The new counter is the new Time Console that reverses time! We should all go open lockboxes for the SNB counter.
Oh, but watch out for the Tric minefield behind you! LOL
Could you possibly try NOT to hit EVERY SINGLE ONE?
Regarding the immunity period, allow me to paint a different perspective:
What can you do, as a ship, if all of your active buffs are removed? How much time do you need in order to be effective again after being hit? How long do the buffs you apply really last? How long do they NEED to last in order for you to feel like you've gotten your use from them? If you blew all of your cooldowns, will they have refreshed before the immunity period is over, or will you just potentially get stripped again unless the immunity timer is longer than your buff cooldowns?
There are other angles to examine here beyond just "that's annoying, I don't want it to happen to me again for X sec." I'd like to hear some analysis on the reasons behind anyone's particular time preference.
well assuming you don't die strait away from lack of shield resistance... this is more then just annoying
really, 90% of a ships ability to be effective at anything is tied to station powers. when you turn them off, and you don't have anything to fall back on, you are in serious peril. this from SNB can be mitigated by team support, and thats what makes it balanced. you also have to be a sci captain to use it, its what sci get for not haveing a bunch of damage boosting skills.
its got a long cooldown too, so even if there are multiple sci out there to worry about, its a fairly infrequent occurrence. a doff that can off line all your abilities at any time from just shooting you bypasses the advantages and disadvantages system, in effect a sci's main role can be replaced by it.
being not able to inflict this doff proc more then once a minute i would say is a good starting point. it should also maybe not strip defensive abilities. they can still cripple an enemy team's ability to fight back, but at least they wouldn't also be defenseless.
there was another idea, have the doff perform snb's other function, adding time to cooldowns. now this is a much better approach, add say 10 seconds to every active ability. it wouldn't leave someone offenseless and defenseless, but it would definitely inconvenience them and be worth the price people payed for them.
you guys really need to stop adding things in game that remove fun and skill from a battle. a fight is most fun when skill and fair play bring you victory, spam and cheap i win buttons are a game play cancer.
thats the point borticus. whats in front of us is so bad that it cant be focused on.
considering all the other stuff thats just been added that throws the games balance even further off balance...
-sighs-
yep - it was so bad that the PvP focused Fleets made use of subnuc Doffs when they were 26 million EC a pop; but now that they're essentially affordable by everyone, NOW it's an issue and:
whats in front of us is so bad that it cant be focused on.
Yep - STO's PvP is like EVERY OTHER MMO PVP SYSTEM balance wise.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Could we please stop trying to re-design the entire power with an entirely new set of balance axes, and instead focus on what's in front of us?
I think the problem people are having from a personal experience a few days ago isn't the actual doff but a *taboo* word being used I've noticed. People just have assumptions it is the doffs and its not LOL. It's the biggest problem in any game these days is people cannot play legit. It was sort of obvious when I was hit 12 times with one with a 10 second time span. (Mind you it was only one person doing this too it wasn't like I was being spawn camped).
I don't bother trying to report them because with even small matters with nothing to do with PvP you have 6 month or more turn around time from GM's so its futile at best and kind of have a view of not blaming Cryptic for not doing much with PvP because it just attracts those kinds of people where in the past we only had a few fleets doing it that it'll grow exponentially with actual gains in the game with PvP.
I think the problem people are having from a personal experience a few days ago isn't the actual doff but a *taboo* word being used I've noticed. People just have assumptions it is the doffs and its not LOL. It's the biggest problem in any game these days is people cannot play legit. It was sort of obvious when I was hit 12 times with one with a 10 second time span. (Mind you it was only one person doing this too it wasn't like I was being spawn camped).
I don't bother trying to report them because with even small matters with nothing to do with PvP you have 6 month or more turn around time from GM's so its futile at best and kind of have a view of not blaming Cryptic for not doing much with PvP because it just attracts those kinds of people where in the past we only had a few fleets doing it that it'll grow exponentially with actual gains in the game with PvP.
you sound as if youre talking about some sort of hax or exploit?
If the changes must be made to satisfy a small group of people then I suggest this:
If you drop the buffs striped from 1000 to 1-3, then remove the immunity. Honestly, someone won't be able to recover from a max of 3 buffs stripped? Otherwise this doff is completely useless. As people have said, this doff only pertains to PvP and not PvE. Such a drastic change makes it useless for anything at all... Also, people keep calling this a SNB doff when it actuality is only a buff stripper with no cool down to the person its being used on. Totally different from SNB.
If I can be blunt and honest here.. How long have these doffs been around? How long have they been affordable to the general public? It seems that once the monopoly on these doffs where no longer held, and the general public is able to get a hold of them is when this whole controversy of how powerful they are came up. Of course I could be wrong. Its happened once before...
I would just leave that doff alone but if you really want to change its power then just do it....give players 5 min immunity and let it only strip half a buff. oh and while your at it give it the ability to make a cup of coffee. hey why not change all skills, traits in the game Lets all be a happy carebear society. :P nerf this, nerf that, this is too OP, oh no he one shot me.....NERF IT.
Reading all this whining is making me laugh my TRIBBLE off xD
Well I think hard core PvP'ers need to stop controlling the fate of this game and learn to adapt.
If you don't see how wrong this statement is you haven't kept up with PvP in STO at all. I barely pvp and even I know this statement is completely backwards.
If you don't see how wrong this statement is you haven't kept up with PvP in STO at all. I barely pvp and even I know this statement is completely backwards.
I think that if those fleets that recognized the SNB DOff value early on and used them to effectively debuff opponents in PvP matches possibly during a time when some players complained of quick, almost indefensible death at the hands of an opponent or how thier attacks just seemed to be less damaging when fighting an opponent, I think that if these DOffs where the until now unknown reason, then yes they need a good balancing.
Why? Because in a game that so highly depends on its special abilities being able to remove your opponents only means of functioning every tens of seconds is not balanced.
That is why old SNB was originaly changed and why the idea of allowing triple stacking DOffs that do almost the same thing is not balanced.
Buff stripping and attack pattern doffs round out Tactical doff builds nicely and provide a non-sci solution to getting through stacked mitigation on a target.
While I cannot yet afford any, they provide me a reason to grind my ec for the gameplay effects that they provide.
Without buff stripping doffs, the only other solution to break through mitigation is to have a sci captain on the team, (not guaranteed in pugs,) and waiting for an snb spike.
I feel as if stacking mitigations are the cause of these problems and the buff stripping doff was added to provide a solution for tactical captains to have in order to get through the mitigation.
I think that the PvP community, aside from the trolls, can agree that without an snb or other kind of buff stripping, certain targets with stacked mitigation on them would simply never die.
IMO it is the high amount of heals and mitigations that caused this type of doff to be added instead of having a second look at the more complex problem of, "How do we solve the problem of a never ending PvP battle?"
too bad me as a sci can not find a non-sci soloution to kill the target... ie i cant bring the guns like a tac can to make the kill.... wheres my doff that gives me a free attack pattern alpha randomly?
too bad me as a sci can not find a non-sci soloution to kill the target... ie i cant bring the guns like a tac can to make the kill.... wheres my doff that gives me a free attack pattern alpha randomly?
Yes as a sci...
Those systems engineers oh my horrible doff they should just delete them...
Those Gravity Well doffs.... ya it doesn't suck hard enough unnerf em....
...Tykens doffs Bhaa terrible.
Those deflector doffs.... ya man having my 1 min powers on a 30 second rotation really blows upgrade me please.
Yes really there more of a cruiser doff... but technician doffs to allow you to chain stuff together in ways that should not be possible... terrible terrible for sci ships. lol
Frankly Mai your Sci Sucks stuff is getting old... take if from someone who has adapted... LOG in to the game... and adjust your build... NO your ship from 4 seasons ago doesn't work any more... suck it up and learn to fly sci.
Those systems engineers oh my horrible doff they should just delete them...
Those Gravity Well doffs.... ya it doesn't suck hard enough unnerf em....
...Tykens doffs Bhaa terrible.
Those deflector doffs.... ya man having my 1 min powers on a 30 second rotation really blows upgrade me please.
Yes really there more of a cruiser doff... but technician doffs to allow you to chain stuff together in ways that should not be possible... terrible terrible for sci ships. lol
Frankly Mai your Sci Sucks stuff is getting old... take if from someone who has adapted... LOG in to the game... and adjust your build... NO your ship from 4 seasons ago doesn't work any more... suck it up and learn to fly sci.
I wasn't intending to say the sci is weak in my reply to him. It was to state that simply because he feels a need for the snb doff because be cant strip buffs it needs to be there because you can't count on a science captain to be on your team. That's BS because its the one thing science captains have that make them who they are.
I was intending to point out in counter to that argumet that then there should be a doff that gives other captain powers randomly. Because "science can't dps".
I'm at work ATM so if this still isn't clear ill try to clear up what I intended to get across when I get home :P
My vote for 'fixing' the sub-nuke doff; strip the two buffs (the less random chance, the better in this case. Three could often be too many, one might not be worthwhile) due to expire soonest, followed by a 60-second immunity to SNB doffs, since a full minute is enough time for the focus of a match to change completely, giving the proc'ed person some breathing room, and make it so that the immunity buff is not cleared by SNB, just like it can't clear Evasives and such.
Regarding the immunity period, allow me to paint a different perspective:
What can you do, as a ship, if all of your active buffs are removed? How much time do you need in order to be effective again after being hit? How long do the buffs you apply really last? How long do they NEED to last in order for you to feel like you've gotten your use from them? If you blew all of your cooldowns, will they have refreshed before the immunity period is over, or will you just potentially get stripped again unless the immunity timer is longer than your buff cooldowns?
There are other angles to examine here beyond just "that's annoying, I don't want it to happen to me again for X sec." I'd like to hear some analysis on the reasons behind anyone's particular time preference.
Since you asked some very fair questions Borticus, let me try to answer them. My answers will all be from the perspective of playing on, and against, a highly competent five-man pvp team. Analyzing pug v. pug is hopelessly chaotic and unnecessary since these doffs will unlikely be exploited to their fullest extent and won't be followed up on by the rest of the opposition. Similarly analyzing pug v. premade is pointless; the pug will loose unless the pre-made really, really sucks, and snb doffs aren't going to be a deciding factor except as they contribute to it being unfun for the pug.
Firstly, as a ship, if all my active buffs are removed, the following will be true; my escort will be unable to do any meaningful damage, since unbuffed weapons fire cannot penetrate a hardened target, and all targets are hardnened within 2-4 seconds of being focused by an escort. Any ship will be far easier to destroy (I've seen ships pop in less than a second while under focus by two escorts when their buffs got stripped) because their shield hardeners were eliminated. Cruisers and sci ships will still be able to effectively support their allies because Extends is not removed and their abilities cast on allies are unaffected.
An argument for at least 30 seconds; if an escort is stripped immediately after hitting rapid fire / attack patterns, they are guaranteed at least one active, effective buffed attack cycle before being proc'ed again.
The primary concern is less that escorts will be unable to do damage for up to fifteen seconds (or loose their alpha strike) while their next attack pattern / rapid fire comes off CD, but more for the key vulnerability window created for all ships when defensive buffs are eliminated. Let's say that a ship gets hit by the proc right after defensive buffs get activated since we want a safe, conservative scenario; i.e. the window of vulnerability is maximized. That ship receives a tac team, a TSS, and an aux2sif to stabilize the situation. Those buffs can reasonably be expected to keep a ship alive and healthy for about 20 seconds before they're in threat of imminent death again since it takes time to eat through the restored hp. By the end of that time, another heal cycle should be off cooldown to keep whoever it is getting focused alive. If however they should get proc'ed before the next heal cycle is ready, they'll be quite likely to die; this is why chained sub-nukes are such a deadly tool in the hands of a competent team. A sub-nuke / kill cycle might last about 25-30 seconds since you want to reserve one for their RSP, the initial nuke, and killing the first wave of heals. If we have a situation where a kill cycle is ready and waiting for a doff proc, that target is already extra vulnerable. If the target gets proc'ed again during that kill cycle, they're probably done for. Another argument for at least a 30-second immunity at a bare minimum.
To answer the question about how long until you're stable and back in 'normal' combat after getting hit; up to 30 seconds, since that is the cycle time on Emergency Power to Shields. If you don't have EPtS online, (PvP builds without that power are very rare in my experience) you're vulnerable since you're missing that rather hefty shield resist. This is where my 60-second number comes from; I feel that you should have at least one buff cycle worth of 'normal' combat where you are not having to fly defensively and receive heavy heals from the team before being at risk of a second proc.
The immunity timer doesn't have to be longer than all your buff cooldowns (Alpha, team-buff abilities) but I feel that twice as long as the longest defensive buff would be a good place to start. This still allows the doffs to open up an unexpected avenue of assault, or to luckily knock out that pesky RSP, but doesn't open the avenue for the sort of chain-procs that the community would like to avoid.
I hope that helps get at your question Borticus, and if you'd like me to clarify / elaborate on any of that, please ask.
~snip~
Since you asked some very fair questions Borticus, let me try to answer them. My answers will all be from the perspective of playing on, and against, a highly competent five-man pvp team. Analyzing pug v. pug is hopelessly chaotic and unnecessary since these doffs will unlikely be exploited to their fullest extent and won't be followed up on by the rest of the opposition. Similarly analyzing pug v. premade is pointless; the pug will loose unless the pre-made really, really sucks, and snb doffs aren't going to be a deciding factor except as they contribute to it being unfun for the pug.
Firstly, as a ship, if all my active buffs are removed, the following will be true; my escort will be unable to do any meaningful damage, since unbuffed weapons fire cannot penetrate a hardened target, and all targets are hardnened within 2-4 seconds of being focused by an escort. Any ship will be far easier to destroy (I've seen ships pop in less than a second while under focus by two escorts when their buffs got stripped) because their shield hardeners were eliminated. Cruisers and sci ships will still be able to effectively support their allies because Extends is not removed and their abilities cast on allies are unaffected.
An argument for at least 30 seconds; if an escort is stripped immediately after hitting rapid fire / attack patterns, they are guaranteed at least one active, effective buffed attack cycle before being proc'ed again.
The primary concern is less that escorts will be unable to do damage for up to fifteen seconds (or loose their alpha strike) while their next attack pattern / rapid fire comes off CD, but more for the key vulnerability window created for all ships when defensive buffs are eliminated. Let's say that a ship gets hit by the proc right after defensive buffs get activated since we want a safe, conservative scenario; i.e. the window of vulnerability is maximized. That ship receives a tac team, a TSS, and an aux2sif to stabilize the situation. Those buffs can reasonably be expected to keep a ship alive and healthy for about 20 seconds before they're in threat of imminent death again since it takes time to eat through the restored hp. By the end of that time, another heal cycle should be off cooldown to keep whoever it is getting focused alive. If however they should get proc'ed before the next heal cycle is ready, they'll be quite likely to die; this is why chained sub-nukes are such a deadly tool in the hands of a competent team. A sub-nuke / kill cycle might last about 25-30 seconds since you want to reserve one for their RSP, the initial nuke, and killing the first wave of heals. If we have a situation where a kill cycle is ready and waiting for a doff proc, that target is already extra vulnerable. If the target gets proc'ed again during that kill cycle, they're probably done for. Another argument for at least a 30-second immunity at a bare minimum.
To answer the question about how long until you're stable and back in 'normal' combat after getting hit; up to 30 seconds, since that is the cycle time on Emergency Power to Shields. If you don't have EPtS online, (PvP builds without that power are very rare in my experience) you're vulnerable since you're missing that rather hefty shield resist. This is where my 60-second number comes from; I feel that you should have at least one buff cycle worth of 'normal' combat where you are not having to fly defensively and receive heavy heals from the team before being at risk of a second proc.
The immunity timer doesn't have to be longer than all your buff cooldowns (Alpha, team-buff abilities) but I feel that twice as long as the longest defensive buff would be a good place to start. This still allows the doffs to open up an unexpected avenue of assault, or to luckily knock out that pesky RSP, but doesn't open the avenue for the sort of chain-procs that the community would like to avoid.
I hope that helps get at your question Borticus, and if you'd like me to clarify / elaborate on any of that, please ask.
I wasn't intending to say the sci is weak in my reply to him. It was to state that simply because he feels a need for the snb doff because be cant strip buffs it needs to be there because you can't count on a science captain to be on your team. That's BS because its the one thing science captains have that make them who they are.
I was intending to point out in counter to that argumet that then there should be a doff that gives other captain powers randomly. Because "science can't dps".
I'm at work ATM so if this still isn't clear ill try to clear up what I intended to get across when I get home :P
Fair enough... my fault for only reading the last post in a conversation. lol :P
Sorry to give you a hard time... just ya Sci isn't as screwed as we all like to think... its role as team debuff is more important and frankly thanks to doffs more potent then ever is all I was saying.
Instead of changing so much stuff and making new bugs, how about we just halve the remaining time of every single timer found in the affected ship? The more this thing activates the faster its target will have guns/skills/whatever available and problem solved.
Let's call it "the aftershock causes a global system reset and safety procedures are overridden during emergency startup" move.
you sound as if youre talking about some sort of hax or exploit?
Oh no never! People do not use those in this game not at all! All kidding aside Borticus and anyone else working on PvP is going to have their hands full to the point of hitting the realm of the impossible with the downsides of free to play what people think is bad now for PvP will be even worse as time goes on because I doubt PWE will be diverting GM resources to combat the plague of what is to come is why more than likely they were hesitant to even bother with improving it.
Can you make Doffs unlock click ablities? Like when one equips a device / P2W console on a ship and it becomes a clickable power that one can place in the tray?
If yes, then make it a "strip 1 buff" subnuke (number of stripped buffs stacks with number of doffs) with a 3min cooldown.
Different idea: Go with the "strip only one buff" change and also change it from stacking the proc chance to stacking the effect.
What I mean: 3 doffs then strip 3 buffs, but still only with a .5% chance. This way you can reduce the frequency without having to rely on immunites / hidden cooldowns. This entire idea of hidden cooldowns to rebalance an ability has already failed with the borg healing procs, so I'm not too confident it will work this time.
If you really need to go with immunities, it should be at the very least 30 seconds. Preferably much more.
Keep in mind that with the current proc rate and a full team, you will see a proc on average 8s after the immunity runs out. So under focus fire conditions you are balancing for a strip every (immunity+8) seconds. (And people can also switch targets while someone is immune, so the effective immunity against strips as a team is reduced to 1/5.)
I hope you also realise the main source of the problem so you can avoid it in the future: You have created a doff that via stacking (both up to 3 on a single player and up to 5x3 in a team) has a huge variance in effectiveness / proc frequency and thus cannot really be balanced in a way that makes it useful on both ends of the spectrum. (Especially since you are not willing to introduce a drawback to using the doff.)
None of the issues with the SNB doff should come as a surprise to you, since the math was readily available on the doff's description text. So surely you guys at Cryptic had long balance discussions that considered the implications of a strip every 2.7s (the doff had initially a 1.5% chance) and came to a conclusion that it was somehow balanced. Just go back to these old meeting notes and the math you did back then and figure out what you missed, and then do the calculations right.
So surely you guys at Cryptic had long balance discussions that considered the implications of a strip every 2.7s (the doff had initially a 1.5% chance) and came to a conclusion that it was somehow balanced. Just go back to these old meeting notes
Second best joke on STO forums, since the first posting of the Temp Destroyer STats
Regarding the immunity period, allow me to paint a different perspective:
What can you do, as a ship, if all of your active buffs are removed?
1. Circle upwards/downwards, hoping to escape DHC firing arcs.
Doesn't work if you're held in a tractor beam, got chronitoned, engines disabled or hit by other holds. Also APO buffed escorts will be able climb faster and catch you. Doesn't work against beam array users.
2. Transfer power to shields and hope the bonus shield damage resists buys you some time.
3. Hit evasive
Basically run away. Effective as long as the other team doesn't have someone who puts you in a hold.
4. Redistribute shields
It'll help combat low level damage (say someone with a poor build), but against a seasoned tac in an escort it's effect won't be noticeable.
Chances are if it's a slow turning, slow moving cruiser it'll be dead in a few seconds. An Escort has a bit more of a chance since some of it's tanking comes from it's manoeuvrability.
I'd say if both are held in a tractor beam and the attacking escort isn't buffed with tac captain powers, they'll have about 5-10 seconds.
How much time do you need in order to be effective again after being hit? How long do the buffs you apply really last? How long do they NEED to last in order for you to feel like you've gotten your use from them? If you blew all of your cooldowns, will they have refreshed before the immunity period is over, or will you just potentially get stripped again unless the immunity timer is longer than your buff cooldowns?
I'd say the absolute minimum an immunity should be is about 2 mins, to account for tanking skills such as RSP and RSF.
Second best joke on STO forums, since the first posting of the Temp Destroyer STats
Side note, temp destroyers are far from being that op as some of us believed. Really, destroyer = patrol escort with mvam flavor. Far from being a bug, slightly better than patrol and mvam but I mean just slight. To the point that destroyer can't really be considered a "joke". Just a lil' better than fleet escorts.
Edit: inertia=60, mvam=70, fleet patrol= 60. Turn =15, worse than mvam. You consoles from lobi store are for any ship, so dont count. The console that comes with ship and spawns 2 copies of the ship - future and past (don't remember name) has 5 min cooldown... And if you shoot the past clone you're getting damage also.
Hear! Sons of Kahless
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
1. Circle upwards/downwards, hoping to escape DHC firing arcs.
Doesn't work if you're held in a tractor beam, got chronitoned, engines disabled or hit by other holds. Also APO buffed escorts will be able climb faster and catch you. Doesn't work against beam array users.
2. Transfer power to shields and hope the bonus shield damage resists buys you some time.
3. Hit evasive
Basically run away. Effective as long as the other team doesn't have someone who puts you in a hold.
4. Redistribute shields
It'll help combat low level damage (say someone with a poor build), but against a seasoned tac in an escort it's effect won't be noticeable.
Chances are if it's a slow turning, slow moving cruiser it'll be dead in a few seconds. An Escort has a bit more of a chance since some of it's tanking comes from it's manoeuvrability.
I'd say if both are held in a tractor beam and the attacking escort isn't buffed with tac captain powers, they'll have about 5-10 seconds.
I'd say the absolute minimum an immunity should be is about 2 mins, to account for tanking skills such as RSP and RSF.
Problem with those doffs is that even if you do all you say, since you're stripped of buffs every 8-ish sec, even heals from your team are stripped (other than et/st that apply instantly). I understand the point of your advice though and I'm not debating it.
Bort, what exactly are you willing to do to fix them? I understood you are talking about immunity and maybe proc chance. Best would be to either follow Jorf's idea (doffs to increase cooldowns) which I understand indirectly it is not something you're willing to do, either hilbert's with 1 buff removal/doff slotted, either what fallout and I supported with at least 30 sec of immunity and max 3 buffs stripped, which is a little too harsh, I'd put 1 min immunity, thinking we get about 30 sec immunity from ams where you actually don't get any buff removed.
Hear! Sons of Kahless
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
To answer the question about how long until you're stable and back in 'normal' combat after getting hit; up to 30 seconds, since that is the cycle time on Emergency Power to Shields. If you don't have EPtS online, (PvP builds without that power are very rare in my experience) you're vulnerable since you're missing that rather hefty shield resist. This is where my 60-second number comes from; I feel that you should have at least one buff cycle worth of 'normal' combat where you are not having to fly defensively and receive heavy heals from the team before being at risk of a second proc.
This is good solid reasoning. Minimum for a random doff strip should be about a min since that gives one cycle of "normal" defense before possibly getting stripped again. Honestly I think 2 minutes would not be entirely inappropriate given that's the cooldown on the Sci Capt ability that does the same thing. I also strongly think that the doff snb immunity should not effect the Sci Capt ability.
Of course, I also still wonder if the doff couldn't just be changed to reduce the cooldown on the Sci Capt ability and work just like the attack pattern doffs do. That would be both balanced and consistent.
This is good solid reasoning. Minimum for a random doff strip should be about a min since that gives one cycle of "normal" defense before possibly getting stripped again. Honestly I think 2 minutes would not be entirely inappropriate given that's the cooldown on the Sci Capt ability that does the same thing. I also strongly think that the doff snb immunity should not effect the Sci Capt ability.
Of course, I also still wonder if the doff couldn't just be changed to reduce the cooldown on the Sci Capt ability and work just like the attack pattern doffs do. That would be both balanced and consistent.
Nixus
I also like your idea, heck, anything that is different than current state could be better, lol.
Bort, could you please let us know which of those solutions is best/feasible for you to implement and also provide more detail in case what we have said is not easily to be implemented? We'd like to see what your best options are in your opinion.
Hear! Sons of Kahless
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
We're not going to change a Doff that does one thing into a Doff that does something completely different.
This Doff strips buffs.
He's not going to be changed into a Doff that impacts cooldowns.
Those are completely different mechanics that are only tied together by a single power that 1/3rd of the characters in game have access to.
So please stop making suggestions of this type. You're only confusing the issue and potential solutions.
For now, there's an immunity period in place and the duration of that period is all I was requesting feedback on. It sounds like 30-60 seconds is the general consensus, but I haven't heard much solid info to support one end of that spectrum or the other besides "it's too powerful unless" statements.
The proc % of the doff will probably be increased in order to offset this immunity period.
The remaining issue of "how many buffs does it strip" is still in the air. Most folks on this forum are in favor of limiting it to just a small handful. I'm thinking I could probably make this 3 and most players would see no difference in PvE since most NPCs rarely run with more than 3 buffs at a time anyway. So that's likely to happen.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Just learn to adapt to change... Everyone has different builds and skills, learn to counter. Teamwork overpowers anything out there... Stop crying nerf, look what happened to Science Class...
The Average PvP player
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1) Teamwork and timing is #1
2) You cannot "Kirk It" in every ship
3) You are going to die, just get back up
Comments
Could you possibly try NOT to hit EVERY SINGLE ONE?
Raptr profile
well assuming you don't die strait away from lack of shield resistance... this is more then just annoying
really, 90% of a ships ability to be effective at anything is tied to station powers. when you turn them off, and you don't have anything to fall back on, you are in serious peril. this from SNB can be mitigated by team support, and thats what makes it balanced. you also have to be a sci captain to use it, its what sci get for not haveing a bunch of damage boosting skills.
its got a long cooldown too, so even if there are multiple sci out there to worry about, its a fairly infrequent occurrence. a doff that can off line all your abilities at any time from just shooting you bypasses the advantages and disadvantages system, in effect a sci's main role can be replaced by it.
being not able to inflict this doff proc more then once a minute i would say is a good starting point. it should also maybe not strip defensive abilities. they can still cripple an enemy team's ability to fight back, but at least they wouldn't also be defenseless.
there was another idea, have the doff perform snb's other function, adding time to cooldowns. now this is a much better approach, add say 10 seconds to every active ability. it wouldn't leave someone offenseless and defenseless, but it would definitely inconvenience them and be worth the price people payed for them.
you guys really need to stop adding things in game that remove fun and skill from a battle. a fight is most fun when skill and fair play bring you victory, spam and cheap i win buttons are a game play cancer.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
thats the point borticus. whats in front of us is so bad that it cant be focused on.
considering all the other stuff thats just been added that throws the games balance even further off balance...
-sighs-
yep - it was so bad that the PvP focused Fleets made use of subnuc Doffs when they were 26 million EC a pop; but now that they're essentially affordable by everyone, NOW it's an issue and:
Yep - STO's PvP is like EVERY OTHER MMO PVP SYSTEM balance wise.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I think the problem people are having from a personal experience a few days ago isn't the actual doff but a *taboo* word being used I've noticed. People just have assumptions it is the doffs and its not LOL. It's the biggest problem in any game these days is people cannot play legit. It was sort of obvious when I was hit 12 times with one with a 10 second time span. (Mind you it was only one person doing this too it wasn't like I was being spawn camped).
I don't bother trying to report them because with even small matters with nothing to do with PvP you have 6 month or more turn around time from GM's so its futile at best and kind of have a view of not blaming Cryptic for not doing much with PvP because it just attracts those kinds of people where in the past we only had a few fleets doing it that it'll grow exponentially with actual gains in the game with PvP.
you sound as if youre talking about some sort of hax or exploit?
If the changes must be made to satisfy a small group of people then I suggest this:
If you drop the buffs striped from 1000 to 1-3, then remove the immunity. Honestly, someone won't be able to recover from a max of 3 buffs stripped? Otherwise this doff is completely useless. As people have said, this doff only pertains to PvP and not PvE. Such a drastic change makes it useless for anything at all... Also, people keep calling this a SNB doff when it actuality is only a buff stripper with no cool down to the person its being used on. Totally different from SNB.
If I can be blunt and honest here.. How long have these doffs been around? How long have they been affordable to the general public? It seems that once the monopoly on these doffs where no longer held, and the general public is able to get a hold of them is when this whole controversy of how powerful they are came up. Of course I could be wrong. Its happened once before...
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I would just leave that doff alone but if you really want to change its power then just do it....give players 5 min immunity and let it only strip half a buff. oh and while your at it give it the ability to make a cup of coffee. hey why not change all skills, traits in the game
Reading all this whining is making me laugh my TRIBBLE off xD
I need a smoke brb.....
If you don't see how wrong this statement is you haven't kept up with PvP in STO at all. I barely pvp and even I know this statement is completely backwards.
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Thanks for your opinion!
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Why? Because in a game that so highly depends on its special abilities being able to remove your opponents only means of functioning every tens of seconds is not balanced.
That is why old SNB was originaly changed and why the idea of allowing triple stacking DOffs that do almost the same thing is not balanced.
R.I.P
too bad me as a sci can not find a non-sci soloution to kill the target... ie i cant bring the guns like a tac can to make the kill.... wheres my doff that gives me a free attack pattern alpha randomly?
Yes as a sci...
Those systems engineers oh my horrible doff they should just delete them...
Those Gravity Well doffs.... ya it doesn't suck hard enough unnerf em....
...Tykens doffs Bhaa terrible.
Those deflector doffs.... ya man having my 1 min powers on a 30 second rotation really blows upgrade me please.
Yes really there more of a cruiser doff... but technician doffs to allow you to chain stuff together in ways that should not be possible... terrible terrible for sci ships. lol
Frankly Mai your Sci Sucks stuff is getting old... take if from someone who has adapted... LOG in to the game... and adjust your build... NO your ship from 4 seasons ago doesn't work any more... suck it up and learn to fly sci.
I wasn't intending to say the sci is weak in my reply to him. It was to state that simply because he feels a need for the snb doff because be cant strip buffs it needs to be there because you can't count on a science captain to be on your team. That's BS because its the one thing science captains have that make them who they are.
I was intending to point out in counter to that argumet that then there should be a doff that gives other captain powers randomly. Because "science can't dps".
I'm at work ATM so if this still isn't clear ill try to clear up what I intended to get across when I get home :P
Since you asked some very fair questions Borticus, let me try to answer them. My answers will all be from the perspective of playing on, and against, a highly competent five-man pvp team. Analyzing pug v. pug is hopelessly chaotic and unnecessary since these doffs will unlikely be exploited to their fullest extent and won't be followed up on by the rest of the opposition. Similarly analyzing pug v. premade is pointless; the pug will loose unless the pre-made really, really sucks, and snb doffs aren't going to be a deciding factor except as they contribute to it being unfun for the pug.
Firstly, as a ship, if all my active buffs are removed, the following will be true; my escort will be unable to do any meaningful damage, since unbuffed weapons fire cannot penetrate a hardened target, and all targets are hardnened within 2-4 seconds of being focused by an escort. Any ship will be far easier to destroy (I've seen ships pop in less than a second while under focus by two escorts when their buffs got stripped) because their shield hardeners were eliminated. Cruisers and sci ships will still be able to effectively support their allies because Extends is not removed and their abilities cast on allies are unaffected.
An argument for at least 30 seconds; if an escort is stripped immediately after hitting rapid fire / attack patterns, they are guaranteed at least one active, effective buffed attack cycle before being proc'ed again.
The primary concern is less that escorts will be unable to do damage for up to fifteen seconds (or loose their alpha strike) while their next attack pattern / rapid fire comes off CD, but more for the key vulnerability window created for all ships when defensive buffs are eliminated. Let's say that a ship gets hit by the proc right after defensive buffs get activated since we want a safe, conservative scenario; i.e. the window of vulnerability is maximized. That ship receives a tac team, a TSS, and an aux2sif to stabilize the situation. Those buffs can reasonably be expected to keep a ship alive and healthy for about 20 seconds before they're in threat of imminent death again since it takes time to eat through the restored hp. By the end of that time, another heal cycle should be off cooldown to keep whoever it is getting focused alive. If however they should get proc'ed before the next heal cycle is ready, they'll be quite likely to die; this is why chained sub-nukes are such a deadly tool in the hands of a competent team. A sub-nuke / kill cycle might last about 25-30 seconds since you want to reserve one for their RSP, the initial nuke, and killing the first wave of heals. If we have a situation where a kill cycle is ready and waiting for a doff proc, that target is already extra vulnerable. If the target gets proc'ed again during that kill cycle, they're probably done for. Another argument for at least a 30-second immunity at a bare minimum.
To answer the question about how long until you're stable and back in 'normal' combat after getting hit; up to 30 seconds, since that is the cycle time on Emergency Power to Shields. If you don't have EPtS online, (PvP builds without that power are very rare in my experience) you're vulnerable since you're missing that rather hefty shield resist. This is where my 60-second number comes from; I feel that you should have at least one buff cycle worth of 'normal' combat where you are not having to fly defensively and receive heavy heals from the team before being at risk of a second proc.
The immunity timer doesn't have to be longer than all your buff cooldowns (Alpha, team-buff abilities) but I feel that twice as long as the longest defensive buff would be a good place to start. This still allows the doffs to open up an unexpected avenue of assault, or to luckily knock out that pesky RSP, but doesn't open the avenue for the sort of chain-procs that the community would like to avoid.
I hope that helps get at your question Borticus, and if you'd like me to clarify / elaborate on any of that, please ask.
I fully support this message
Fair enough... my fault for only reading the last post in a conversation. lol :P
Sorry to give you a hard time... just ya Sci isn't as screwed as we all like to think... its role as team debuff is more important and frankly thanks to doffs more potent then ever is all I was saying.
Let's call it "the aftershock causes a global system reset and safety procedures are overridden during emergency startup" move.
Oh no never! People do not use those in this game not at all! All kidding aside Borticus and anyone else working on PvP is going to have their hands full to the point of hitting the realm of the impossible with the downsides of free to play what people think is bad now for PvP will be even worse as time goes on because I doubt PWE will be diverting GM resources to combat the plague of what is to come is why more than likely they were hesitant to even bother with improving it.
Different idea: Go with the "strip only one buff" change and also change it from stacking the proc chance to stacking the effect.
What I mean: 3 doffs then strip 3 buffs, but still only with a .5% chance. This way you can reduce the frequency without having to rely on immunites / hidden cooldowns. This entire idea of hidden cooldowns to rebalance an ability has already failed with the borg healing procs, so I'm not too confident it will work this time.
If you really need to go with immunities, it should be at the very least 30 seconds. Preferably much more.
Keep in mind that with the current proc rate and a full team, you will see a proc on average 8s after the immunity runs out. So under focus fire conditions you are balancing for a strip every (immunity+8) seconds. (And people can also switch targets while someone is immune, so the effective immunity against strips as a team is reduced to 1/5.)
I hope you also realise the main source of the problem so you can avoid it in the future: You have created a doff that via stacking (both up to 3 on a single player and up to 5x3 in a team) has a huge variance in effectiveness / proc frequency and thus cannot really be balanced in a way that makes it useful on both ends of the spectrum. (Especially since you are not willing to introduce a drawback to using the doff.)
None of the issues with the SNB doff should come as a surprise to you, since the math was readily available on the doff's description text. So surely you guys at Cryptic had long balance discussions that considered the implications of a strip every 2.7s (the doff had initially a 1.5% chance) and came to a conclusion that it was somehow balanced. Just go back to these old meeting notes and the math you did back then and figure out what you missed, and then do the calculations right.
Second best joke on STO forums, since the first posting of the Temp Destroyer STats
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
1. Circle upwards/downwards, hoping to escape DHC firing arcs.
Doesn't work if you're held in a tractor beam, got chronitoned, engines disabled or hit by other holds. Also APO buffed escorts will be able climb faster and catch you. Doesn't work against beam array users.
2. Transfer power to shields and hope the bonus shield damage resists buys you some time.
3. Hit evasive
Basically run away. Effective as long as the other team doesn't have someone who puts you in a hold.
4. Redistribute shields
It'll help combat low level damage (say someone with a poor build), but against a seasoned tac in an escort it's effect won't be noticeable.
Chances are if it's a slow turning, slow moving cruiser it'll be dead in a few seconds. An Escort has a bit more of a chance since some of it's tanking comes from it's manoeuvrability.
I'd say if both are held in a tractor beam and the attacking escort isn't buffed with tac captain powers, they'll have about 5-10 seconds.
I'd say the absolute minimum an immunity should be is about 2 mins, to account for tanking skills such as RSP and RSF.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Side note, temp destroyers are far from being that op as some of us believed. Really, destroyer = patrol escort with mvam flavor. Far from being a bug, slightly better than patrol and mvam but I mean just slight. To the point that destroyer can't really be considered a "joke". Just a lil' better than fleet escorts.
Edit: inertia=60, mvam=70, fleet patrol= 60. Turn =15, worse than mvam. You consoles from lobi store are for any ship, so dont count. The console that comes with ship and spawns 2 copies of the ship - future and past (don't remember name) has 5 min cooldown... And if you shoot the past clone you're getting damage also.
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
Problem with those doffs is that even if you do all you say, since you're stripped of buffs every 8-ish sec, even heals from your team are stripped (other than et/st that apply instantly). I understand the point of your advice though and I'm not debating it.
Bort, what exactly are you willing to do to fix them? I understood you are talking about immunity and maybe proc chance. Best would be to either follow Jorf's idea (doffs to increase cooldowns) which I understand indirectly it is not something you're willing to do, either hilbert's with 1 buff removal/doff slotted, either what fallout and I supported with at least 30 sec of immunity and max 3 buffs stripped, which is a little too harsh, I'd put 1 min immunity, thinking we get about 30 sec immunity from ams where you actually don't get any buff removed.
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
This is good solid reasoning. Minimum for a random doff strip should be about a min since that gives one cycle of "normal" defense before possibly getting stripped again. Honestly I think 2 minutes would not be entirely inappropriate given that's the cooldown on the Sci Capt ability that does the same thing. I also strongly think that the doff snb immunity should not effect the Sci Capt ability.
Of course, I also still wonder if the doff couldn't just be changed to reduce the cooldown on the Sci Capt ability and work just like the attack pattern doffs do. That would be both balanced and consistent.
Nixus
I also like your idea, heck, anything that is different than current state could be better, lol.
Bort, could you please let us know which of those solutions is best/feasible for you to implement and also provide more detail in case what we have said is not easily to be implemented? We'd like to see what your best options are in your opinion.
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...
This Doff strips buffs.
He's not going to be changed into a Doff that impacts cooldowns.
Those are completely different mechanics that are only tied together by a single power that 1/3rd of the characters in game have access to.
So please stop making suggestions of this type. You're only confusing the issue and potential solutions.
For now, there's an immunity period in place and the duration of that period is all I was requesting feedback on. It sounds like 30-60 seconds is the general consensus, but I haven't heard much solid info to support one end of that spectrum or the other besides "it's too powerful unless" statements.
The proc % of the doff will probably be increased in order to offset this immunity period.
The remaining issue of "how many buffs does it strip" is still in the air. Most folks on this forum are in favor of limiting it to just a small handful. I'm thinking I could probably make this 3 and most players would see no difference in PvE since most NPCs rarely run with more than 3 buffs at a time anyway. So that's likely to happen.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1) Teamwork and timing is #1
2) You cannot "Kirk It" in every ship
3) You are going to die, just get back up