Fundamental flaws in ship design and ranking
Star Trek Online has two major flaws when it comes to ship classification, basing ship classification on captain class, and attempting to balance by making all classes of ships equal.
The idea of ships built around captain class is not in line with star trek cannon nor is it effective in balancing.
Attempting to balance the game by making all ship classes equal shows flawed thinking, (this might only be an issue of semantics). What will we end up in the future Giant Escorts; with roles more like MMO fantasy rogues able to destroy dreadnaughts??
Granted STO has science ships/exploration ships much like those of the mid 1700s these were still warships, the like which might be more delegated to the Aegis type ships of today.
An examination of Star Trek episodes will show that there is no direct link between a captains specialty or core training and the type of ship they captain. This type of thinking influenced the design of the present ship content in STO, making it inherently difficult to affect balance of endgame ships. If it is the goal to make a specific officer type play that a specific type of role then perhaps it should have been implemented more as a staffing issue. The specific officers would have a staff growth progression independent of the ship they are assigned to, for example a tactical officer would have the same officer assignment slots weather they are assigned to a cruiser, battle cruiser, carrier or science ship. This would make endgame balancing easier by reducing the number of variables.
Ship classes should be based on size and armament not necessarily on the role of the ship as DPS, Healer, or tank. What is a capital ship in Star trek online?? Presently they are all treated as capital ships.
Capital ship: The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; the ones with the heaviest firepower and armor. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a fleet.
Tiered growth of ship class is ok but trying to make them equal to same tier capital ships seems silly and ill-conceived.
Escort ships: Escort ships include all naval ships designed or operated as escorts for convoys of merchant ships and other naval vessels.This class of ship would include from smallest to largest; escort, frigate, destroyer escorts.
Fleet support ship or Battle group support ships: Ships used to screen or escort Capital ship battle groups. These would include from smallest to largest. Destroyer escorts, Destroyer, Light Cruiser, and Cruiser. The Primary distinction between fleet support and escort ships is each of the fleet ships can and often operate independently of a battle group.
Capital ships: (Battle cruiser, Battleship, Carrier)
Submarines: Submarines in the modern day navy of the 21st century play more of a role as a fleet unit and may deserve a role as a capital ship when we consider Boomers.
How should have this information been applied to STO?
The ship progression should be based on size of hull and armament. Escorts starting at the lowest end and progress through to dreadnaught at the highest, splitting the classes into three distinct classes of ships does not make sense. Perhaps this is only semantics and could be more easily swallowed if we renamed the ships. Instead of calling every ship in a progression a escort.
Escorts/dps role could have progressed as escort, destroyer, light cruiser, battle cruiser, and pocket battleship.
Heavy warships/tank could have progressed as escort, destroyer, cruiser, heavy cruiser, and battleship
Science ships could have progressed as escort, frigate, Research vessel, Exploration cruiser, Carrier/Aegis cruiser.
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As far as the balance issues, any game that involves PvP will always involve balance issues. Every game I've ever played that had both PvE and PvP is constantly tweaking classes/gear to help keep a balance so that player skill and choices plays a big part in the conflict. I expect to see STO keep getting tweaked for years to come as issues arise.