The 30 second duration is not and never has been a problem. Maybe the solution is to not allow EPtX skills to be used on escorts. Yeah, that's the ticket. Leave the EPtX skills exactly as they are now, only restrict their use to science and cruisers and don't let escorts use any of them.
It is simple really. If you want to fix EPtS you must fix shield power. Just like weapon power needs fixed for that matter (hence no 130 to weapon power option) because everyone will always run max weapon power + as much shield as required to stay alive.
Because that will not happen, it is not an option, the only clear option is to leave the cooldowns as on holodeck and make the duration of the buffs 25 seconds.
But just for the sake of argument, here is what needs to be done to fix shield power.
- Change resist formula so it has a linear effect on EHP.
- Remove or greatly reduce effect of shield power on shield regeneration rate.
Because honestly shield power is the leadership of shields and is just silly anymore. When you can get over 2000 raw shield regeneration passively you know there is a problem. When your ship can tank over 10k raw DPS with a single ability active while most ships simply explode against a fifth of that because they lack the tribal knowledge to bring that single ability, you have a problem.
Because honestly shield power is the leadership of shields and is just silly anymore. When you can get over 2000 raw shield regeneration passively you know there is a problem. When your ship can tank over 10k raw DPS with a single ability active while most ships simply explode against a fifth of that because they lack the tribal knowledge to bring that single ability, you have a problem.
What you're seeing here is the effect of the way Cryptic balances the game with what the average player would stat, not what veteran, knowledgeable players would. If memory serves this is why the Sci powers were "nerfed". High end players would stack sci skills and pretty much make those poor borg (and other players) helpless.
TBH I find Cryptic not wanting to put lower soft caps at least on some stuff instead of letting things have such outliers a bizarre decision. Heck, it'd even make creating new gear easier by letting the normalsoft caps be just a little more lenient with it.
In the specific case of EPtS, the current system provides a modest buff to shield levels and regens, as well as a large buff to resists. Its the long uptime on the resists buff that is causing so much trouble... What I would like is remove the resists buff and double the buff to shield levels and regeneration. The extra shields will provide a safety-net when regular shields have already been stripped, but they will not last very long against sustained fire, and they will not provide permanent distortion like the current sustained boost to resists. Once that is in place, the rest of the game can be balanced around the "normal" resists and we dont need massive spike peaks that can overcome.
They just need to sit down and rethink the whole model.
I kind of like what you have in mind for EPtS. If that gave more shields and a good chunk of shield energy for awhile that would free up Transfer Shield Strength (a long term regen and shield resist buff) to fill the role of actual shield tanking skill while EPtS would be more realistically a stop gap measure used to keep you from going BOOM for a few more seconds. Also if it regenerated a fairly big part of your shields it would make Covariants a bit more worthwhile.
What you're seeing here is the effect of the way Cryptic balances the game with what the average player would stat, not what veteran, knowledgeable players would. If memory serves this is why the Sci powers were "nerfed". High end players would stack sci skills and pretty much make those poor borg (and other players) helpless.
TBH I find Cryptic not wanting to put lower soft caps at least on some stuff instead of letting things have such outliers a bizarre decision. Heck, it'd even make creating new gear easier by letting the normalsoft caps be just a little more lenient with it.
Caps are unnecessary they just need to fix the math.
Look at it this way for a comparison, if you compare weapons mk X white with four Mk X white specific consoles to mk XII purple for both what difference do you see? At most a percent change in the 20% range raw.
But then you add on CRF and APB then because they are multipliers (attack speed and * damage) then the difference becomes more of a 50% range.
Now that is not that big of a deal and is manageable. Although it is dangerous and they do need to keep an eye on it to ensure it doesn't begin to scale out of control.
But then take a look at the actual difference in effective health and effective regeneration between a white mk 10 shield and a fleet one. Now we start getting into crazy difference territory because of how the math works.
Just fix the math, the formula, that lets things scale to silly stupid levels and you will no longer have these problems. For the most part the math in STO is solid, that is why we have seen so few issues with the rampant power creep post F2P. It just needs some of the exceptions tweaked is all.
But then take a look at the actual difference in effective health and effective regeneration between a white mk 10 shield and a fleet one. Now we start getting into crazy difference territory because of how the math works.
Just fix the math, the formula, that lets things scale to silly stupid levels and you will no longer have these problems. For the most part the math in STO is solid, that is why we have seen so few issues with the rampant power creep post F2P. It just needs some of the exceptions tweaked is all.
Whether its reworking the softcaps or redoing their math the effect would be the same, bringign down the extremes. But the real issue lies in the grind systems...and as far changing any of those goes...
They can't really do anything remotely like that. It would undermine their F2P grind systems if they started doing obvious or effective (even if not obvious someone would notice and telll everyone else, that's all it would take) nerfs to anything related to the fleet starbase, the rep systems, or the lockboxes/lobi store. If people loose faith that those things are worth getting then Cryptic may as well shut down any further STO development this very moment. They've foolishly painted themselves into a corner IF they're trying to balance things after the fact, which I personally do not think are doing.
I still hold that what's really going on is that someone with little game knowledge tried to do something "that would help everyone and improve unused boff powers". Then when they tried to fix the fix their shortcomings shone through again and made running more than one type of EPtX ... unappealing. The solution is easy enough to get to, but I wonder if they will not simply assume all the new complaints are about the first fix and therefore ignore this new issue.
Whether its reworking the softcaps or redoing their math the effect would be the same, bringign down the extremes. But the real issue lies in the grind systems...and as far changing any of those goes...
They can't really do anything remotely like that. It would undermine their F2P grind systems if they started doing obvious or effective (even if not obvious someone would notice and telll everyone else, that's all it would take) nerfs to anything related to the fleet starbase, the rep systems, or the lockboxes/lobi store. If people loose faith that those things are worth getting then Cryptic may as well shut down any further STO development this very moment. They've foolishly painted themselves into a corner IF they're trying to balance things after the fact, which I personally do not think are doing.
I still hold that what's really going on is that someone with little game knowledge tried to do something "that would help everyone and improve unused boff powers". Then when they tried to fix the fix their shortcomings shone through again and made running more than one type of EPtX ... unappealing. The solution is easy enough to get to, but I wonder if they will not simply assume all the new complaints are about the first fix and therefore ignore this new issue.
People spend out the nose to get their shiny mk 12 purple tac consoles all the time and their true benefit over blue mk 11s are marginal so I don't think that is a good reason to ignore a massive underlying issue that is now in the spotlight, that being shield power.
No need to nerf the items, passives, or anything like that. Just shield power and its double whammy effect of regeneration rates and bad resist scaling.
Sorry OP but I think that dividing the abilities like that is a bit too complex; I think ursusmorologus has hit the crux of the matter, the gameplay is currently too much about spikes in either direction, which is fine in moderation but in my current build (Assault Cruiser) I actually have so many defensive and offensive spike abilities that I struggle to manage them all, but I need them in order to either survive incoming fire, or to punch down a target's shields.
That said, I do kind of like the OP's idea of trying to distinguish how emergency power to weapons applies for cannons and beams, but I think it might be better if we got a new ability instead. For example, if we had emergency power to weapons for burst damage and emergency power to relays for sustained damage. It's not an easy thing to divide though, as I currently get a lot of mileage from emergency power to weapons when used to power a beam overload.
New tribble changes have both the timer and duration be 20 seconds.
Thing is, that only makes escorts insanely more powerful. The emg to wep change is dramatic. The damage buff lasts for 20 seconds and it can be perma-dual cycled and stacked on top of the other perma-dual cycled atk omega? So... much... FAIL.
Yeah, with the huge buff to EPtW I don't think Escorts will run EPtS anymore because most of their damage mitigation comes from Defense.
That being said, I stand by my statement that the Defense algorithm needs to be rewritten to decrease its effectiveness.
25 sec duration
45 sec cooldown
30 sec shared cooldown WITH THE SAME EPT SKILL ONLY
remove the shared cooldowns between the EPTX skills.
So an escort can run 1x EPTS with uptime of 25/45
Any ship can run 2x EPTS with uptime of 50/60
Cruisers can run 2x EPTS and 2x EPTW with uptimes of 50/60.
Due to the name it still isnt ideal that you can run 2 different skills called "Emergency Power to ...." simultaniously, however its the best we can do given the skills available at ensign engineer rank.
I think this achieves what the dude in charge was trying to achieve.
Sorry OP but I think that dividing the abilities like that is a bit too complex; I think ursusmorologus has hit the crux of the matter, the gameplay is currently too much about spikes in either direction, which is fine in moderation but in my current build (Assault Cruiser) I actually have so many defensive and offensive spike abilities that I struggle to manage them all, but I need them in order to either survive incoming fire, or to punch down a target's shields.
That said, I do kind of like the OP's idea of trying to distinguish how emergency power to weapons applies for cannons and beams, but I think it might be better if we got a new ability instead. For example, if we had emergency power to weapons for burst damage and emergency power to relays for sustained damage. It's not an easy thing to divide though, as I currently get a lot of mileage from emergency power to weapons when used to power a beam overload.
If they're looking for this sort of thing, then it might be a good idea to approach this from a slightly different angle. Perhaps what is necessary is not to change EPtX, it is to rename current EPtX to something like 'Overdrive Power to Shields/Weapons/etc.', and make a new class of skills that are 'Emergency Power to Shields/Weapons/etc.' set for low duration and high spike potential.
As-is it seems like, once this hits holodeck, the gameplay is just going to become incredibly frustrating in terms of the sheer amount of management you'll need to make fighting effective. I really hope the devs listen on this one, but as-is I'm going to hold off on a few purchases. I think this will make space combat much less enjoyable and more about trying to coordinate click flurries - and a good number of people won't be able to keep up.
Yeah, with the huge buff to EPtW I don't think Escorts will run EPtS anymore because most of their damage mitigation comes from Defense.
That being said, I stand by my statement that the Defense algorithm needs to be rewritten to decrease its effectiveness.
In PvE perhaps, or with an effective PvP team, but really the amount of defensive power they would loose from not having EPtS is immense even with their defense mitigation which directly makes EPtS even more powerful and effective.
The boost you get from EPtS only gets stronger and stronger the higher you mitigation becomes.
In PvE perhaps, or with an effective PvP team, but really the amount of defensive power they would loose from not having EPtS is immense even with their defense mitigation which directly makes EPtS even more powerful and effective.
The boost you get from EPtS only gets stronger and stronger the higher you mitigation becomes.
This
I have only ever seen a handful of escorts ever who don't run 2 copies of EPtS. Either EPtS1 x2, with RSP, or EPtS1 and 2.
Aside from a few escorts with specialty builds who aren't afraid to run without EPtS (read: have access to cloak) the majority will stick with this option.
With GDF changed, you MIGHT find some who are willing to break from the mold and try EPtW. Most escorts can afford to have a gap because they have both the defense and the maneuverability to compensate for it.
Cruisers have neither luxury. Plus the added effect of a cruiser is now either forced to use EPtS1 (Or Weapons, Engines, Aux if you're insane/have a deathwish) to full up their ensign slots, or take higher copies and be stuck with 2 sometimes 3 empty ensign slots.
This is not awesome. I remember being annoyed at the Excel at first because I thought ONE extra ensign was going to be worthless. I made it work, but now having 3 ensign slots with nothing to put there?
EPtS is not a "Use when you need it" power. You have made DHC and escorts hit so bloody hard, and have made them so bloody hard to hit, EPtS is required 100% of the time. Fine, we can almost do that again, but now we can do nothing else.
This is so beyond true it is not even funny. As I stated before EPtS 1 will typically increase your overall effective health by 20% to 30% which while significant is really not that huge of a change as it only applies to shield. Especially when compared to RSP or in PvP FBP that pretty much make one immune to an attacker.
It has become a 'use it all the time' power because it nearly doubles your actual sustain, or passive healing, or the length of time it takes to explode when in an engagement. That is the problem of EPtS. That is why the dreaded 10 second gap was not such a huge deal and wouldn't have been terrible for the game because players would have been able to adapt their defenses.
But now, now you are actually making an engineering boff ability better on an escort than any other ship and penalizing a cruiser who wishes to make use of two abilities.
That is absolutely a terrible idea. Why don't we make torpedo abilities, beam abilities, and cannon abilities all share a cooldown in the same fashion eh? So if you slot just two CRFs you keep the 66% uptime but if you throw in a torpedo spread then it interferes and you only get to have 50% uptime on your CRF even with two copies. If that sounds ridiculous than you understand how I feel about the currently proposed EPtX change.
I don't know about anybody else, but ultimately, I'd rather they not try to adjust their "fixes," and just go back to the way it was. If they want to buff it up or something along those lines, that's fine - I'm never adverse to those ensign engineering abilities actually miraculously becoming worth something - but they're crushing the prime function of cruisers, and/or introducing a whole wave of confusion and clickfest into trying to manage one.
Myself, I wish they'd just make some NEW "emergency boost" powers (NOT the current EPtX abilities, which are pretty mandatory for a LOT of builds, including the vast majority of cruisers) that last 10 seconds, leave current EPtX alone (except maybe a rename), and tweak the new emergency boost abilities.
The only other solution I can see is to make a lot of ships a LOT tougher, along with their shields (50%+, minimum). I'm not an expert, but the more I read about it, this seems like it's the only way to actually have decent survivability. And frankly I'd not be a bit surprised if they turn their sights on tactical team afterwards, making the problem even worse.
I can't help but wonder if the Enterprise-C build from Temporal Ambassador is REALLY the kind of layout they want on a cruiser.
I can't help but wonder if the Enterprise-C build from Temporal Ambassador is REALLY the kind of layout they want on a cruiser.
God I hope not. That thing's layout is poo.
I agree with everything else you say. I agree tac team is probably next. They really need to un link all the teams from each other if they do that though. Give us some reason to keep those ET1 as placeholders for worthless ensign slots now.
Block A
{
Hull resists are almost meaningless next to shield resists.
EPTS is the single greatest ability for shield performance.
Cruisers need EPTS running non stop to stay alive since they lack initiative and mobility.
Higher levels of EPTS are better than lower levels.
}
Block B
{
Cruisers have 8 weapon mounts instead of 7, and lower basic bonus to weapon power.
Because of their poor agility, most cruisers tend to use beam weapons which are criminally inefficient.
Cruisers benefit enormously from EPTW running non stop in order to cause relevant damage.
}
Block C
{
Changes to EPTx preclude the possibility of running two different kinds of emergency power at the same time.
Because EPTS is required for survival, EPTW must be removed. Cruiser's total ability to cause damage will be reduced and/or their tactical options will be greatly reduced by requiring a greater reliance on non-draining weapons.
Cruisers will not be able to use any other ensign powers except Engineering Team due to shared cooldowns.
}
Results of Tribble changes going to Holodeck
{
50% more button mashing to achieve less damage output, and many ships left having multiple useless officer stations. Marginalized ships marginalized further. Players annoyed. Mass rioting. Locusts.
}
I kinda got around the issue and ended up upgrading my DPS by swapping from an EPtS and EPtW build with DCE doffs to an Aux2Batt build with dual EPtS and the only thing I noticeably lost was Extend shields so now I'm back to being a DPS tank rather than a Jack of all trades which sucks because the latter is my play style
I kinda got around the issue and ended up upgrading my DPS by swapping from an EPtS and EPtW build with DCE doffs to an Aux2Batt build with dual EPtS and the only thing I noticeably lost was Extend shields so now I'm back to being a DPS tank rather than a Jack of all trades which sucks because the latter is my play style
Great. So that means either trading in EPTS2 for EPTS1 or! throwing out all of my battlecruisers, moving to ships that have LTC engineer, upgrading to EPTS3, and putting Engineering team 1 in my ensign slots because there's literally nothing else. Either way, Aux2SIF, HE, and TSS stop existing because there's no Aux power to run them. So that should be fun for heals.
Great. So that means either trading in EPTS2 for EPTS1 or! throwing out all of my battlecruisers, moving to ships that have LTC engineer, upgrading to EPTS3, and putting Engineering team 1 in my ensign slots because there's literally nothing else. Either way, Aux2SIF, HE, and TSS stop existing because there's no Aux power to run them. So that should be fun for heals.
*sigh*
yay!
So much lately has been driving my interest in this game lower and lower, and this really is the straw the broke the camel's back for me.
God I hate Aux2Batt builds, and if this is the only way to run a cruiser now, I am honestly done.
Great. So that means either trading in EPTS2 for EPTS1 or! throwing out all of my battlecruisers, moving to ships that have LTC engineer, upgrading to EPTS3, and putting Engineering team 1 in my ensign slots because there's literally nothing else. Either way, Aux2SIF, HE, and TSS stop existing because there's no Aux power to run them. So that should be fun for heals.
I have a Fleet Excel, a Galor, and a D'kora... None of them have LTC engineer. That's what I meant when I said "throw out my battlecruisers" being one of the solutions.
I forgot to mention the third option, which is to reduce total power use so that EPTW is no longer required. Which means kinetic weapons. Which, to get any kind of realistic DPS, means using 2 or 3 torpedo launchers and a bunch of projectile weapon officers. Going to EPTS1 and losing that shield power and shield hardness while also losing defense value because you have to yo-yo in order keep your torpedoes on target... That and the total futility of using torpedoes on shields...
Please dont take this the wrong way, but i thought id repost this here which was a post made elsewhere on the forums which sums it up best.
Id hope adjudicatorhawk you and the other devs will read this and make an effort to do some background research into the damaging changes your proposing which are wreckless and irresponsible and have no foundation. Playing around with game core mechanics after 3 years is questionable and damaging. Plus the propsed changes will not have the desired effect you are looking for.
I dont usually post on the forums but lately i see more rash decisions being made and i question how long the current devs have been on the team and do you not read your own archives on the patches made to the game since day 1.
This is Cryptic's explanation of the S1.2 cooldown system. It even explicitly mentions that 100% uptime (with two copies) on things like EPtS was intended.
Devs who mess with the cooldown system should read this and the related Duration / Recharge Category System Incoming on Tribble post (not online anymore due to forum deletions, but you can still find it on archive.org) to understand what the original foundation of the current system is, since apparently they have no meaningful firsthand knowledge of the system from playing the game.
Actually the poster reposted that particualr post. Since PW bought Cryptic we have seen many core changes to game mechanics and powers because they want us to move from a strategy base [Like using BOFF abilities] to buying the latest newest ship so we can do the most DPS. Heavens to betsy if you have a old tier 1 ship build that was viable and could placate a new lockbox bought ship. That was simply unacceptable to the run and gun crowd. So the devs cater to thier whims and put out the lockbox concept and the power grab was on.
Now to get a maximized lockbox ship with all the special consoles you will need to spend about $500.00 that is a far cry from the old $25.00 C-store ship. Greed has changed the mechanics of the game and it will continue to degenerate into a giant run and gun. So the powergamers who are wealthy lord it over the rest of us.
There are many indicators that most of the devs dont really play the game.
However this change to the EPT abilities is not one of them. It shows a desire to change an underlying part of the game. Something they have the right to do.
Weather or not you agree with it is irrelevant.
I think one of the key probelms with the game is that everyone knows escorts are unbalanced compared to cruisers and science ships. However there is almost no way to nerf escorts without nerfing cruisers and science ships.
Sure no more 100% uptime on EPTS hurts escorts. That is the point. Unfortunately due to the design of the game it also hurts cruisers more.
What needs to happen is a reworking of the Accuracy/Defence mechanic. Removing escorts +15% bonus-for-no-damn-reason would be a good place to start.
You cannot simply tweak abilities without a complete understanding of the mechanics they are built upon.
The EPtX issue is highlighting the problems with how shield power, resistance, and natural shield regen work. They can either fix the underlying problem or continue to stumble around with band-aids.
The ACC vs DEF mechanic is in reality the reason why we see such a high amount of 'swingy' damage output in PvP and part of why escorts are so tanky in PvE (which is not a bad thing inherently IMHO). Once again something that needs fixed from the basic system not just targeting a portion of it.
Comments
Because that will not happen, it is not an option, the only clear option is to leave the cooldowns as on holodeck and make the duration of the buffs 25 seconds.
But just for the sake of argument, here is what needs to be done to fix shield power.
- Change resist formula so it has a linear effect on EHP.
- Remove or greatly reduce effect of shield power on shield regeneration rate.
Because honestly shield power is the leadership of shields and is just silly anymore. When you can get over 2000 raw shield regeneration passively you know there is a problem. When your ship can tank over 10k raw DPS with a single ability active while most ships simply explode against a fifth of that because they lack the tribal knowledge to bring that single ability, you have a problem.
What you're seeing here is the effect of the way Cryptic balances the game with what the average player would stat, not what veteran, knowledgeable players would. If memory serves this is why the Sci powers were "nerfed". High end players would stack sci skills and pretty much make those poor borg (and other players) helpless.
TBH I find Cryptic not wanting to put lower soft caps at least on some stuff instead of letting things have such outliers a bizarre decision. Heck, it'd even make creating new gear easier by letting the normalsoft caps be just a little more lenient with it.
I kind of like what you have in mind for EPtS. If that gave more shields and a good chunk of shield energy for awhile that would free up Transfer Shield Strength (a long term regen and shield resist buff) to fill the role of actual shield tanking skill while EPtS would be more realistically a stop gap measure used to keep you from going BOOM for a few more seconds. Also if it regenerated a fairly big part of your shields it would make Covariants a bit more worthwhile.
Caps are unnecessary they just need to fix the math.
Look at it this way for a comparison, if you compare weapons mk X white with four Mk X white specific consoles to mk XII purple for both what difference do you see? At most a percent change in the 20% range raw.
But then you add on CRF and APB then because they are multipliers (attack speed and * damage) then the difference becomes more of a 50% range.
Now that is not that big of a deal and is manageable. Although it is dangerous and they do need to keep an eye on it to ensure it doesn't begin to scale out of control.
But then take a look at the actual difference in effective health and effective regeneration between a white mk 10 shield and a fleet one. Now we start getting into crazy difference territory because of how the math works.
Just fix the math, the formula, that lets things scale to silly stupid levels and you will no longer have these problems. For the most part the math in STO is solid, that is why we have seen so few issues with the rampant power creep post F2P. It just needs some of the exceptions tweaked is all.
Whether its reworking the softcaps or redoing their math the effect would be the same, bringign down the extremes. But the real issue lies in the grind systems...and as far changing any of those goes...
They can't really do anything remotely like that. It would undermine their F2P grind systems if they started doing obvious or effective (even if not obvious someone would notice and telll everyone else, that's all it would take) nerfs to anything related to the fleet starbase, the rep systems, or the lockboxes/lobi store. If people loose faith that those things are worth getting then Cryptic may as well shut down any further STO development this very moment. They've foolishly painted themselves into a corner IF they're trying to balance things after the fact, which I personally do not think are doing.
I still hold that what's really going on is that someone with little game knowledge tried to do something "that would help everyone and improve unused boff powers". Then when they tried to fix the fix their shortcomings shone through again and made running more than one type of EPtX ... unappealing. The solution is easy enough to get to, but I wonder if they will not simply assume all the new complaints are about the first fix and therefore ignore this new issue.
People spend out the nose to get their shiny mk 12 purple tac consoles all the time and their true benefit over blue mk 11s are marginal so I don't think that is a good reason to ignore a massive underlying issue that is now in the spotlight, that being shield power.
No need to nerf the items, passives, or anything like that. Just shield power and its double whammy effect of regeneration rates and bad resist scaling.
That said, I do kind of like the OP's idea of trying to distinguish how emergency power to weapons applies for cannons and beams, but I think it might be better if we got a new ability instead. For example, if we had emergency power to weapons for burst damage and emergency power to relays for sustained damage. It's not an easy thing to divide though, as I currently get a lot of mileage from emergency power to weapons when used to power a beam overload.
Game Balance - Ship Size and Wingmates
Yeah, with the huge buff to EPtW I don't think Escorts will run EPtS anymore because most of their damage mitigation comes from Defense.
That being said, I stand by my statement that the Defense algorithm needs to be rewritten to decrease its effectiveness.
25 sec duration
45 sec cooldown
30 sec shared cooldown WITH THE SAME EPT SKILL ONLY
remove the shared cooldowns between the EPTX skills.
So an escort can run 1x EPTS with uptime of 25/45
Any ship can run 2x EPTS with uptime of 50/60
Cruisers can run 2x EPTS and 2x EPTW with uptimes of 50/60.
Due to the name it still isnt ideal that you can run 2 different skills called "Emergency Power to ...." simultaniously, however its the best we can do given the skills available at ensign engineer rank.
I think this achieves what the dude in charge was trying to achieve.
Discuss.
If they're looking for this sort of thing, then it might be a good idea to approach this from a slightly different angle. Perhaps what is necessary is not to change EPtX, it is to rename current EPtX to something like 'Overdrive Power to Shields/Weapons/etc.', and make a new class of skills that are 'Emergency Power to Shields/Weapons/etc.' set for low duration and high spike potential.
As-is it seems like, once this hits holodeck, the gameplay is just going to become incredibly frustrating in terms of the sheer amount of management you'll need to make fighting effective. I really hope the devs listen on this one, but as-is I'm going to hold off on a few purchases. I think this will make space combat much less enjoyable and more about trying to coordinate click flurries - and a good number of people won't be able to keep up.
In PvE perhaps, or with an effective PvP team, but really the amount of defensive power they would loose from not having EPtS is immense even with their defense mitigation which directly makes EPtS even more powerful and effective.
The boost you get from EPtS only gets stronger and stronger the higher you mitigation becomes.
This
I have only ever seen a handful of escorts ever who don't run 2 copies of EPtS. Either EPtS1 x2, with RSP, or EPtS1 and 2.
Aside from a few escorts with specialty builds who aren't afraid to run without EPtS (read: have access to cloak) the majority will stick with this option.
With GDF changed, you MIGHT find some who are willing to break from the mold and try EPtW. Most escorts can afford to have a gap because they have both the defense and the maneuverability to compensate for it.
Cruisers have neither luxury. Plus the added effect of a cruiser is now either forced to use EPtS1 (Or Weapons, Engines, Aux if you're insane/have a deathwish) to full up their ensign slots, or take higher copies and be stuck with 2 sometimes 3 empty ensign slots.
This is not awesome. I remember being annoyed at the Excel at first because I thought ONE extra ensign was going to be worthless. I made it work, but now having 3 ensign slots with nothing to put there?
EPtS is not a "Use when you need it" power. You have made DHC and escorts hit so bloody hard, and have made them so bloody hard to hit, EPtS is required 100% of the time. Fine, we can almost do that again, but now we can do nothing else.
This is so beyond true it is not even funny. As I stated before EPtS 1 will typically increase your overall effective health by 20% to 30% which while significant is really not that huge of a change as it only applies to shield. Especially when compared to RSP or in PvP FBP that pretty much make one immune to an attacker.
It has become a 'use it all the time' power because it nearly doubles your actual sustain, or passive healing, or the length of time it takes to explode when in an engagement. That is the problem of EPtS. That is why the dreaded 10 second gap was not such a huge deal and wouldn't have been terrible for the game because players would have been able to adapt their defenses.
But now, now you are actually making an engineering boff ability better on an escort than any other ship and penalizing a cruiser who wishes to make use of two abilities.
That is absolutely a terrible idea. Why don't we make torpedo abilities, beam abilities, and cannon abilities all share a cooldown in the same fashion eh? So if you slot just two CRFs you keep the 66% uptime but if you throw in a torpedo spread then it interferes and you only get to have 50% uptime on your CRF even with two copies. If that sounds ridiculous than you understand how I feel about the currently proposed EPtX change.
Myself, I wish they'd just make some NEW "emergency boost" powers (NOT the current EPtX abilities, which are pretty mandatory for a LOT of builds, including the vast majority of cruisers) that last 10 seconds, leave current EPtX alone (except maybe a rename), and tweak the new emergency boost abilities.
The only other solution I can see is to make a lot of ships a LOT tougher, along with their shields (50%+, minimum). I'm not an expert, but the more I read about it, this seems like it's the only way to actually have decent survivability. And frankly I'd not be a bit surprised if they turn their sights on tactical team afterwards, making the problem even worse.
I can't help but wonder if the Enterprise-C build from Temporal Ambassador is REALLY the kind of layout they want on a cruiser.
God I hope not. That thing's layout is poo.
I agree with everything else you say. I agree tac team is probably next. They really need to un link all the teams from each other if they do that though. Give us some reason to keep those ET1 as placeholders for worthless ensign slots now.
{
Hull resists are almost meaningless next to shield resists.
EPTS is the single greatest ability for shield performance.
Cruisers need EPTS running non stop to stay alive since they lack initiative and mobility.
Higher levels of EPTS are better than lower levels.
}
Block B
{
Cruisers have 8 weapon mounts instead of 7, and lower basic bonus to weapon power.
Because of their poor agility, most cruisers tend to use beam weapons which are criminally inefficient.
Cruisers benefit enormously from EPTW running non stop in order to cause relevant damage.
}
Block C
{
Changes to EPTx preclude the possibility of running two different kinds of emergency power at the same time.
Because EPTS is required for survival, EPTW must be removed. Cruiser's total ability to cause damage will be reduced and/or their tactical options will be greatly reduced by requiring a greater reliance on non-draining weapons.
Cruisers will not be able to use any other ensign powers except Engineering Team due to shared cooldowns.
}
Results of Tribble changes going to Holodeck
{
50% more button mashing to achieve less damage output, and many ships left having multiple useless officer stations. Marginalized ships marginalized further. Players annoyed. Mass rioting. Locusts.
}
Great. So that means either trading in EPTS2 for EPTS1 or! throwing out all of my battlecruisers, moving to ships that have LTC engineer, upgrading to EPTS3, and putting Engineering team 1 in my ensign slots because there's literally nothing else. Either way, Aux2SIF, HE, and TSS stop existing because there's no Aux power to run them. So that should be fun for heals.
*sigh*
yay!
So much lately has been driving my interest in this game lower and lower, and this really is the straw the broke the camel's back for me.
God I hate Aux2Batt builds, and if this is the only way to run a cruiser now, I am honestly done.
I don't have LTC eng, I run a fleet Excel
I have a Fleet Excel, a Galor, and a D'kora... None of them have LTC engineer. That's what I meant when I said "throw out my battlecruisers" being one of the solutions.
I forgot to mention the third option, which is to reduce total power use so that EPTW is no longer required. Which means kinetic weapons. Which, to get any kind of realistic DPS, means using 2 or 3 torpedo launchers and a bunch of projectile weapon officers. Going to EPTS1 and losing that shield power and shield hardness while also losing defense value because you have to yo-yo in order keep your torpedoes on target... That and the total futility of using torpedoes on shields...
yeah.
Id hope adjudicatorhawk you and the other devs will read this and make an effort to do some background research into the damaging changes your proposing which are wreckless and irresponsible and have no foundation. Playing around with game core mechanics after 3 years is questionable and damaging. Plus the propsed changes will not have the desired effect you are looking for.
I dont usually post on the forums but lately i see more rash decisions being made and i question how long the current devs have been on the team and do you not read your own archives on the patches made to the game since day 1.
Something for the devs to read: Upcoming Balance Changes in Season 1.2
This is Cryptic's explanation of the S1.2 cooldown system. It even explicitly mentions that 100% uptime (with two copies) on things like EPtS was intended.
Devs who mess with the cooldown system should read this and the related Duration / Recharge Category System Incoming on Tribble post (not online anymore due to forum deletions, but you can still find it on archive.org) to understand what the original foundation of the current system is, since apparently they have no meaningful firsthand knowledge of the system from playing the game.
I don't exactly get your problem with this.
Now to get a maximized lockbox ship with all the special consoles you will need to spend about $500.00 that is a far cry from the old $25.00 C-store ship. Greed has changed the mechanics of the game and it will continue to degenerate into a giant run and gun. So the powergamers who are wealthy lord it over the rest of us.
However this change to the EPT abilities is not one of them. It shows a desire to change an underlying part of the game. Something they have the right to do.
Weather or not you agree with it is irrelevant.
I think one of the key probelms with the game is that everyone knows escorts are unbalanced compared to cruisers and science ships. However there is almost no way to nerf escorts without nerfing cruisers and science ships.
Sure no more 100% uptime on EPTS hurts escorts. That is the point. Unfortunately due to the design of the game it also hurts cruisers more.
What needs to happen is a reworking of the Accuracy/Defence mechanic. Removing escorts +15% bonus-for-no-damn-reason would be a good place to start.
The EPtX issue is highlighting the problems with how shield power, resistance, and natural shield regen work. They can either fix the underlying problem or continue to stumble around with band-aids.
The ACC vs DEF mechanic is in reality the reason why we see such a high amount of 'swingy' damage output in PvP and part of why escorts are so tanky in PvE (which is not a bad thing inherently IMHO). Once again something that needs fixed from the basic system not just targeting a portion of it.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Let me know when you have a team ready, we can test your "immortality" theory.
They are not trying to balance or nerf the actual, newly introduced issues.
Namely, ballooning resistances and passive healing from Rep/Fleet gear/bonuses, passive placate procs, etc.
Well, at the least they did tone down leadership.