becuase not only will it effect fed escorts and some Cruisers but it will impact greatly on the KDF I fear.
We use a fair bit of cannons (its our thing) on our ships and too hard a nerf will make DHCs unaffective against Cruiser healing and healing in general, putting us at a disadvantage in combat.
Given that (imo) the other cannon options are poor substitutes and need an upgrade, I think it could be a bad move.
It seems like Cryptic will do anything to muzzle the KDF and put us at a disadvantage. Any nerf to the DHC's is a bad idea.
Off topic I know but didnt the escorts and cruisers already take a nerf way back when all the KDF had was pvp and a few missions or somewhere about that time period?
Its a really stupid idea, it would totally unbalance the healing to dps mechanic to a degree that would just be totally stupid.
Also aren't DHC's more energy efficient because of the slower firing cycle? So even if you up the energy drain of a DHC its still going to retain its power efficiency because it is still firing slower?
Or is that just me being silly?
A smarter thing to do would be to buff beams slightly either their damage output or the energy drain, and make the other cannon types worth using, I mean can anyone say they have ever used a single cannon on a build because I can't think of a reason to.
Either that or give cruisers a power regen bonus since they are bigger ships and have massive warp cores and better eps systems ect ect. Regardless there are options avaiable to the devs to change stuff slightly without nerfing stuff because nerfs are nearly always a bad idea both for players and devs.
It seems like Cryptic will do anything to muzzle the KDF and put us at a disadvantage. Any nerf to the DHC's is a bad idea.
Off topic I know but didnt the escorts and cruisers already take a nerf way back when all the KDF had was pvp and a few missions or somewhere about that time period?
ship stats by ship size.
think about it, most of the problems are being caused by ships that are as big as cruisers & move like shuttles.
only thing i have seen firing beams in the show where negvars, and they are bigger than galaxies, the issue is the raptor & patrol escort sized ships that are the same size as cruisers yet magically manage 1 second 180 turns
if that stopped, the all cannon birds would still keep their massive burst damage but others would end up more mixed beam/cannon for effectivness.
Vor'cha class cruisers were shown using cannons and beams multiple times in the show FYI and one was keeping up the Defiant's butt in DS9.
So some bigger ships can be quite nimble at least for the KDF anyway.
Plus aren't raptors supposed to be small, the only one ever seen on the TV shows was smaller than the NX01 Enterprise.
And they are small ingame too.
Defiants are so small one can hardly see them on screen. As are most of the Escorts ingame.
The only biggish Escorts ingame are the Hybrids that mix Escort and something else. Even they are not huge by any means.
Sure, there's a problem with Beams and single Cannons but penalizing DHC's to bring them in line with their near-garbage performance...?
:rolleyes:
Increase Beam damage and reduce their firing arc.
Have the single Cannons integrated with, and can toggle between, Directed Energy Modulation and Scatter Volley/Rapid Fire.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
becuase not only will it effect fed escorts and some Cruisers but it will impact greatly on the KDF I fear.
We use a fair bit of cannons (its our thing) on our ships and too hard a nerf will make DHCs unaffective against Cruiser healing and healing in general, putting us at a disadvantage in combat.
Given that (imo) the other cannon options are poor substitutes and need an upgrade, I think it could be a bad move.
The main thread is in the PvP forums.
Thoughts?
If you read the whole thread in the PvP forums, PWEBranflakes linked to this post by Gecko, clarifying his statement about DHCs and Beams.
Issue resolved, /thread.
__________________________________________________
Joined January 2010.
There is a lot that is "wrong" with STO, balance-wise, that have caused the game to revolve around DPS. Naturally DHC's take the forefront of that conversation because they are best DPS. I mean, the fact that you can make a B'Rel permacloak build with transphasic torps (+40% bleedthrough but deal double damage to hull so effective hull damage of 100%, doubling when you get those shields down), get another +30%(Breen) or +25%(KHG) torp damage percentage with set bonus, plus all the things a cannon build can get - and STILL a cannon build is a better bet - is pretty damn crazy.
A power drain nerf to DHC's wouldn't be awry. I don't think that would affect most KDF builds anyway, as we all have plasmonic leech, the most imba console ever. Or at least with dil -> zen at the current rates it is, we have no excuse for NOT having plasmonic leech, even if you don't put cash into the game!
But there is a lot more to be "fixed" before nerfing DHC's. Healing is crazy. I'd like to see(given the current DPS structure) more hull/shield points across the board, and a lot less healing - maybe something like leave the third tier of healing abilities "as is" so that sci and cruisers still can tank and support, and SqRt down the t2 and t1's that everyship has access to. The relative powerlessness of other "utility" abilities, also insane, with perhaps the exception of Tractor Beam. The amount of bonus damage stacking, also obscenely crazy.
In a PvE environment, all of this is okay because a suboptimal build still works. But in PvP, obviously, the flaws become glaringly obvious.
and that would make sense ingame too if stats where done based on their size
the qin is 30% larger than the k'tinga, from what i can tell making it a similer size to an intrepid.
the patrol and adv escorts are bigger than a connie.
the akira is bigger than a stargazer heavy cruiser.
if they all performed according to their weight there wouldnt be an issue,
bop's would still be wildcards thanks to being all universal stations.
t5 ships would be sorted since they wouldnt move like fighters doing 1 second 180's.
that movement by magic being the game breaker thats causing the problems since it neutralises the narrow firing arc of cannons.
hell the vorcha would likely make a bit of a comeback thanks to not being on the end of the same arbitrary discrimination an any other "cruiser" in this game.
you use the moar dps escape & all you get is power creep, since then dhc's will be buffed to make up the difference again.
The defiant is an engine with guns built around it covered in armor. Its stats reflect that.
Oddly my raptor appears way smaller than a KTinga on screen and the Qin turn nothing like a fighter jet.
I think your letting the sometimes odd graphic sizes of these ships overide your perception of how they should work. Like the oversized hallways of STO, some ships just look big when they are not meant to be and they function as they should accordingly.
A smarter thing to do would be to buff beams slightly either their damage output or the energy drain, and make the other cannon types worth using, I mean can anyone say they have ever used a single cannon on a build because I can't think of a reason to.
Either that or give cruisers a power regen bonus since they are bigger ships and have massive warp cores and better eps systems ect ect. Regardless there are options avaiable to the devs to change stuff slightly without nerfing stuff because nerfs are nearly always a bad idea both for players and devs.
The only build using single cannons I have seen was posted by Mateo a good while for a PvP Galaxy X shark build. The adv was that they are individually more energy efficient and can be kept in target in a wider arc so DPS is more consistent for a slow turner, but the burst damage coming out of cloak and buffed was enough to kill on an alpha strike in PVP. I tried the build and it did what he said it would, so I suppose cannons have their uses.
But Nerfing anything to "balance" cruisers is the wrong idea.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Al Rivera did not say he was going to change anything. what he did state was his preference on how he would go about adjust the numbers.
Seems to me, that the mechanic for beam, and cannon energy draw, damage/range draw down. Rate of fire are all working as intended. Which has not changed appreciabaly since launch. There have been a few small tweeks, and code corrections, but what they are doing now is for the most part exactly what they are supposed to be doing!
What can be adjusted to create a perhapes better balance is to adjust the over all energy generation availible, and the regeneration of of power between the draw down caused by weapons fire or systems and powers usage.
Only so much energy to draw from has been a staple of Trek based gaming since before computer games came along. There are skills, and modules that can help with it, but there should be only so much energy to begin with and that is what should give larger starships thier advantage even if they might not be quite as manuverable, or even be able to lay out the burst firepower of escort types.
If escorts are so powerfull, simply reduce the amount of power they get to generate.
Create the situation where going with an all beam, or all DHC and turret layout is bad because it draws a ships power down to fast, and energy recovery takes longer, there by reducing damage. If the energy pool is limited, then ships to be effective have to carry weapons that don't draw power.. ie: torpedo's and mines. They have to mix thier load outs. This reduces damage effects so ships last longer, but reduce healing and repair effects so they cannot recover as fast along with it.
Oh, and for the record, everyone SHOULD be equally unhappy with the results.
Which has not changed appreciabaly since launch. There have been a few small tweeks, and code corrections, but what they are doing now is for the most part exactly what they are supposed to be doing!
To be fair, energy drain mechanics were changed significantly post-launch. And a lot of BOFF powers that utilize these mechanics have changed significantly post-launch (Beam Fire at Will for one).
Cannons have been tweaked a few times, but I'd concede those were small tweaks as you state. But I'm definitely going to disagree about calling the energy drain mechanic change a small tweak. It completely revamped how people slotted their engineering consoles.
But this is getting a bit off-topic, I think. The general framework of beams and cannons are pretty much the same as they always have been, which I believe is the point you were making.
Here's an idea: Beams get stronger with sustained fire on a single target. I mean obviously cap it at a certain point per beam, but that'd give cruisers the over time DPS they're looking for. Like, sort of like a per beam array sensor analysis.
Here's an idea: Beams get stronger with sustained fire on a single target. I mean obviously cap it at a certain point per beam, but that'd give cruisers the over time DPS they're looking for. Like, sort of like a per beam array sensor analysis.
its not a bad idea, I remember SWG (star wars galaxies) used a similar system to help out a couple of professions with DPS in a group setting.
One attack would apply a stacking proc onto the target and it increased the damage of the next strike by a small amount. It stacked up to 5 times so you ended up with quite a lot of extra dps over a longer period of time. (note that the profession in question that this system was tested and prototyped on first was the rogue/assassin and had massive spike dps but was TRIBBLE weak in a sustained fight which made them very group action unfriendly)
The buff also worked for all other players attacking the target so it provided a reason to have one in a group load out, a similar system could be tweaked for STO im sure.
Yeah, the issue isn't really with DHCs but with so many other gameplay mechanics marginalizing anything other than escorts. There are too many defense options, escort survivability is too high, and with pve being nothing but a DPS race and the classic tank/heal/dps trinity not being a necessity in this game, the usefulness of ships that were designed specifically to tank and heal like cruisers and sci vessels are definitely lacking.
Nerfing DHCs is a lazy solution that ultimately accomplishes nothing, but the solutions that need to be enacted are either beyond Cryptic's ability, their willingness to act, or both.
becuase not only will it effect fed escorts and some Cruisers but it will impact greatly on the KDF I fear.
We use a fair bit of cannons (its our thing) on our ships and too hard a nerf will make DHCs unaffective against Cruiser healing and healing in general, putting us at a disadvantage in combat.
Given that (imo) the other cannon options are poor substitutes and need an upgrade, I think it could be a bad move.
The main thread is in the PvP forums.
Thoughts?
When I listened to the podcast, I heard Gecko say that he thought beam boats were fine. If he were forced to fix anything, he would nerf cannons. He went on to say that he wasn't going there.
A few deep breaths, and a long ooooooohmmmmmm, and you will feel better.
__________________________________
STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Comments
Off topic I know but didnt the escorts and cruisers already take a nerf way back when all the KDF had was pvp and a few missions or somewhere about that time period?
Also aren't DHC's more energy efficient because of the slower firing cycle? So even if you up the energy drain of a DHC its still going to retain its power efficiency because it is still firing slower?
Or is that just me being silly?
A smarter thing to do would be to buff beams slightly either their damage output or the energy drain, and make the other cannon types worth using, I mean can anyone say they have ever used a single cannon on a build because I can't think of a reason to.
Either that or give cruisers a power regen bonus since they are bigger ships and have massive warp cores and better eps systems ect ect. Regardless there are options avaiable to the devs to change stuff slightly without nerfing stuff because nerfs are nearly always a bad idea both for players and devs.
Vor'cha class cruisers were shown using cannons and beams multiple times in the show FYI and one was keeping up the Defiant's butt in DS9.
So some bigger ships can be quite nimble at least for the KDF anyway.
Plus aren't raptors supposed to be small, the only one ever seen on the TV shows was smaller than the NX01 Enterprise.
Defiants are so small one can hardly see them on screen. As are most of the Escorts ingame.
The only biggish Escorts ingame are the Hybrids that mix Escort and something else. Even they are not huge by any means.
R.I.P
R.I.P
Sure, there's a problem with Beams and single Cannons but penalizing DHC's to bring them in line with their near-garbage performance...?
:rolleyes:
Increase Beam damage and reduce their firing arc.
Have the single Cannons integrated with, and can toggle between, Directed Energy Modulation and Scatter Volley/Rapid Fire.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
If you read the whole thread in the PvP forums, PWEBranflakes linked to this post by Gecko, clarifying his statement about DHCs and Beams.
Issue resolved, /thread.
Joined January 2010.
In regard to hating Star Trek 2009:
So...you're with the whole ZOMFG TEH DHCs ARE OVERPOWERZ!!1!!one!! crowd.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
A power drain nerf to DHC's wouldn't be awry. I don't think that would affect most KDF builds anyway, as we all have plasmonic leech, the most imba console ever. Or at least with dil -> zen at the current rates it is, we have no excuse for NOT having plasmonic leech, even if you don't put cash into the game!
But there is a lot more to be "fixed" before nerfing DHC's. Healing is crazy. I'd like to see(given the current DPS structure) more hull/shield points across the board, and a lot less healing - maybe something like leave the third tier of healing abilities "as is" so that sci and cruisers still can tank and support, and SqRt down the t2 and t1's that everyship has access to. The relative powerlessness of other "utility" abilities, also insane, with perhaps the exception of Tractor Beam. The amount of bonus damage stacking, also obscenely crazy.
In a PvE environment, all of this is okay because a suboptimal build still works. But in PvP, obviously, the flaws become glaringly obvious.
The defiant is an engine with guns built around it covered in armor. Its stats reflect that.
Oddly my raptor appears way smaller than a KTinga on screen and the Qin turn nothing like a fighter jet.
I think your letting the sometimes odd graphic sizes of these ships overide your perception of how they should work. Like the oversized hallways of STO, some ships just look big when they are not meant to be and they function as they should accordingly.
R.I.P
So the status quo is intact. For now.
As I had mentioned earlier, complete with link!
Joined January 2010.
In regard to hating Star Trek 2009:
The only build using single cannons I have seen was posted by Mateo a good while for a PvP Galaxy X shark build. The adv was that they are individually more energy efficient and can be kept in target in a wider arc so DPS is more consistent for a slow turner, but the burst damage coming out of cloak and buffed was enough to kill on an alpha strike in PVP. I tried the build and it did what he said it would, so I suppose cannons have their uses.
But Nerfing anything to "balance" cruisers is the wrong idea.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
No useful advice for anyone still flying a cruiser, except RUNNNNN !!!!
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Seems to me, that the mechanic for beam, and cannon energy draw, damage/range draw down. Rate of fire are all working as intended. Which has not changed appreciabaly since launch. There have been a few small tweeks, and code corrections, but what they are doing now is for the most part exactly what they are supposed to be doing!
What can be adjusted to create a perhapes better balance is to adjust the over all energy generation availible, and the regeneration of of power between the draw down caused by weapons fire or systems and powers usage.
Only so much energy to draw from has been a staple of Trek based gaming since before computer games came along. There are skills, and modules that can help with it, but there should be only so much energy to begin with and that is what should give larger starships thier advantage even if they might not be quite as manuverable, or even be able to lay out the burst firepower of escort types.
If escorts are so powerfull, simply reduce the amount of power they get to generate.
Create the situation where going with an all beam, or all DHC and turret layout is bad because it draws a ships power down to fast, and energy recovery takes longer, there by reducing damage. If the energy pool is limited, then ships to be effective have to carry weapons that don't draw power.. ie: torpedo's and mines. They have to mix thier load outs. This reduces damage effects so ships last longer, but reduce healing and repair effects so they cannot recover as fast along with it.
Oh, and for the record, everyone SHOULD be equally unhappy with the results.
Khemaraa sends.
To be fair, energy drain mechanics were changed significantly post-launch. And a lot of BOFF powers that utilize these mechanics have changed significantly post-launch (Beam Fire at Will for one).
Cannons have been tweaked a few times, but I'd concede those were small tweaks as you state. But I'm definitely going to disagree about calling the energy drain mechanic change a small tweak. It completely revamped how people slotted their engineering consoles.
But this is getting a bit off-topic, I think. The general framework of beams and cannons are pretty much the same as they always have been, which I believe is the point you were making.
its not a bad idea, I remember SWG (star wars galaxies) used a similar system to help out a couple of professions with DPS in a group setting.
One attack would apply a stacking proc onto the target and it increased the damage of the next strike by a small amount. It stacked up to 5 times so you ended up with quite a lot of extra dps over a longer period of time. (note that the profession in question that this system was tested and prototyped on first was the rogue/assassin and had massive spike dps but was TRIBBLE weak in a sustained fight which made them very group action unfriendly)
The buff also worked for all other players attacking the target so it provided a reason to have one in a group load out, a similar system could be tweaked for STO im sure.
Nerfing DHCs is a lazy solution that ultimately accomplishes nothing, but the solutions that need to be enacted are either beyond Cryptic's ability, their willingness to act, or both.
When I listened to the podcast, I heard Gecko say that he thought beam boats were fine. If he were forced to fix anything, he would nerf cannons. He went on to say that he wasn't going there.
A few deep breaths, and a long ooooooohmmmmmm, and you will feel better.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Even better if DBBs got a 10% ACC boost and normal BAs got 5%.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!