The distribution of shield power is an important defensive task in space combat. Unfortunately, it quickly turns in to a spamming game: either eating up a valuable action bar and key binding slot, or requiring an undue amount of mouse activity to keep returning to the shield interface and clicking.
Allowing autofire of the shield distribution powers (front, rear, starboard, port, balance - one at a time, of course) would take some of the spammyness out of the defensive space combat.
It would not take away from the strategy, since the benefits and trade-offs of using the different options still exists.
- if you use one of the directional options, you better make sure that side of your ship is facing the enemy, or else quickly make an adjustment to the shield settings
- if you use balanced shield setting, you better make sure no one side of your shield takes too much fire at once, or they'll poke through. That is unless you devote a ton of power and/or bridge officer abilities to keeping your shields at max (which is a major trade-off in itself)
A bridge officer (or a ship's computer, whatever), should only be need to be told once how to handle the shields, and he/she/it would continue to do this until told otherwise, right? If you were to sit on the bridge of a ship, you'd be pretty surprised to hear the captain telling Ensign Ricky "power to forward shields!" every three seconds during an engagement.
Again, great feature, probably super easy to implement. Think about it!
There is a thread somewhere that explains how to set the shield balance function to the same key/button you fire your weapons with.
I use it, it means my shields are balancing everytime(after its cool down expires) I click my fire key. Thats about every other click or so...maybe every other, other click...something like that.
Assigning it to the same key as the one you use to fire doesn't do what the OP is after. In fact, it just means they'll probably be doing what they object to even more if they currently use the games' auto-fire. I'd really like to see the options for automatic shield balancing because it doesn't make sense to me that your BOs would idly sit back and watch as your shield drops and your ship destroyed when they could balance the shields, reinforce a facing etc Right now I have it set up so that it is automatically done for me via a macro. It's essentially the one that someone posted in the forums a while ago to save people breaking their spacebar and giving themselves RSI. It just presses the key I have assigned at a set interval.
As an escort captain, autofire freed me up to manage my shields, but I would like to be able to click a shield facing or even distribution once, and it continue until I stop it. As is, you can only direct power to two facings at a time or go even distribution.
I say make that where you click even distribution or up to two sides, and they keep going until you change them. If you click a third side of shields, stop powering the first choice and do the new facing as well as what your second choice was.
why not ask for no bleed thru, 10000 shield regen per second at 25 shield power, and fed cloaks while we are at it?
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(ps if you cant tell, im being ultra sarcastic!)
As an escort captain, autofire freed me up to manage my shields, but I would like to be able to click a shield facing or even distribution once, and it continue until I stop it. As is, you can only direct power to two facings at a time or go even distribution.
I say make that where you click even distribution or up to two sides, and they keep going until you change them. If you click a third side of shields, stop powering the first choice and do the new facing as well as what your second choice was.
Can we get that?
Nothing here I haven't been asking for since early beta.
with auto-fire and auto-shields why not have auto-fly and auto-abilities?? c'mon people dont you actually want to participate in the fighting?
Just take a little time to go through your key bindings and make some things easier on yourself rather than asking for them to be done for you.
No they don't. A growing trend in gamers is that they want more automation and pretty colors.
It's like they want to have the game turned on, complete objectives and win matches, but not actually want to PLAY the game.
If anything I would say that maybe allowing you to toggle the shield reinforcement but have it automatically toggle back off after 5 or 10 seconds or so, just to alleviate the about of mashing you need to do.
Another idea for those who want to is macros. There was a program used for an auto fire macro a while ago. Why not use that? Set your shield bindings to your number pad keys then the actual macro to the arrow keys.
It's like they want to have the game turned on, complete objectives and win matches, but not actually want to PLAY the game.
I feel this is an inaccurate characterization of the problem.
A better way would be to say that gamers are increasing disinterested in having to take actions that do not require meaningful decision-making. There basically isn't a time when you WOULDN'T want to be firing your weapons or balancing your shields. Therefore, people don't want to be troubled with those tasks.
If there were a situation where firing your weapons or balancing your shields wouldn't be desirable, then those things become useful decisions again, and deserve player attention. Until that happens, though, hammering spacebar+delete is basically a chore and not a gameplay choice.
It's amazing how quick people are to jump on these ideas and change it from getting a trivial, monotonous task into some automated form and taking it to the extreme of having the game played for them. Get a grip! If you have nothing constructive to add then why post at all? I remember the exact same argument for full auto-fire in space that it would be the end, next step would be fully automated game etc. Did that change the game for the worse like it was claimed? NO! It stopped myself and others repeatedly bashing a key on the keyboard and as someone who suffers from RSI I was very glad it was brought in.
I have to ask to those with nothing helpful to say, the ones saying "what next, fully automated game for you?" or similar...... In what way is balancing your shields a skill? It's key bashing at its most basic, just as basic attacks were prior to the change on the ground and in space. Timing when to use heals, damage buffs, Captain powers, and working with your team - that is what combat is or should be about. It shouldn't be about who can bash the keys the best.
What do you lose by automating shield balancing? I know there are parts of Star Trek where you would hear a call to reinforce <shield> facing but they don't do it once and forget about it. Balancing or reinforcing your shield in STO has it happen once then you have to do it again a second or two later. Automating that by changing it so after you choose to reinforce a facing or balance all shields it repeats action that until you stop it takes nothing away from the game. Shields are pathetic enough, making it a chore to keep what little shields you have up and helping is not turning the game into "automatic fighting online" as you might think.
If you still really think this then please tell me how doing this takes skill beyond key bashing. I'd be very interested to see that reasoning.
I think shield distribution still requires a bit of thought though.
3 enemies surround you. Two Vorchas to your left and a BoP to your right. Depending on the circumstances, you might want to focus on your left or right shields. It might even be more prudent to start reinforcing your front and rear shields and then come about 90 degrees to allow your front and rear shields to take the assault.
That sounds like a meaningful decision to me.
Regarding auto fire, with the new changes to power drain, the space bar will be even less necessary as will EPS consoles. Currently, a good tactic is to pus some weapons on auto fire then selectively fire the rest periodically. This allows you to divert less engineering consoles to EPS flow and more to SIF or armor or what have you.
No regarding shield reinforcement, I do thing that each key press should transfer energy for more than just that one instance, but not toggle indefinitely. As I said before I think a good idea would let it activate a 10 or 15 second ability that you could toggle off manually or queue up a repeat of the ability. Indefinite autofire, however, I think will lead to a greater feeling that combat in space is too easy or not complex enough and could lead new players to have issues with remembering to toggle or not toggle skills.
We're not talking about reminding your bofs every second to keep your ships oxygen turned one, if you're maneuvering aggressively or defensively you should never need to reinforce a single shield facing for more than 10 seconds and if under dire circumstanced you do need to keep it coming for more than 30 seconds at a time, having to reactivate the skill again won't make much of a difference because you either aren't using your other shield facings properly or you're other shields are all drained now and you should start worrying about your flanks.
Shield reinforcement needs to be reworked, that's for sure, but I wouldn't leave it to be a completely automated ability. I don't trust a car to park it'self by itself, I'm not gonna trust a game developer's software to predict the tactics of people or even their own NPCs.
It's amazing how quick people are to jump on these ideas and change it from getting a trivial, monotonous task into some automated form and taking it to the extreme of having the game played for them. Get a grip! If you have nothing constructive to add then why post at all? I remember the exact same argument for full auto-fire in space that it would be the end, next step would be fully automated game etc. Did that change the game for the worse like it was claimed? NO! It stopped myself and others repeatedly bashing a key on the keyboard and as someone who suffers from RSI I was very glad it was brought in.
I have to ask to those with nothing helpful to say, the ones saying "what next, fully automated game for you?" or similar...... In what way is balancing your shields a skill? It's key bashing at its most basic, just as basic attacks were prior to the change on the ground and in space. Timing when to use heals, damage buffs, Captain powers, and working with your team - that is what combat is or should be about. It shouldn't be about who can bash the keys the best.
What do you lose by automating shield balancing? I know there are parts of Star Trek where you would hear a call to reinforce <shield> facing but they don't do it once and forget about it. Balancing or reinforcing your shield in STO has it happen once then you have to do it again a second or two later. Automating that by changing it so after you choose to reinforce a facing or balance all shields it repeats action that until you stop it takes nothing away from the game. Shields are pathetic enough, making it a chore to keep what little shields you have up and helping is not turning the game into "automatic fighting online" as you might think.
If you still really think this then please tell me how doing this takes skill beyond key bashing. I'd be very interested to see that reasoning.
I apologizes if I've been coming off a a little too "L2P" or "lazy gamer" but I really just don't think that full autofire is absolutely necessary. Is it useful at times, yes, but it doesn't solver the over all problem.
The issue is that people don't want to mash the same key 30 times for 10 seconds, right? Auto fire will solve that only to a point. There needs to be something more complex than just an autofire feature, that's what I'm trying to say.
Full auto on weapons was a great thing they added, I agree. But it has also lead to a lot more EPS Flow Regulator heavy builds as some people forget how to manage their weapon energy while other new guys simply never learn how to. I look at it more like you can now put most of your weapons on autofire and fire the rest as necessary to keep your weapon energy high, others don't always see it like that however.
All I'm trying to do is advocate a little less reliance on automation in order to keep people looking for the other complexities in the game.
I acknowledge that mashing the same key over and over isn't game play, but indefinite auto fire for shield reinforcement won't solve the underlying problem, just weaken a game play complexity.
I just feel that every aspect of a fighting scenario should be player controlled.
In pvp you encounter many players with the same ship and relatively same weapon and abilities setups.... so what decides who wins?
The player who is controlling the ship!
It's the little defensive things like shield balancing at the right time or reinforcing the right side when youre being attacked by multiple enemies.
And the little offensive things like being able to not fire weapons at a player using RSP or FBP but still keep them targeted so you can still hit them with torps.
When it comes down to it, pvp content in any mmo is hugely influenced by the little differences in each players style and the command they have of all the details that are available to them.
If you want these automated things for pve content than I feel you should have the options since noone else is involved. But I don't find many times when the content is so intense that you cant devote a few extra keystrokes to make things happen.
When it comes down to it, pvp content in any mmo is hugely influenced by the little differences in each players style and the command they have of all the details that are available to them.
If you want these automated things for pve content than I feel you should have the options since noone else is involved. But I don't find many times when the content is so intense that you cant devote a few extra keystrokes to make things happen.
I'm pretty sure all the good PvPers auto-balance shields via spacebar macro or some other method. Even if there is some rare situation where it might be suboptimal, it's so barely worse that it's not worth the attentional resources.
A toggle mechanism for balance/reinforce directional would be the best choice, rather than the spam-till-you-drop or full-auto methods. Hit delete to start auto-balancing, then hit arrow keys to reinforce specific directions. Hit delete again to return to auto-balancing.
OR, make the shield system more interactive so you can manually overcharge a shield facing, for instance.
I'l admit I didn't read more than the first few posts so forgive me if I am repeating something already said. If you use one of many game controllers that allow you to set up a repeat function for a single key, you can use that, including the G series keyboards by Logitech and Merc. I am using the G13, and have one key set to repeat my shield rebalance (set to toggle on/off) next to my fire energy weapons key and fire torpedoes key. By having it set to repeat it frees up my aging hands to maneuver, fire off specials/powers, or help out a teammate.
While I was a proponent of adding auto-fire to all beam weapons, I am not so sure I could support a movement endorsing the same for Balance Shields within the game, at least not right now when there are a lot more important things to work on (content). Many controllers and keyboards are reasonable in price these days, and not difficult (especially the Logitech stuff) to set up. I would be more inclined to support a periodic discount promotion between Cryptic and companies that produce various controllers, getting controllers and gaming keyboards in the hands of players who would otherwise not buy due to price, and simultaneously spreading the Cryptic/STO names alongside the hardware manufacturers.
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While I was a proponent of adding auto-fire to all beam weapons, I am not so sure I could support a movement endorsing the same for Balance Shields within the game, at least not right now when there are a lot more important things to work on (content). Many controllers and keyboards are reasonable in price these days<snip>.
Reasonable? I'd call the Logitech G15 anything but reasonable. It's a great keyboard, I know that much, but I can't justify spending £60+ on a keyboard for one function. If you or anyone else can link me to a place that has it for around £40~ I'd be very interested. I think the main complaint is that when you do hit the key to reinforce a shield facing or balance all sides it only does it for two seconds. Perhaps we could have it so it lasts longer, maybe 10 seconds. I have a macro that does it for me but it's problematic at best.
The only automation I want for shield management is for my orders to be followed until I change the order. If I say distribute shield power evenly I want the system to continue doing this until I change the order. The same goes for choosing one or two facings to reinforce.
Having to repeatedly issue the same exact order every 3 seconds is complete bologna. No real-life computer is going to cancel your order every 3 seconds and make you re-issue it -- unless it was intentionally programmed to do so.
The only automation I want for shield management is for my orders to be followed until I change the order. If I say distribute shield power evenly I want the system to continue doing this until I change the order. The same goes for choosing one or two facings to reinforce.
Having to repeatedly issue the same exact order every 3 seconds is complete bologna. No real-life computer is going to cancel your order every 3 seconds and make you re-issue it -- unless it was intentionally programmed to do so.
This is pretty much my thoughts on it. As much as the game might try to be like Star Trek it isn't. Currently we seem to follow the philosophy of Kane from Command & Conquer more than anything else - Peace Through Power! If that's how the game is that's fine but why can't we have something like this implemented? It isn't the same as an episode of any series where Picard would try to disable shields to force an enemy to chat. There is no option or capability to do things that way.
I'm sure I heard on a few occasions about rerouting power to aft, port etc shields but even then you don't see them going "reroute power.... again!" and then pause for a few seconds before issuing the same order once more. You would assume that whoever was watching the shields would know to do whatever it takes to keep the shield facing up that is taking a pounding. It wouldn't be very smart to have officers at a station balancing or rerouting shields then stopping three seconds later leading to the ship blowing up but that's what we have.
I can agree with previous posts that in any quasi-realistic scenario a computer wouldnt need to keep being retold to do something like balance the shields.
It would go without saying and shields would be monitored and calibrated as need be....however...
this is a game and you kinda need to put realism by the wayside sometimes to make gameplay more interesting and challenging.
Perhaps as diplomatic solution they could offer some sort of advanced shield management as a BO ability.
Those who find it important could sacrifice another engineering ability to get a longer balance time or a sort of "smart" shield reinforcing for a certain duration.
Then not everyone would be forced into huge game mechanic change like shields balancing automatically all the time.
Addressing other posts...you don't need to spend a fortune on a crazy keyboard or mouse to make things easier on yourself.
Most mice these days come with extra side buttons that are programmable.
I have 2 side buttons on my mouse, I have one as the spacebar and the other mapped to my torpedo hotkey. I also mapped pressing the middle mouse button for mines but people who dont use mines could map it for a balance shields hotkey.
This wouldnt be enough to cover reinforcing all the shield directions but having balance shields in a very handy spot could help ease the burden of having to keep moving your hand all the time.
I think shield distribution still requires a bit of thought though.
It does. So does weapon fire, actually. Think of something like Feedback Pulse. Do you really want to keep firing at that guy? Or Scramble Sensors.
But at that point, the important step is you noticing the issue and changing your "autofire" setting. That's the important decision to make. That's where player skills matter. The clicking the same button every 3 seconds could be done by a well trained woodpecker*...
*Disclaimer. I am not convinced there are woodpecker trainers, and that this solution would be cheaper than a gaming keyboards. Or that the woodpecker wouldn't destroy your keyboard.
It does. So does weapon fire, actually. Think of something like Feedback Pulse. Do you really want to keep firing at that guy? Or Scramble Sensors.
But at that point, the important step is you noticing the issue and changing your "autofire" setting. That's the important decision to make. That's where player skills matter. The clicking the same button every 3 seconds could be done by a well trained woodpecker*...
*Disclaimer. I am not convinced there are woodpecker trainers, and that this solution would be cheaper than a gaming keyboards. Or that the woodpecker wouldn't destroy your keyboard.
Yep, you still need to know when to hold fire. Different set ups have different ways of doing this, but in a pinch by the time you right click all 6 beams on a beam boat you might of already sustained heavy damage. That's one reason (among many) why I still only have a few beams on auto fire rather than all, but that's personal preference.
For weapons, I can still see why auto fire is needed, I can also see a need to disable all auto fire at once. Sadly, as far as I know there is no such hold fire option aside from disengaging a target.
For shield distribution, I think that disabling an auto reinforce then enabling another one could just take up too much time or confuse newer gamers.
Some one else mentioned it too and I still thing that the best course of action is to let the feature last for 10 or so seconds. My added idea to that is to let me toggle it off at will as to not drain power from a shield facing that does need it. I stand my this model. A 5 to 10 (maybe even 15, why now) second ability that you can manually toggle off. The option to queue up a refire before it finishes could also come in handy.
Perhaps as diplomatic solution they could offer some sort of advanced shield management as a BO ability.
Those who find it important could sacrifice another engineering ability to get a longer balance time or a sort of "smart" shield reinforcing for a certain duration.
Seriously? How many Starfleet Officers do you want it to take to change a lightbulb?
The interface solution is very simple:
Make shield auto-balance a toggle, ON by default.
You want to turn it off, you click the shield indicator or press delete.
Do it again to turn auto back on.
If you hit a manual shield balance button, it disables the auto-balancing and starts reinforcing that facing instead.
Click the center indicator or hit delete again to go back to auto-balancing.
Auto-balancing is automatically re-enabled when you leave combat (option in Controls menu to disable this)
A longer-term solution would revolve around not having the shield balance mechanic be so trivial in the first place.
Basically Im just opposed to the whole auto balance idea and I felt that if it were THAT important to some people than there should be some cost to having it.
Such as having it be a BO ability and having to sacrifice another ability to use it.
I could probably get on board with it lasting a little longer than it currently does but not auto balance running all the time with no input from the player.
I feel that important mechanics of the game like weapons and shields shouldnt just happen without you making them happen.
What if in the future enough people QQ'd to have the ship turn by itself to put the strongest shield facing the enemy? Or be able to automate BO abilities?
Wed end up paying 15 bucks a month to sit and watch the game play itself.
Basically Im just opposed to the whole auto balance idea and I felt that if it were THAT important to some people than there should be some cost to having it.
Such as having it be a BO ability and having to sacrifice another ability to use it.
I could probably get on board with it lasting a little longer than it currently does but not auto balance running all the time with no input from the player.
I feel that important mechanics of the game like weapons and shields shouldnt just happen without you making them happen.
What if in the future enough people QQ'd to have the ship turn by itself to put the strongest shield facing the enemy? Or be able to automate BO abilities?
Wed end up paying 15 bucks a month to sit and watch the game play itself.
Nobody here is asking for the extremes that you spew out. Why bring up such extremes when the potential of it happening, ever, is smaller than the collective IQ of an amoeba crew? Nobody wants the game to play itself, the whole discussion here is about taking something monotonous out of the game or changing how it works to be less monotonous.
Weapons fire at a target you choose and stop when you tell them, that makes sense.
Weapons fire at a target you choose, once, then stop. That doesn't make sense.
Shields are balanced / reinforced as you specify, for three seconds, then they just drop. Stupid!
Shields are balanced / reinforced as you specify, for a longer time or until you change it. Sensible.
Other skills like when to fire off a high yield burst, use brace for impact, engineering team etc depend on the situation and using them is a decision that should be initiated by the player at a time they decide. Nobody is asking to have those skills automated, nobody is asking for a ship that turns automatically. Quit throwing extremes that have not been asked for, ever, into a discussion about monotonous tasks that add nothing to the game.
It seems people have a problem with the idea of an "Auto-Distribute" button.
I suspect that people would be much less opposed to a "toggle" button for shield distribution. "Toggle shield port" / "toggle shield fore" / "toggle shield distribute" etc. Surely nobody could oppose a simple toggle button?!
It's so simple: It stays on until you turn it off. I guess you guys don't have light switches, but rather a button that you press that keeps the lights on for 2 seconds, and then turns them off. You then have to keep pressing the button every 2 seconds, in order to keep the lights in your room on all the time. Anything that "automated" this task would simply make light switches dumb and boring, removing the skill, timing and intelligence required to keep the lights on. On the other hand, a button that you have to press every 2 seconds is FUN!!!!!!!
P.S. Sorry if this sounded overly snarky, I just really enjoyed writing it
It seems people have a problem with the idea of an "Auto-Distribute" button.
I suspect that people would be much less opposed to a "toggle" button for shield distribution. "Toggle shield port" / "toggle shield fore" / "toggle shield distribute" etc. Surely nobody could oppose a simple toggle button?!
It's so simple: It stays on until you turn it off. I guess you guys don't have light switches, but rather a button that you press that keeps the lights on for 2 seconds, and then turns them off. You then have to keep pressing the button every 2 seconds, in order to keep the lights in your room on all the time. Anything that "automated" this task would simply make light switches dumb and boring, removing the skill, timing and intelligence required to keep the lights on. On the other hand, a button that you have to press every 2 seconds is FUN!!!!!!!
P.S. Sorry if this sounded overly snarky, I just really enjoyed writing it
*points to his previous post to set the tone for his reply*
I don't think it should be automated! Essential things such as turning the light on every few seconds and deciding when to open and close my door add immersion! What next? Food that cooks itself? It won't be long before boring, laborious tasks are all automated!♠
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I use it, it means my shields are balancing everytime(after its cool down expires) I click my fire key. Thats about every other click or so...maybe every other, other click...something like that.
I say make that where you click even distribution or up to two sides, and they keep going until you change them. If you click a third side of shields, stop powering the first choice and do the new facing as well as what your second choice was.
Can we get that?
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(ps if you cant tell, im being ultra sarcastic!)
Nothing here I haven't been asking for since early beta.
Just take a little time to go through your key bindings and make some things easier on yourself rather than asking for them to be done for you.
No they don't. A growing trend in gamers is that they want more automation and pretty colors.
It's like they want to have the game turned on, complete objectives and win matches, but not actually want to PLAY the game.
If anything I would say that maybe allowing you to toggle the shield reinforcement but have it automatically toggle back off after 5 or 10 seconds or so, just to alleviate the about of mashing you need to do.
Another idea for those who want to is macros. There was a program used for an auto fire macro a while ago. Why not use that? Set your shield bindings to your number pad keys then the actual macro to the arrow keys.
I feel this is an inaccurate characterization of the problem.
A better way would be to say that gamers are increasing disinterested in having to take actions that do not require meaningful decision-making. There basically isn't a time when you WOULDN'T want to be firing your weapons or balancing your shields. Therefore, people don't want to be troubled with those tasks.
If there were a situation where firing your weapons or balancing your shields wouldn't be desirable, then those things become useful decisions again, and deserve player attention. Until that happens, though, hammering spacebar+delete is basically a chore and not a gameplay choice.
It's like making me walk across the game world map instead of teleporting - just annoying.
I have to ask to those with nothing helpful to say, the ones saying "what next, fully automated game for you?" or similar...... In what way is balancing your shields a skill? It's key bashing at its most basic, just as basic attacks were prior to the change on the ground and in space. Timing when to use heals, damage buffs, Captain powers, and working with your team - that is what combat is or should be about. It shouldn't be about who can bash the keys the best.
What do you lose by automating shield balancing? I know there are parts of Star Trek where you would hear a call to reinforce <shield> facing but they don't do it once and forget about it. Balancing or reinforcing your shield in STO has it happen once then you have to do it again a second or two later. Automating that by changing it so after you choose to reinforce a facing or balance all shields it repeats action that until you stop it takes nothing away from the game. Shields are pathetic enough, making it a chore to keep what little shields you have up and helping is not turning the game into "automatic fighting online" as you might think.
If you still really think this then please tell me how doing this takes skill beyond key bashing. I'd be very interested to see that reasoning.
3 enemies surround you. Two Vorchas to your left and a BoP to your right. Depending on the circumstances, you might want to focus on your left or right shields. It might even be more prudent to start reinforcing your front and rear shields and then come about 90 degrees to allow your front and rear shields to take the assault.
That sounds like a meaningful decision to me.
Regarding auto fire, with the new changes to power drain, the space bar will be even less necessary as will EPS consoles. Currently, a good tactic is to pus some weapons on auto fire then selectively fire the rest periodically. This allows you to divert less engineering consoles to EPS flow and more to SIF or armor or what have you.
No regarding shield reinforcement, I do thing that each key press should transfer energy for more than just that one instance, but not toggle indefinitely. As I said before I think a good idea would let it activate a 10 or 15 second ability that you could toggle off manually or queue up a repeat of the ability. Indefinite autofire, however, I think will lead to a greater feeling that combat in space is too easy or not complex enough and could lead new players to have issues with remembering to toggle or not toggle skills.
We're not talking about reminding your bofs every second to keep your ships oxygen turned one, if you're maneuvering aggressively or defensively you should never need to reinforce a single shield facing for more than 10 seconds and if under dire circumstanced you do need to keep it coming for more than 30 seconds at a time, having to reactivate the skill again won't make much of a difference because you either aren't using your other shield facings properly or you're other shields are all drained now and you should start worrying about your flanks.
Shield reinforcement needs to be reworked, that's for sure, but I wouldn't leave it to be a completely automated ability. I don't trust a car to park it'self by itself, I'm not gonna trust a game developer's software to predict the tactics of people or even their own NPCs.
I apologizes if I've been coming off a a little too "L2P" or "lazy gamer" but I really just don't think that full autofire is absolutely necessary. Is it useful at times, yes, but it doesn't solver the over all problem.
The issue is that people don't want to mash the same key 30 times for 10 seconds, right? Auto fire will solve that only to a point. There needs to be something more complex than just an autofire feature, that's what I'm trying to say.
Full auto on weapons was a great thing they added, I agree. But it has also lead to a lot more EPS Flow Regulator heavy builds as some people forget how to manage their weapon energy while other new guys simply never learn how to. I look at it more like you can now put most of your weapons on autofire and fire the rest as necessary to keep your weapon energy high, others don't always see it like that however.
All I'm trying to do is advocate a little less reliance on automation in order to keep people looking for the other complexities in the game.
I acknowledge that mashing the same key over and over isn't game play, but indefinite auto fire for shield reinforcement won't solve the underlying problem, just weaken a game play complexity.
In pvp you encounter many players with the same ship and relatively same weapon and abilities setups.... so what decides who wins?
The player who is controlling the ship!
It's the little defensive things like shield balancing at the right time or reinforcing the right side when youre being attacked by multiple enemies.
And the little offensive things like being able to not fire weapons at a player using RSP or FBP but still keep them targeted so you can still hit them with torps.
When it comes down to it, pvp content in any mmo is hugely influenced by the little differences in each players style and the command they have of all the details that are available to them.
If you want these automated things for pve content than I feel you should have the options since noone else is involved. But I don't find many times when the content is so intense that you cant devote a few extra keystrokes to make things happen.
I'm pretty sure all the good PvPers auto-balance shields via spacebar macro or some other method. Even if there is some rare situation where it might be suboptimal, it's so barely worse that it's not worth the attentional resources.
A toggle mechanism for balance/reinforce directional would be the best choice, rather than the spam-till-you-drop or full-auto methods. Hit delete to start auto-balancing, then hit arrow keys to reinforce specific directions. Hit delete again to return to auto-balancing.
OR, make the shield system more interactive so you can manually overcharge a shield facing, for instance.
While I was a proponent of adding auto-fire to all beam weapons, I am not so sure I could support a movement endorsing the same for Balance Shields within the game, at least not right now when there are a lot more important things to work on (content). Many controllers and keyboards are reasonable in price these days, and not difficult (especially the Logitech stuff) to set up. I would be more inclined to support a periodic discount promotion between Cryptic and companies that produce various controllers, getting controllers and gaming keyboards in the hands of players who would otherwise not buy due to price, and simultaneously spreading the Cryptic/STO names alongside the hardware manufacturers.
Reasonable? I'd call the Logitech G15 anything but reasonable. It's a great keyboard, I know that much, but I can't justify spending £60+ on a keyboard for one function. If you or anyone else can link me to a place that has it for around £40~ I'd be very interested. I think the main complaint is that when you do hit the key to reinforce a shield facing or balance all sides it only does it for two seconds. Perhaps we could have it so it lasts longer, maybe 10 seconds. I have a macro that does it for me but it's problematic at best.
Having to repeatedly issue the same exact order every 3 seconds is complete bologna. No real-life computer is going to cancel your order every 3 seconds and make you re-issue it -- unless it was intentionally programmed to do so.
This is pretty much my thoughts on it. As much as the game might try to be like Star Trek it isn't. Currently we seem to follow the philosophy of Kane from Command & Conquer more than anything else - Peace Through Power! If that's how the game is that's fine but why can't we have something like this implemented? It isn't the same as an episode of any series where Picard would try to disable shields to force an enemy to chat. There is no option or capability to do things that way.
I'm sure I heard on a few occasions about rerouting power to aft, port etc shields but even then you don't see them going "reroute power.... again!" and then pause for a few seconds before issuing the same order once more. You would assume that whoever was watching the shields would know to do whatever it takes to keep the shield facing up that is taking a pounding. It wouldn't be very smart to have officers at a station balancing or rerouting shields then stopping three seconds later leading to the ship blowing up but that's what we have.
It would go without saying and shields would be monitored and calibrated as need be....however...
this is a game and you kinda need to put realism by the wayside sometimes to make gameplay more interesting and challenging.
Perhaps as diplomatic solution they could offer some sort of advanced shield management as a BO ability.
Those who find it important could sacrifice another engineering ability to get a longer balance time or a sort of "smart" shield reinforcing for a certain duration.
Then not everyone would be forced into huge game mechanic change like shields balancing automatically all the time.
Addressing other posts...you don't need to spend a fortune on a crazy keyboard or mouse to make things easier on yourself.
Most mice these days come with extra side buttons that are programmable.
I have 2 side buttons on my mouse, I have one as the spacebar and the other mapped to my torpedo hotkey. I also mapped pressing the middle mouse button for mines but people who dont use mines could map it for a balance shields hotkey.
This wouldnt be enough to cover reinforcing all the shield directions but having balance shields in a very handy spot could help ease the burden of having to keep moving your hand all the time.
But at that point, the important step is you noticing the issue and changing your "autofire" setting. That's the important decision to make. That's where player skills matter. The clicking the same button every 3 seconds could be done by a well trained woodpecker*...
*Disclaimer. I am not convinced there are woodpecker trainers, and that this solution would be cheaper than a gaming keyboards. Or that the woodpecker wouldn't destroy your keyboard.
Yep, you still need to know when to hold fire. Different set ups have different ways of doing this, but in a pinch by the time you right click all 6 beams on a beam boat you might of already sustained heavy damage. That's one reason (among many) why I still only have a few beams on auto fire rather than all, but that's personal preference.
For weapons, I can still see why auto fire is needed, I can also see a need to disable all auto fire at once. Sadly, as far as I know there is no such hold fire option aside from disengaging a target.
For shield distribution, I think that disabling an auto reinforce then enabling another one could just take up too much time or confuse newer gamers.
Some one else mentioned it too and I still thing that the best course of action is to let the feature last for 10 or so seconds. My added idea to that is to let me toggle it off at will as to not drain power from a shield facing that does need it. I stand my this model. A 5 to 10 (maybe even 15, why now) second ability that you can manually toggle off. The option to queue up a refire before it finishes could also come in handy.
Seriously? How many Starfleet Officers do you want it to take to change a lightbulb?
The interface solution is very simple:
A longer-term solution would revolve around not having the shield balance mechanic be so trivial in the first place.
Such as having it be a BO ability and having to sacrifice another ability to use it.
I could probably get on board with it lasting a little longer than it currently does but not auto balance running all the time with no input from the player.
I feel that important mechanics of the game like weapons and shields shouldnt just happen without you making them happen.
What if in the future enough people QQ'd to have the ship turn by itself to put the strongest shield facing the enemy? Or be able to automate BO abilities?
Wed end up paying 15 bucks a month to sit and watch the game play itself.
Nobody here is asking for the extremes that you spew out. Why bring up such extremes when the potential of it happening, ever, is smaller than the collective IQ of an amoeba crew? Nobody wants the game to play itself, the whole discussion here is about taking something monotonous out of the game or changing how it works to be less monotonous.
Weapons fire at a target you choose and stop when you tell them, that makes sense.
Weapons fire at a target you choose, once, then stop. That doesn't make sense.
Shields are balanced / reinforced as you specify, for three seconds, then they just drop. Stupid!
Shields are balanced / reinforced as you specify, for a longer time or until you change it. Sensible.
Other skills like when to fire off a high yield burst, use brace for impact, engineering team etc depend on the situation and using them is a decision that should be initiated by the player at a time they decide. Nobody is asking to have those skills automated, nobody is asking for a ship that turns automatically. Quit throwing extremes that have not been asked for, ever, into a discussion about monotonous tasks that add nothing to the game.
I suspect that people would be much less opposed to a "toggle" button for shield distribution. "Toggle shield port" / "toggle shield fore" / "toggle shield distribute" etc. Surely nobody could oppose a simple toggle button?!
It's so simple: It stays on until you turn it off. I guess you guys don't have light switches, but rather a button that you press that keeps the lights on for 2 seconds, and then turns them off. You then have to keep pressing the button every 2 seconds, in order to keep the lights in your room on all the time. Anything that "automated" this task would simply make light switches dumb and boring, removing the skill, timing and intelligence required to keep the lights on. On the other hand, a button that you have to press every 2 seconds is FUN!!!!!!!
P.S. Sorry if this sounded overly snarky, I just really enjoyed writing it
*points to his previous post to set the tone for his reply*
I don't think it should be automated! Essential things such as turning the light on every few seconds and deciding when to open and close my door add immersion! What next? Food that cooks itself? It won't be long before boring, laborious tasks are all automated!♠
This... exactly. It's a perfect solution.