idea is that you shouldn't be able to completely destroy someone in 30 seconds if you're the sort of ship that can equip VM. If you're in a team, that's different. But the current system allows a damage-dealing ship to equip VM and completely tear someone apart in under 30 seconds.
Rather than nerf the ability (which only serves to punish those ships using it as originally intended), change the combat experience a bit, so that it's more in line with what was obviously intended.
It might be better to lessen the effectiveness of system-deactivating features, and bump the effectiveness of torpedoes against shields.
All this would serve to do is make combat less interesting by removing a variety of strategies from the mix and allowing for one right answer.
Now here's a solution I've considered. It's a good one, I think, for an easy fix. And it's done in PLENTY of games already--without people even knowing it, sometimes. As you said, it allows for PvE content to remain fun and engaging, but it ensures that PvP combat isn't over too bloody fast.
The only reason I didn't suggest this first is because I predict a great many folks will go "OMFG MEGA NERF NOOO" when they see it. Basically, it'll be the damage-dealing crowd saying "How come it only reduces damage and not heals, too?"
I'll also say that I feel PvE space combat runs too fast, too. So it might also be good to tweak that a bit. A balance between the two notions would be:
1) Passive player buff that reduces damage from players by 10%
2) A 10% overall decrease in damage across the board.
3) A 10% increase in hull strength, with an extra 10% for escorts.
4) Increase in crew-based hull regeneration (rather than even more hull strength)
Escorts should still have the advantage in damage, due to forward slots/cannons/tactical slots.
Cruisers should still have the survivability advantage, because of more crew (more regen) and more base hull.
Science remains in the middle, helping swing the tide of battle one way (debuffs) or the other (heals).
If fixes can be made without a nerf, I'm all for it, but I am not overly optimistic that that will happen.
I think you understand from reading you post, one of the single biggest issues is the cloak. But there are no easy answers for fixing it.
The klingons are the hunters, the federation are the prey; unless a fix can change this, the Klingons will always have a strong advantage.
The "I win" buttons, FBP, VM, SNB need serious tweaking. The length of any holds needs to be addressed, I for one do not like the concept of a hold to begin with but 25 seconds is ridiculous. No matter what else you do, a good player will adjust to take full advantage of this and it is an "i win" button.
You are correct, but if he really wants the game to mimic canon then all fed captains should wait till their shields are down to 20% while continuing to hail the opposing ship then 1 shot them to disable their weapons so they retreat.
Overall tho, I think ship combat is done very well. There are a few abilities that seem a bit OP, but overall it's pretty darn good. I don't see the need for this major balance.
xMental....I am a big fan of your diplomacy system....I think it's great. I just can't agree with you on this issue.
Temp immunity is fine. My idea, instead, was to allow auxiliary power to provide a chance to resist, or to break free every 5-6 seconds. This way, even the FIRST matrix isn't guaranteed, let alone all the others once they know it's coming. Sometimes, the "temporary immunity" things feel a bit forced, and I think this could be a bit more organic.
Not trying to mimic the show. Trying to mimic the FEEL of the show--ie, the entertainment value of combat. Tactical combat is supposed to be a fun bit of back-and-forth that ends when one player finally lands that killing blow. Right now, there's no time for back-and-forth. There's BLAMDEAD, or there's BLAMRUNAWAY.
Increasing the length of combat would go a LONG way toward balancing things as they already exist right now--that means no need to nerf skills/ships. Longer combat is what the game was designed for, looking back over all the old Dev comments during development, and looking at how the skill/ability system is designed.
It's inconceivable that there would be this many options available to us if it was intended that we would only use two--stack defense, or stack burst/CC. What we're seeing is a miniature version of the intended tug-of-war.... but one side starts at a CLEAR advantage (the damage side).
Taking stat for stat, excluding skills and ability (as we all know the capt. makes the ship). There is no vessel in the game that stat wise is weaker than the BoP. The shields are the weakest of any of the Klingon ships, so we know they are no match against federation vessels. If you disagree I challange you for "testing" purposes take one BoP and lets say one Science vessel. Engage in battle, minus skills, buffs, debuffs, heals, and equip them with the exact same weapons. I assure you if the BoP lasts 20 seconds I would be amazed. With that being said do I think there should be some drastic over haul, not exactly. I have no problem with the weaker hull. It addes to the intrigue, as well as fact with regard to the BoP in the Star Trek universe. I do believe though that the shields should be a bit stronger. Clearly higher than that of its Raptor sister.
Just as a Science vessel has a weaker hull but stronger shields than an escort, but the weakest hull of the 3 classes. Same should hold true on the Klingon side.
What I have found most is that most complaints I have read have been that the escort class are too squishy. it really does come down to play style. I have seen an escort destroyed in 10 seconds to one BoP, and I have also seen an escort fight 3 BoP's and not just survive but detroy them solo. Their sheer destructive power in the game is unmatched, but they are just a support class. From reading several posts on the forums however, people expect (or want) their escort ship (or any vessel fro that matter) to have the ability to fly into any situation, lay waste to all and survive. Those are the ones hurting the game as they will come on the forums crying OP at a moments notice. I would be a fool to think at RA5 in my science vessel I could fly into 6 klingon vessels and survive alone, and the same could be said on my BG5 BoP.
I'm not sure what you're saying, exactly, so if I'm not responding to the right point, please clarify for me. Basically, the thing I thing isn't clear is that when I say "Escort," I don't mean "federation escort." It includes the DPS-oriented, offensively-strong ship types, including the BoP.
Now, the BoP is definitely less durable than others. In the current situation, that hardly matters, since they can dish out enough damage to kill a ship in under 30 seconds.... and VM can keep a ship disabled for that long with the right consoles/skills. Cloak/Battle Cloak allows the BoP to hand-pick which fights they will and will not participate in... and NO OTHER SHIP gets that amazing benefit.
If we give them an individual increase in survivability, cloak will seriously need to be adjusted. I don't want to see it nerfed, and I don't want to see it given out to everyone. I just want to see combat lengthened so that OTHER strategies get a chance to shine, too.