As for the tricobalts, forgive my forwardness, but if it's a recognised issue that if one goes critical then they all go critical, why wouldn't the recognised issue be fixed before making any other changes?
From Bort's previous posts on the matter, the issue of one crit they all crit appears extremely difficult to solve.
Please keep in mind Bort is working on a system that was developed by some devs who are no longer even at the company.
Trics were broke. Seriously, seriously broke. I'm not saying this was the right fix or the right amount of the right fix, but trics were big-time broken.
would that happen to include the fact they they "false-fired", where it never fired but started the cooldown?
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
From Bort's previous posts on the matter, the issue of one crit they all crit appears extremely difficult to solve.
Please keep in mind Bort is working on a system that was developed by some devs who are no longer even at the company.
If all criticals are linked for the same mine group, then the only possible conclusion is that all of those mines are being checked for critical hits only once, possibly before they hit their target. A new per-projectile critical hit subroutine would have to be written to fix this bug, but this will affect how all projectiles are treated.
I notice that all group-fired projectile weapons have this issue -- Torp Spreads, high yields, and hyperplasmas all crit together.
The idea of nerving trico-mines is understandable, some people in pvp combat were complaining about them being op. I agree to one thing, problem is, if one goes crit, all go crit. :mad:
However, the guys crying about tricos being op, are the same ones, who can never have enough dps on their jem bugs and complain if they do less than 17K dps. Nerf the rapid fire skill, if you ask me.... would be more fair again.
Back to business, I really love my tricos, its a good way to defend against waves of escorts in pvp. And it also works to blow a Galor in 1v1 pvp or on a solo run in a multi-pvp.
You devs made it now more difficult to defend against tricos, as it was before. Good defense against tricos is fire at will (seriously in pvp you are so busy, you cannot target each mine manually). However, the CD of that skill is longer, than the CD of the tricos itself, so that causes again some imbalance in this game. If you are in the Galor, the first volley of mines you can defend yourself with fire at will, the second volley not....(unless you also run a double aux2bat galor).
FYI, I run a Double Aux2Bat Escort, so the Beta III cooldown of 30 seconds is reduced to 18 seconds on my ship anyway, so I launch more mines than before, which increases the chance to hit some guys in pvp anyway... And actually it does not make a big difference in pvp, if you are hit with 4x 34.000 dmg or 4x 68.000 dmg. Its insta-kill. However, now I can blast more enemy ships, as I can spawn the mines much faster. :cool:
DEVS, great job, I love the new mines, please dont change them anymore, it makes my build so much OP now.... Thats what I call value for money !
*irony off now* however it would be just fair to return to the settings as it was before. Tricos are the only chance for Engi or Sci Captains to create some dmg, to have at least a small chance against Tac Captain Escorts in Gorn or SB24. So you should not have changed them. Actually the real problem is, that Cannon escorts have no defense skill against mines, which beam escorts have. Give them some kind of "turret spread fire at will" skill and the problem of tricos in pvp is solved.
Um i dunno if anyone has noticed buuuut, Bio-Neural warhead has had its damaged halved and it has a 1 min cooldown... this really sucks for those of use who go it through buying a ship from the c-store..........
Um i dunno if anyone has noticed buuuut, Bio-Neural warhead has had its damaged halved and it has a 1 min cooldown... this really sucks for those of use who go it through buying a ship from the c-store..........
Thats a Tricobalt torpedo with AI guidance and defense. Klinks have known that forever.
*irony off now* however it would be just fair to return to the settings as it was before. Tricos are the only chance for Engi or Sci Captains to create some dmg, to have at least a small chance against Tac Captain Escorts in Gorn or SB24. So you should not have changed them. Actually the real problem is, that Cannon escorts have no defense skill against mines, which beam escorts have. Give them some kind of "turret spread fire at will" skill and the problem of tricos in pvp is solved.
Why should cannon escorts have more defence to match a beam escort? Aren't cannon escorts powerful enough? Geez, I reckon if cannon escorts keep crying long enough they'll get the new ability I've outlined below.
"I Win"
20km range
Single target
30 sec cooldown
Destroy target. Target has no defence.
Still, I could see them crying after they get this, saying the 30 seconds is too long...
Why should cannon escorts have more defence to match a beam escort? Aren't cannon escorts powerful enough? Geez, I reckon if cannon escorts keep crying long enough they'll get the new ability I've outlined below.
"I Win"
20km range
Single target
30 sec cooldown
Destroy target. Target has no defence.
Still, I could see them crying after they get this, saying the 30 seconds is too long...
Haven't had problems with mines yet... CSV1 + Turrets = no more mines.
No point really, just taking my patch frustrations out on first available target, I apologize.
I'm also not surprised that ALL trics were nerfed but I would be surprised if the FED version of the Bio-Neutral warhead didn't get it's old stats back.
The nerf of tricobalts today has made them completely useless as there are weapons in game that will do damage better, disable better ect. If the problem was truly that if one mine went critical then they all went critical then why not reduce the critical damage by 75% meaning each mine only contributes 25% of what it's critical would have been therefore arriving as a damage the same if just one mine had gone critical. This would have been much better than just halving the damage and making them obsolete.
well i understand they mentioned nerfing tric mines and torpedo's but if they were going to do the same to bio neural, they should atleast mention it seperately since its a unique device. AND also balance it properly since it has the same cooldown as before.
well i understand they mentioned nerfing tric mines and torpedo's but if they were going to do the same to bio neural, they should atleast mention it seperately since its a unique device.
You're assuming they even realized it. :rolleyes:
Yeah, yeah, this post has been arbitrarily edited to remove content that we don't like.
Um i dunno if anyone has noticed buuuut, Bio-Neural warhead has had its damaged halved and it has a 1 min cooldown... this really sucks for those of use who go it through buying a ship from the c-store..........
Well that does suck. I liked the bionueral warhead. Half damage with a 1 minute CD on a weapon that cant be fired closer than 2km sucks.
The damage output of the Lobi Store Temporal Torpedo was not intended to be modified in this change, and will be restored.
It may be subject to balance changes in the future, but was not intended to be changed alongside Tricobalt damage output.
As for the Tricobalt changes themselves, we're monitoring the performance of these weapons under the new changes and they are likely to be subject to additional tweaks. The massive spike damage that was possible using them on their previous cooldown rotation was causing an imbalance in damage-over-time expectations that could not easily be accommodated when balancing space combat.
Thank you - you've restored my faith in my purchases.
But please don't be too heavy handed with future balance passes tho, me and my wallet will be watching this closely.
Couldn't they just fix the group-projectile-crit once and for all?
It seems like the STO planning team lacks focus...
It's not the STO dev team's issue. The problem within the bowels of the Cryptic Game engine. It's at a much lower level of the engine than Borticus plays with. The code developers are going to have to make the change. And the change will be affecting their combat engine in a very fundamental way. They could potentially mess up all combat in all games. So the change has to be carefully and right the first time. So no quick fix. And Coder's schedules are always booked solid. That seems to be a universal law.
As for the Tricobalt changes themselves, we're monitoring the performance of these weapons under the new changes and they are likely to be subject to additional tweaks. The massive spike damage that was possible using them on their previous cooldown rotation was causing an imbalance in damage-over-time expectations that could not easily be accommodated when balancing space combat.
I'm sorry but I do not understand how or who is looking at the weapon balance. There is a clear lack of understanding of the reality of the game when changes like these happen.
Let me absolutely clear on something: It is obvious that whoever that person is only seems to have federation escorts in mind when reaching a 'this is balanced' decision.
Why I say this: The tricobalt torpedo and mine changes only benefit that specific ship. No other. It is only functional in that ship type.
Think about it. Cruisers of any faction dont benefit from it. Neither do carriers. Nor science ships. Only birds of prey, raptors and federation escorts have the speed to close in and drop those mines.
But.. the kdf ships that cloak rely on one time passes and re-cloak after a very brief time. They dont have the hull or tanking ability to stay in a fight in the same way the fed escorts have (hell they can tank tac cubes in elite). Reducing timers and damage by half makes the mines lose the ability to make up for the dps the ships lose from not having as many chances to do multiple passes. For the federation escorts however, its a huge boon. Now they can drop very high damage mines every single pass.
...and this is on top of ridiculously high cannon damage.
Before this change the mines were a knockout punch for a fed escort and for the KDF. Now they are the fed escort's repeating uppercut while the KDF is left wanting.
...which seems to be the standard operating procedure for this game since launch anyway. :rolleyes:
Here's a more intelligent way of fixing the tricobalt mines: INCREASE THEIR TIMERS.
Same old damage, 2 minutes to re-use. If a ship loads 2 mines they will be limited to 1 per minute drop anyway.
...KDF and FED escort types both have the same benefit and limitations in this scenario.
Damn that was easy wasn't it? Or was the whole purpose of this alleged 'balance attempt' nothing more than another 'lets boost fed escorts' effort?
Tricobalt Torpedoes: Leave their timers at 30 seconds and make them not have shared cooldowns with other tric torps/mines. In short, treat them like any regular torpedo.
The catch? Reduce the regular tric torp damage to be equivalent to a quantum torp high yield 1. Its not that big of a damage but its in-line with it being a destructible torpedo. Give it a big boost in damage when using high yields (what it did under high yield just last week) and have spreads still fire ONE torpedo -but- make it guarantee an AOE rift blast (that makes it 'spread damage').
While you're reading this (IF):
Lobi items should all come in account bound crates. Having my lobi stuck in one character and unable to use it and give the item to the character that needs it is unacceptable. Account bound lobi or account bound item crates (bind on acquire once crate open). Is it REALLY that hard to do?
Reman/Romulan 2-piece bonus for heavy plasma torpedo defense bonus was broken 2 patches ago. The heavy torpedoes are being shot down as fast as the non-set bonus ones.
Omega launcher kicks in timer after firing high yield rather than allowing the next torpedo charge to be fired. This is just silly. Why not make it do bonus damage based on the charges it has left and empty the launcher upon a high yield shot?
Aka :
5 charges= fires the huge plasma ball the borg unimatrix shoots. +30% damage.
4 charges= Not as big plasma ball. +20% damage.
3 charges= Fires the currently used high yield animation torpedo. +10% damage
1 & 2 charges= fires the currently used 'regular torpedo' animation. +5% damage.
Finally, the hyper-plasma torpedo is bugged as of 2 patches ago. The launcher does not start to fire until the ship is fully decloaked AND the wings are folded down. No other torpedo does this. Before that patch the hyper plasma would fire like other torpedoes..it did not wait for the decloak/wings down animation of birds of prey. Curious note: this delay does not happen on raptors (no wings to fold). So im guessing its related to that animation.
The best solution I can come up with (for the only problem I can see with tricobalts in pvp) is to add a minimum launch distance, instead of nerfing the damage. The Bio-Neural Warhead already has this solution applied. Realisticly you wouldn't be launching a warhead that can do substantial damage to you as well at point blank range.
The whole purpose of the tricobalt was that it was a heavy hit against someone whose shields had been taken down, as was stated several times prior. The reduced cool down time means nothing in the greater scheme of things. The devs basicly stripped the weapon of its intended purpose and made it one of the worst high level items in the game.
To fix the mistake that has been made, either add a minimum launch distance and fix the damage (they move slowly, it shouldn't be a problem) or increase the spreads, take away the "one per enemy ship" limitation, etc. For the mines....Hell, nobody lays tricobalt spreads looking for a critical anyway. Criticals are just icing on the cake. Just remove the critical entirely from it, or reduce the chance and severity.
They aren't very fast, and they aren't hard to take out. All~ tricobalts are destructible. Removing their purpose as the best alpha strike weapons....You should have just removed them entirely if you don't like it. They filled a niche that otherwise only the borg could accomplish. What fun is that?
Because the damage is spread over a 30second gap they effectively do less then half the damage they did. In that 30seconds a target can potentially recover all the damage the first strike did and be ready for the second strike with open arms.
Also, I find it odd (but understandably) overlooked that TB weapons have a 1Km blast radius.
As for the Tricobalt changes themselves, we're monitoring the performance of these weapons under the new changes and they are likely to be subject to additional tweaks. The massive spike damage that was possible using them on their previous cooldown rotation was causing an imbalance in damage-over-time expectations that could not easily be accommodated when balancing space combat.
Tricobalts have always been a high risk / high reward weapon. They were risky in the sense that it might get shot down before reaching the target, it's massive damage could get ruined by a sliver of shield popping up at the last second, or it could simply blow up in your face. However if it hits... triumph! You get a sweet 5 digit damage number floating in space right where your hapless target used to be.
With today's changes that high risk / high reward dynamic has been greatly muted. Not to mention the actual reduction in DPS when BOFF powers are considered. When rebalancing these I propose giving tricobalts a wider AOE damage region and some shield penetration, perhaps half what transphasics have. After all, trics push ships around with the sheer force of their explosions. It makes send that would cause some damage.
Whatever changes are made, please just restore the high risk / high reward dynamic that for 3 years has made tricobalts so much fun to use.
Comments
instead of fixnign the proble you just nerf the item soo much that noone uses it.
gibe the tricobalt -20% crit rate modifier and done. no mroe crits.
From Bort's previous posts on the matter, the issue of one crit they all crit appears extremely difficult to solve.
Please keep in mind Bort is working on a system that was developed by some devs who are no longer even at the company.
would that happen to include the fact they they "false-fired", where it never fired but started the cooldown?
If all criticals are linked for the same mine group, then the only possible conclusion is that all of those mines are being checked for critical hits only once, possibly before they hit their target. A new per-projectile critical hit subroutine would have to be written to fix this bug, but this will affect how all projectiles are treated.
I notice that all group-fired projectile weapons have this issue -- Torp Spreads, high yields, and hyperplasmas all crit together.
what type of mines shall i take now? i used plasma and tric, just bought the fleet version MK XII yesterday
So the bio-neutral hasn't been nerfed ? It IS a tric with ai control and a defensive system.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
that is why i am asking
However, the guys crying about tricos being op, are the same ones, who can never have enough dps on their jem bugs and complain if they do less than 17K dps. Nerf the rapid fire skill, if you ask me.... would be more fair again.
Back to business, I really love my tricos, its a good way to defend against waves of escorts in pvp. And it also works to blow a Galor in 1v1 pvp or on a solo run in a multi-pvp.
You devs made it now more difficult to defend against tricos, as it was before. Good defense against tricos is fire at will (seriously in pvp you are so busy, you cannot target each mine manually). However, the CD of that skill is longer, than the CD of the tricos itself, so that causes again some imbalance in this game. If you are in the Galor, the first volley of mines you can defend yourself with fire at will, the second volley not....(unless you also run a double aux2bat galor).
FYI, I run a Double Aux2Bat Escort, so the Beta III cooldown of 30 seconds is reduced to 18 seconds on my ship anyway, so I launch more mines than before, which increases the chance to hit some guys in pvp anyway... And actually it does not make a big difference in pvp, if you are hit with 4x 34.000 dmg or 4x 68.000 dmg. Its insta-kill. However, now I can blast more enemy ships, as I can spawn the mines much faster. :cool:
DEVS, great job, I love the new mines, please dont change them anymore, it makes my build so much OP now.... Thats what I call value for money !
*irony off now* however it would be just fair to return to the settings as it was before. Tricos are the only chance for Engi or Sci Captains to create some dmg, to have at least a small chance against Tac Captain Escorts in Gorn or SB24. So you should not have changed them. Actually the real problem is, that Cannon escorts have no defense skill against mines, which beam escorts have. Give them some kind of "turret spread fire at will" skill and the problem of tricos in pvp is solved.
Tricobalt mines were out-DPSing every other mine type despite the fact that big hits is supposed to equal low DPS.
Here's the math.
Thats a Tricobalt torpedo with AI guidance and defense. Klinks have known that forever.
Welcome to the game.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Why should cannon escorts have more defence to match a beam escort? Aren't cannon escorts powerful enough? Geez, I reckon if cannon escorts keep crying long enough they'll get the new ability I've outlined below.
"I Win"
20km range
Single target
30 sec cooldown
Destroy target. Target has no defence.
Still, I could see them crying after they get this, saying the 30 seconds is too long...
what's your point?
Haven't had problems with mines yet... CSV1 + Turrets = no more mines.
No point really, just taking my patch frustrations out on first available target, I apologize.
I'm also not surprised that ALL trics were nerfed but I would be surprised if the FED version of the Bio-Neutral warhead didn't get it's old stats back.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
LOL !!! Again ?
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
You're assuming they even realized it. :rolleyes:
Yeah, yeah, this post has been arbitrarily edited to remove content that we don't like.
Well that does suck. I liked the bionueral warhead. Half damage with a 1 minute CD on a weapon that cant be fired closer than 2km sucks.
R.I.P
Thank you - you've restored my faith in my purchases.
But please don't be too heavy handed with future balance passes tho, me and my wallet will be watching this closely.
It's not the STO dev team's issue. The problem within the bowels of the Cryptic Game engine. It's at a much lower level of the engine than Borticus plays with. The code developers are going to have to make the change. And the change will be affecting their combat engine in a very fundamental way. They could potentially mess up all combat in all games. So the change has to be carefully and right the first time. So no quick fix. And Coder's schedules are always booked solid. That seems to be a universal law.
I'm sorry but I do not understand how or who is looking at the weapon balance. There is a clear lack of understanding of the reality of the game when changes like these happen.
Let me absolutely clear on something: It is obvious that whoever that person is only seems to have federation escorts in mind when reaching a 'this is balanced' decision.
Why I say this: The tricobalt torpedo and mine changes only benefit that specific ship. No other. It is only functional in that ship type.
Think about it. Cruisers of any faction dont benefit from it. Neither do carriers. Nor science ships. Only birds of prey, raptors and federation escorts have the speed to close in and drop those mines.
But.. the kdf ships that cloak rely on one time passes and re-cloak after a very brief time. They dont have the hull or tanking ability to stay in a fight in the same way the fed escorts have (hell they can tank tac cubes in elite). Reducing timers and damage by half makes the mines lose the ability to make up for the dps the ships lose from not having as many chances to do multiple passes. For the federation escorts however, its a huge boon. Now they can drop very high damage mines every single pass.
...and this is on top of ridiculously high cannon damage.
Before this change the mines were a knockout punch for a fed escort and for the KDF. Now they are the fed escort's repeating uppercut while the KDF is left wanting.
...which seems to be the standard operating procedure for this game since launch anyway. :rolleyes:
Here's a more intelligent way of fixing the tricobalt mines: INCREASE THEIR TIMERS.
Same old damage, 2 minutes to re-use. If a ship loads 2 mines they will be limited to 1 per minute drop anyway.
...KDF and FED escort types both have the same benefit and limitations in this scenario.
Damn that was easy wasn't it? Or was the whole purpose of this alleged 'balance attempt' nothing more than another 'lets boost fed escorts' effort?
Tricobalt Torpedoes: Leave their timers at 30 seconds and make them not have shared cooldowns with other tric torps/mines. In short, treat them like any regular torpedo.
The catch? Reduce the regular tric torp damage to be equivalent to a quantum torp high yield 1. Its not that big of a damage but its in-line with it being a destructible torpedo. Give it a big boost in damage when using high yields (what it did under high yield just last week) and have spreads still fire ONE torpedo -but- make it guarantee an AOE rift blast (that makes it 'spread damage').
While you're reading this (IF):
Lobi items should all come in account bound crates. Having my lobi stuck in one character and unable to use it and give the item to the character that needs it is unacceptable. Account bound lobi or account bound item crates (bind on acquire once crate open). Is it REALLY that hard to do?
Reman/Romulan 2-piece bonus for heavy plasma torpedo defense bonus was broken 2 patches ago. The heavy torpedoes are being shot down as fast as the non-set bonus ones.
Omega launcher kicks in timer after firing high yield rather than allowing the next torpedo charge to be fired. This is just silly. Why not make it do bonus damage based on the charges it has left and empty the launcher upon a high yield shot?
Aka :
5 charges= fires the huge plasma ball the borg unimatrix shoots. +30% damage.
4 charges= Not as big plasma ball. +20% damage.
3 charges= Fires the currently used high yield animation torpedo. +10% damage
1 & 2 charges= fires the currently used 'regular torpedo' animation. +5% damage.
Finally, the hyper-plasma torpedo is bugged as of 2 patches ago. The launcher does not start to fire until the ship is fully decloaked AND the wings are folded down. No other torpedo does this. Before that patch the hyper plasma would fire like other torpedoes..it did not wait for the decloak/wings down animation of birds of prey. Curious note: this delay does not happen on raptors (no wings to fold). So im guessing its related to that animation.
The whole purpose of the tricobalt was that it was a heavy hit against someone whose shields had been taken down, as was stated several times prior. The reduced cool down time means nothing in the greater scheme of things. The devs basicly stripped the weapon of its intended purpose and made it one of the worst high level items in the game.
To fix the mistake that has been made, either add a minimum launch distance and fix the damage (they move slowly, it shouldn't be a problem) or increase the spreads, take away the "one per enemy ship" limitation, etc. For the mines....Hell, nobody lays tricobalt spreads looking for a critical anyway. Criticals are just icing on the cake. Just remove the critical entirely from it, or reduce the chance and severity.
They aren't very fast, and they aren't hard to take out. All~ tricobalts are destructible. Removing their purpose as the best alpha strike weapons....You should have just removed them entirely if you don't like it. They filled a niche that otherwise only the borg could accomplish. What fun is that?
Because the damage is spread over a 30second gap they effectively do less then half the damage they did. In that 30seconds a target can potentially recover all the damage the first strike did and be ready for the second strike with open arms.
Also, I find it odd (but understandably) overlooked that TB weapons have a 1Km blast radius.
Tricobalts have always been a high risk / high reward weapon. They were risky in the sense that it might get shot down before reaching the target, it's massive damage could get ruined by a sliver of shield popping up at the last second, or it could simply blow up in your face. However if it hits... triumph! You get a sweet 5 digit damage number floating in space right where your hapless target used to be.
With today's changes that high risk / high reward dynamic has been greatly muted. Not to mention the actual reduction in DPS when BOFF powers are considered. When rebalancing these I propose giving tricobalts a wider AOE damage region and some shield penetration, perhaps half what transphasics have. After all, trics push ships around with the sheer force of their explosions. It makes send that would cause some damage.
Whatever changes are made, please just restore the high risk / high reward dynamic that for 3 years has made tricobalts so much fun to use.