Will Devs address how OP escorts are now?

izariel44 · February 2013

There have been many threads on this but mums the word at PW. Every patch makes escorts more and more powerful and cruisers and science ships more and more obsolete. I rarely ever see a science ship anymore and it seems that the only people that play cruisers are those that have sentimental attachments to them (like me).

I was one of the originals that started this game on the first day and chose an engineer captain. Oh, that I had chosen a tac captain like 90% of players today are playing.

Tactical/escort captains have insane damage, healing, maneuverability, and survivability now. There is no upside to playing a cruiser and its a cold day in *&^*&* when you would play a science ship over an escort.

I dont need to go into specifics. There are more threads on this topic than you can shake a plasma injector at, but this needs to be addressed, soon.

Rebalance the ships- give them all roles once again. Nerf escorts, buff cruisers, and really buff science ships. It is desperately needed.

thratch1 · February 2013

Escorts don't need nerfs.

The problem with cruisers and science vessels lies in Engineering and Science abilities. One of the Galaxy-R's biggest problems is that it's loaded with Engineering Boff slots -- the same number of Engineering slots that the Defiant-R has in Tactical slots, incidentally. If Eng and Sci abilities were better, then those ships would be better.

I once suggested that they add an Engineering ability that boosts weapon performance based on the amount of crew a ship has, with huge dropoffs after 1,000. I don't think anyone replied to that, but it was just me spitballing out some ways to fix some issues.

Another huge problem facing the game is Power Creep. We've been playing the same. damn. STFs for years now, but our ships have become more and more powerful, as has our gear. Fleet ships added more durability and more console slots, but the content remained as challenging as it ever was. We're blasting through ESTFs with no challenge, and no incentive to seek out challenge (this is a biggie!). Our benchmark for challenge in this game is essentially ISE, since most people just do that once and hour instead of doing more challenging content like CSE pugs, or even Hive.

Cryptic needs to either add new, non-Borg STFs, or find some way to lure us into more challenging content. Right now our MkXII weapons and full MACO/Omega Force/whatever sets are going to waste on easy stuff because we have no reason to do anything else.

Another issue is that there's no enforcing of the Heal-Tank-DPS trinity in this game. It's so DPS focused without requiring any support. Of course Tac/Escorts will rule this game, when there's nothing for anyone else to do.

In short, escorts aren't the problem -- the rest of the game is. I admit, that sounds dumb on its face, but it's true.

snoggymack22 · February 2013

izariel44 wrote: »

There have been many threads on this but mums the word at PW. Every patch makes escorts more and more powerful and cruisers and science ships more and more obsolete. I rarely ever see a science ship anymore and it seems that the only people that play cruisers are those that have sentimental attachments to them (like me).

I was one of the originals that started this game on the first day and chose an engineer captain. Oh, that I had chosen a tac captain like 90% of players today are playing.

Tactical/escort captains have insane damage, healing, maneuverability, and survivability now. There is no upside to playing a cruiser and its a cold day in *&^*&* when you would play a science ship over an escort.

I dont need to go into specifics. There are more threads on this topic than you can shake a plasma injector at, but this needs to be addressed, soon.

Rebalance the ships- give them all roles once again. Nerf escorts, buff cruisers, and really buff science ships. It is desperately needed.

As an engineer you can fly an escort and do insane damage too. The only difference is the captain abilities. Attack Pattern Alpha, Fire on my Mark being the big two. All the other stuff you can get trained on your own BOFFs through the exchange or by a fleetmate. And being an engineer, you miss out on Alpha and Fire on my Mark, but get some extra defensive oomph from Miracle Worker and Rotate Shield Frequency.

esquire1980 · February 2013

thratch1 wrote: »

Escorts don't need nerfs.

The problem with cruisers and science vessels lies in Engineering and Science abilities. One of the Galaxy-R's biggest problems is that it's loaded with Engineering Boff slots -- the same number of Engineering slots that the Defiant-R has in Tactical slots, incidentally. If Eng and Sci abilities were better, then those ships would be better.

I once suggested that they add an Engineering ability that boosts weapon performance based on the amount of crew a ship has, with huge dropoffs after 1,000. I don't think anyone replied to that, but it was just me spitballing out some ways to fix some issues.

Another huge problem facing the game is Power Creep. We've been playing the same. damn. STFs for years now, but our ships have become more and more powerful, as has our gear. Fleet ships added more durability and more console slots, but the content remained as challenging as it ever was. We're blasting through ESTFs with no challenge, and no incentive to seek out challenge (this is a biggie!). Our benchmark for challenge in this game is essentially ISE, since most people just do that once and hour instead of doing more challenging content like CSE pugs, or even Hive.

Cryptic needs to either add new, non-Borg STFs, or find some way to lure us into more challenging content. Right now our MkXII weapons and full MACO/Omega Force/whatever sets are going to waste on easy stuff because we have no reason to do anything else.

Another issue is that there's no enforcing of the Heal-Tank-DPS trinity in this game. It's so DPS focused without requiring any support. Of course Tac/Escorts will rule this game, when there's nothing for anyone else to do.

In short, escorts aren't the problem -- the rest of the game is. I admit, that sounds dumb on its face, but it's true.

/agree to about 90%.

All the nerfs to tanking/healing didn't help Sci/Crus 1 bit either. I remember when my excel could live thru alphas, but that was before the dark times, before the skillbox nerfs and the nerfs that came with F2P. Then, the beam ACC nerf really iced the cake for crusiers. After this, most crusier people I knew were trying excel cannon boats but personaly I just could never see the reason. You've lost before you start. You want cannons?, fly the escort as it's got the turn rate and engine power to support them.

I just had enough zen from the Lifer account to get 1 of the new escorts and the thing "tanks" better than that excel ever did, all with the exact same build, shield, engine, deflector, and eng/sci consoles. I had left STO for several months due to the fact I just don't want to fly a escort, but this time it's, "can't beat em, join em". "Throw that DPS".

100% correct on this game being total DPS based and that's a sad fact. There is no other role in the entire game than how much shear DPS you can throw. That's why DPS sells so well in the store.

cmdrskyfaller · February 2013

thratch1 wrote: »

Escorts don't need nerfs.

...

Another issue is that there's no enforcing of the Heal-Tank-DPS trinity in this game. It's so DPS focused without requiring any support. Of course Tac/Escorts will rule this game, when there's nothing for anyone else to do.

In short, escorts aren't the problem -- the rest of the game is. I admit, that sounds dumb on its face, but it's true.

Yes they do need nerfs. Hard.

See the issue is NOT that sci ships were killed off and cruisers are largely irrelevant for the game content (they are but thats a side problem). The issue is that escorts have been made TOO GOOD to the point where the other 2 ship types are irrelevant.

Here's something for you to think about:

My sci captain used to be a die-hard tier 5 nebula. Pre-F2P (when things were balanced and ships had their own roles) my ship was a master debuffer and crowd controller. Neither escorts not cruisers could even dream of matching my performance when it came to shield tanking and royally weakening super-hard NPC's to the point where my weak weapon damage output brought it down almost as fast as a cruiser/escort. I WAS science incarnate.

post-f2p. The nebula simply cannot tank nor debuff nor put out damage. Its hard coded so it just can not.

... so I fly an escort. The escort has a funny thing... I only use hazard 1 and emg2 shield 2 ... those are my ONLY healing abilities.

and with them, thanks to the escort's insane defense rating through speed (speed tanking) and atk omega capability I fly circles around elite tac cubes and gates watching the damage spam on me go : MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS. In my nebula... and even on my other toon's supertank voquv ... I wouldve been hit every single time despite both toons having the same captain skills when it comes to speed tanking boxes.

The difference comes from the escort ship itself. Plus I have more than twice the firepower and most pathetic of all, I can do just as weakly effective 'science' with a lt cmdr sci boff (MVAE) than I do in a Nebula (alleged fully dedicated sci ship). I tank better, fly faster, hit ten times harder.

and I heal with 2 miserly abilities.

did I mention I've threat control 9 from when I thought my nebula could tank? haha.. yeah.. my little escort gets a ton of attention. MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS...

its a borg whiffmobile.

So.. sci in tac ship > sci in sci ship.

The game itself is geared completely towards dps and tanking nothing else. Its the only things the devs give a rat's butt about ... because its the only thing they can monetize with little effort.

Dig up my threads from over a year ago concerning Perfect World. You will see I was right when I said they turn any game they buy into a stupid dps-centered, pay-2-win, cookie-cutter-for-all templates grindfest game until the monetizing became so ridiculous players left the game. Then they would close the game off, use the engine to make a clone of it with a different flavor and start the scamcycle again.

we are now in the starting point of that monetizing. the cookie-cutter phase is ending as they herd the players into just one type of ship and then they will begin to hash out more and more powerful stuff so that any ship or item you buy now will become obsolete in a matter of months.

unangbangkay · February 2013

cmdrskyfaller wrote: »

Yes they do need nerfs. Hard.

Not gonna happen. Nerfing existing ships that some folks might pay for will cause more player abandonment than any amount of concern over monetization or "pay-to-win" will, and in a much shorter period.

Just as a car maker won't pull the bucket seats or 4-point harness out of the made-for-track-day sports car you just bought because the people who bought the everyday version for half the price complained that you were too fast or loud, it would be in no one's interest to go about nerfing things people paid for unless they were literally game-breaking. And no, breaking PVP is not a valid concern in this regard.

Instead of nerfing escorts, cruisers and SVs should get buffs and while more and better content should be debuted. That's actually less of a pipe dream than demanding nerfs, and benefits everyone as well as the game, rather than just the dissatisfied minority.

starlanced · February 2013

As I just posted in another thread my cruiser can out dps many escorts it just that their dps is focused and fast, but that's what they are meant to do while the cruiser is a heavy tanky ship that can whittle down that escort over time using debuffs, strips and immobilization, both work just fine for me.

asimosa · February 2013

Yeah, cruisers (or at least the better cruisers, with the right gear and duty officers) can easily compare with or even outdamage escorts, especially over longer-term engagements or in situations where an escort can't sit still pointing at a target. They're really, really more than fine. And the type of captain doesn't really matter, and engineer is the most overpowered for space PVE right now, just due to the sheer direct versatility of their skills; good power management accomplishes way more than many people realize.

If anything it's just science vessels that are uselessly weak right now, between science skills being nerfed into the ground ages ago, the limited weapon slots and selection, and the fact carriers basically do everything they can but better (except turn anyway...)

mustafatennick · February 2013

A simple way of solving all the complaints and problems listed in this thread it would take the devs 20 minutes of code alteration In three places

- give escort healing powers (EPTS, HAZARD EMITTERS, TSS, etc) an inherent weakness a bit like dhc's have their inherent Ikillyouness

- make defence rating work in another way than pure speed speed tanking is getting out of hand

- boost science powers back up to an acceptable level they are a complete joke especially in pvp you can dance in and out of a grav well a cpb even with 200+flow cap drains less than milking a cow which means using a sci ship is pointless as the only sci power worth a penny is subnuc

There you go cruisers now have a job keeping things alive and people now have a reason to play sci sci again For the now called space magic will be actual crowd control and zone denial

Not too much to ask in my opinion but like everything this wont make money and will fall on deaf ears

unangbangkay · February 2013

mustafatennick wrote: »

- give escort healing powers (EPTS, HAZARD EMITTERS, TSS, etc) an inherent weakness a bit like dhc's have their inherent Ikillyouness

This is where there's a problem. Bridge Officer and Captain powers are not limited or restricted in any way by ship type. The only things that determine the effectiveness of a power are:

1. Power levels (i.e. Aux or Weapons)
2. Skill points (from character builds)
3. Rank of the powers (Like Rapid Fire I vs. Rapid Fire III)
4. Equipment (Indirectly, due to boosts to skill points and power levels that come from equipping things).

There is NO ship type of any kind that artificially, automatically "dampens" the effectiveness of a power, all other things being equal (or vice versa).

A Boff Power is not the same as a piece of equipment.

nicha0 · February 2013

So if OP doesn't want to go into details, and by their own admittance there are many other threads on this topic. Why does this thread exist?

emacsheadroom · February 2013

nicha0 wrote: »

So if OP doesn't want to go into details, and by their own admittance there are many other threads on this topic. Why does this thread exist?

I'm not suggesting people take refuge in the false security of consensus, but the power of one more voice in favour of an argument does add weight to the validity of the argument.

nicha0 · February 2013

Except it isn't valid, there are missions which prove it. Game content is poorly balanced.

Take 5 tac escorts to HOSE and you are in trouble
Take 5 eng cruisers to any STF and you'll be able to get all the optionals

So which is op?

emacsheadroom · February 2013

nicha0 wrote: »

Except it isn't valid, there are missions which prove it. Game content is poorly balanced.

Take 5 tac escorts to HOSE and you are in trouble
Take 5 eng cruisers to any STF and you'll be able to get all the optionals

So which is op?

Except that you're not comparing the same things. Also I question the validty of your first premise. I've seen 5 tac escorts breeze through every elite STF including Hive. Cruisers can also get all the optionals for every STF but they often cut it very close, so that there is less than a minute left on the clock. The point is not that it can also be done with cruisers, but that it can be done so much more quickly with escorts. People want to get through the STF as efficiently as possible and for that, escorts are number one choice every time. I've seen some players request an elite STF team with "escorts only".

mustafatennick · February 2013

nicha0 wrote: »

Except it isn't valid, there are missions which prove it. Game content is poorly balanced.

Take 5 tac escorts to HOSE and you are in trouble
Take 5 eng cruisers to any STF and you'll be able to get all the optionals

So which is op?

So you mean to tell me if you took 5 eng cruisers into cure elite you'd come out of the other side with the optional... No!

Or even Kase with two boats defending each side of probes that leaves one to take down both sides

havam · February 2013

thratch1 wrote: »

In short, escorts aren't the problem -- the rest of the game is. I admit, that sounds dumb on its face, but it's true.

I m sorry but without turning the escort back into a glass canon, there simply won't be any need for more healing. Because of its low hull escort should be the ship afffected most by non burst damage.

Without nerfing escorts, pressure damage won't make a come-back, and healers will still be obsolete. Buffing cruisers and sci ships alone won't do the trick, escorts need nerfing, and they need it bad.

ferdzso0 · February 2013

izariel44 wrote: »

Will Devs address how OP escorts are now?

didnt they just release a 5 fore weapon escort with basically no drawbacks? there is your answer

nicha0 · February 2013

mustafatennick wrote: »

So you mean to tell me if you took 5 eng cruisers into cure elite you'd come out of the other side with the optional... No!

Or even Kase with two boats defending each side of probes that leaves one to take down both sides

Yes, 5 cruisers that are well built will beat any STF with the optional without sweating it.
In CSE 4 cruisers with BFaW will make short work of the nanite healers without any risk. 1 cruiser is more than capable of defending the Kang.

In ISE its just a giant joke of easy

In KASE, 1 cruiser can handle the probes and one transformer with the cube, that leaves 1 cruiser to do nothing except expedite the one side.

In HOSE 5 cruisers means nobody dies and you can handle more enemies at once, increasing your overall damage.

I would like someone to show me 5 tac escorts "breezing" through HOSE when the Houston comes along an agros 3-4 cube sets. I'd like to see 5 tac escorts not lose the optional on round 2 due to one hit torp spreads. In HOSE, when things go bad in round 1, the escorts pop extremely fast, even a good team will struggle with the optional, there are times that the Houston doesn't TRIBBLE up the mission and it is easy.

This escort vs cruiser debate is 98% a learn to play issue. There are some imbalances but its pretty minor.

The major issues comes outside of elite STFs, there is no normal difficultly mission that needs any more tanking that even a poorly laid out escort can handle. The normal is far too easy, and there are no elite versions of any other missions.

edna · February 2013

you people never played PvP and complain all day about how OP are escorts.

Go in pvp in a 5 escort team vs 5 anything not escort to see who will win.

Pve is about escorts or dps .

havam wrote: »

Without nerfing escorts, pressure damage won't make a come-back, and healers will still be obsolete. Buffing cruisers and sci ships alone won't do the trick, escorts need nerfing, and they need it bad. [/COLOR]

in what game?

havam · February 2013

adrianm63 wrote: »

you people never played PvP and complain all day about how OP are escorts.

Go in pvp in a 5 escort team vs 5 anything not escort to see who will win.

Pve is about escorts or dps .

in what game?

hmm right i never played pvp. go take 5 cruisers and see how many kills your pressure damage will generate against 5 escorts.

Without players falling asleep or going on emergency bio breaks, 5 cruisers will not die, but they won't kill anything either. 5 escorts at least have a chance of generating kills and be it only via lucky procs.

psyburnstars · February 2013

ferdzso0 wrote: »

didnt they just release a 5 fore weapon escort with basically no drawbacks? there is your answer

Haha!!! Basically, PW either doesn't think their OP or do and likes escorts being OP.

dalnar83 · February 2013

psyburnstars wrote: »

Haha!!! Basically, PW either doesn't think their OP or do and likes escorts being OP.

Or they sell well......

edna · February 2013

havam wrote: »

hmm right i never played pvp. go take 5 cruisers and see how many kills your pressure damage will generate against 5 escorts.

Without players falling asleep or going on emergency bio breaks, 5 cruisers will not die, but they won't kill anything either. 5 escorts at least have a chance of generating kills and be it only via lucky procs.

some scis would be great in a team of cruisers.I dont mean all engies in cruisers. (dont know if engineering vesta counts as cruiser )
If you take them 1 by 1 with tractor beam ,subnuc and BO those escorts wont have enough heals and sooner or later they will pop.Of course it can take few months but hey long battles bring great victories lol

psyburnstars · February 2013

dalnar83 wrote: »

Or they sell well......

Which goes into the whole "They like escorts being OP" statement...

havam · February 2013

adrianm63 wrote: »

some scis would be great in a team of cruisers.I dont mean all engies in cruisers. (dont know if engineering vesta counts as cruiser )
If you take them 1 by 1 with tractor beam ,subnuc and BO those escorts wont have anough heals and sooner or later they will pop.Of course it can take few months but hey long battle bring great victories lol

well, my sci escort will line up sub-nuc in three times as fast as your cruiser will. BO3 is nice on Ships with DHC and a single DBB, looking forward to the BO3 cruisers with single beams or turrets in the back, oh the fear. ApO has almost 100% uptime oops, guess the cruiser has to maker a choice here the escorts don't have to.

But none of this has any bearing on the question i put up. Defense boni of escorts, together with free healing procs from gear, have reduced the need of dedicated healers.

Without nerfing, no buff to healing will result in a balanced and rewarding gameplay. If you buff cruiser healing and damage, we ll just go from escorts online to cruisers online .

Cruisers shouldn't do escort like burst damage. For pressure damage to matter, escorts need to be squishy, right now they aren't.

Sci ships are sci ships, we're talking cruisers and escorts. Without a nerf to escort survivability, no buff to cruisers will be satisfactory.

mwgacy1 · February 2013

unangbangkay wrote: »

This is where there's a problem. Bridge Officer and Captain powers are not limited or restricted in any way by ship type. The only things that determine the effectiveness of a power are:

1. Power levels (i.e. Aux or Weapons)
2. Skill points (from character builds)
3. Rank of the powers (Like Rapid Fire I vs. Rapid Fire III)
4. Equipment (Indirectly, due to boosts to skill points and power levels that come from equipping things).

There is NO ship type of any kind that artificially, automatically "dampens" the effectiveness of a power, all other things being equal (or vice versa).

A Boff Power is not the same as a piece of equipment.

They somehow managed to make the Kumari heals less effective than they should be. It may be a little rough around the edges on Cryptic's side but on the player end it would probably not be noticed: the only problem is many Cruisers don't support so all that would be achieved in making Escorts weaker is to increase the amount of time they spend running away or respawning. From around 40 STFs over the weekend, I received a heal in only one, and that was from a Science ship.

edna · February 2013

havam wrote: »

Cruisers shouldn't do escort like burst damage.

Why not?
You can use BO on cruisers or on atleast 1 cruiser in our example .You can use 1 "high" dps cruier to do the role of an escort and the rest to heal /debuff.

As you said it can take alot and bio brakes can decide the winner

but that only shows how good the ballance is (or how bad are some people's blader :rolleyes: ) .Cruisers tank/heal and if they can make the round last hours they achieve their role.

Btw I played a 5 pugmade escort team (3 bugs,1 mobius and 1 patrol) vs 5 vestas (mixed team scis and engies) .It was all sub nuc ,grav well ,tractor ,pets pets and more pets (small army of pets).Ive yet to find a way to counter that in a team of tacs in escorts.

havam · February 2013

adrianm63 wrote: »

Why not?
You can use BO on cruisers or on atleast 1 cruiser in our example .You can use 1 "high" dps cruier to do the role of an escort and the rest to heal /debuff.

As you said it can take alot and bio brakes can decide the winner but that only shows how good the ballance is (or how bad are some people's blader :rolleyes: ) .Cruisers tank/heal and if they can make the round last hours they achieve their role.

Btw I played a 5 pugmade escort team (3 bugs,1 mobius and 1 patrol) vs 5 vestas (mixed team scis and engies) .It was all sub nuc ,grav well ,tractor ,pets pets and more pets (small army of pets).Ive yet to find a way to counter that in a team of tacs in escorts.

The vesta is a sci ship, not a cruiser.

dalnar83 · February 2013

Cruisers are incapable of true bursts. Sure ye you can be a tac in cruiser and paint a really nice bullseye on your hull. The most spiky cruiser atm is the dreadnought.......and I do not know many sane people who fly it in pvp regularly. I have seen 3 = THREE Galaxy cruisers shooting at one escort and it simple outhealed them.

My Steamrunner has at least the 2x the tankyness and 4x the firepower of my Galaxy-X. Same captain, same gear, just different ships.

Atm, escorts have best from all words. Great surviability and superb spike/dps potential. The best cruiser can achieve is a draw, and even then he can be rather easily defeated by shield/engine proc or buff striping.

I was in STF yesterday and one player moaned on me, why im a tac in cruiser, that i should be in escort, so the STF is faster...go figure...:rolleyes:

edna · February 2013

havam wrote: »

The vesta is a sci ship, not a cruiser.

read the OP.

" Will Devs address how OP escorts are now"

so I should make a thread " Will Devs address how OP science ships are now" ?

That would make the whole thing ridiculous.:rolleyes:

jellico1 · February 2013

The excelsior ( fleet ) is in my opinion the best cruiser with 4 Tac consoles, there is no content it cannot do as well as any other ship

Solo its a stand alone ship in pve able to tank and take out any boss , not many ships can do that solo

The problem its out of reach to most players and a lot of players do not like its looks ect

There needs to be a way to upgrade your current ship to the best in its class ( cruisers )
For Zen so cryptic makes money making the programming time worth there while while also buffing cruisers and science ships to the level they need to be at

Your ship will still look like a Nebula but will have the best Boff layout weapon slots hull shield mods ect as the very best science ship in the game

Or the same for a cruiser

For a price let people fly the ship they want fully modernized for a number of fleet modules call the new ship the Mk-II for example

This would be very easy for cryptic to do because only changing numbers around on the models is needed no building of a new ship

To ask cryptic to revamp all of the science ships and cruisers to catch up to the escorts is something they will not do unless they can make money doing it is what i think

The escort is OP and far ahead of the cruisers and science ships in PvE , I fly a fleet defiant a fleet Excelsior and a Wells some of the best ships in their classes so i have experence in all the three classes as many of you do.

And you know there are a LOT of people who would spend money to fly the ship THEY want to play the game in if it was the best in its cass

everyone does not want to fly a escort A lot of people do not want to fly a alien ship
I bet cryptic isnt happy with the jem hadar ship sales either , sure dont see many being sold now do we

I think we have a glut of Op escorts and allien lock box OP ships
But nothing in the standard fed line other than a few escorts that is really game worthy
personally i think a lot of money can be made modernizing ships like the nebula ,galaxy and galaxy X

Will Devs address how OP escorts are now?

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