test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
New EPTx version (4.14.2013) Forces Cruisers into EPTS 1
ussultimatum
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
pwebranflakes wrote:Emergency Power-class abilities:
- The shared cooldown between two Emergency Power-type abilities of the same type has been reduced from 30 seconds down to 20 seconds.
- Example: Emergency Power to Shields I and Emergency Power to Shields II
Issues with this:
1) Forces a 10s gap if you wish to run 2 copies each of EPTx and EPTy
2) Forces cruisers to run EPTS 1, as running higher versions would push them to either incur a 10s gap in coverage (see #1) OR simply leave their excess of Ensign Engineering slots blank OR run multiple copies of ET 1, which is generally much worse than ET 2/3.
I really don't think the goal of this change was to negatively impact Cruisers, and I really hope it was not.
I do feel however, that this is exactly what the current version of EPTx will do.
Some examples for reference:
Galaxy Class/Fleet Galaxy
CMD ENG
LTC ENG
ENS ENG
= 3 Ensign and 2 Lt Eng Stations
Excelsior/Fleet Excelsior
CMD ENG
LT ENG
ENS ENG
= 3 Ensign and 2 Lt Eng Stations
Sovereign/Gal-X/Fleet Heavy Cruiser-R
CMD ENG
LTC ENG
= 2 Ensign & 2 Lt Eng Stations
If you really want to go the current route, then you have no choice but to completely revamp lower tier engineering boff station powers and the tangled mess of shared cooldowns that rule them all.
Post edited by ussultimatum on
0
Comments
Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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.
Either that or starting adding a few more Engineering powers.
I'm pretty sure Snix designed them to be exactly that, gapless coverage.
The thing you are missing is that with the new design, Escorts and Sci ships or Cruisers running EPTS 1 x 2 are all fine.
They will only have 5s downtime.
A cruiser attempting to run 2x EPTW 1 and 2x EPTS 2 or 3 on the other hand incurs double the gap, at 10s.
So a Cruiser, building itself the way many cruisers do, will be penalized OR they can simply only run EPTS 1 and not EPTS 3 - because then they'd have nothing to fill all of their ensign stations.
The op is right in his assessment. Systems you are blindly and one sidedly messing with parts of the game. All of this looks like random fiddling around, without rhyme or reason, and without any proof whatsoever that you are willing and capable of addressing even the most basic broken skills abilities and items (subsystem repair skill and f@w come to mind).
WAD
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
I like the sound of non-shared cooldown between EPTX abilities.
I'm hard headed however and quite squarely remain in anger with; your second change to the proposed system proves you are of mind to make the system behave in a way that does not take into account the amount of burst damage that can be generated at will by some player captain ship combinations and are attempting to alter systems in an incorrect order.
Burst must be addressed before or preferably simultaneously with any change to a defensive system.
Oh also if the changes go as is, I introduce you to the best shield tank in the game
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=bestshieldtanktribble_0
3 tec doffs, one fransis D, and one doesnt matter.
welcome to epts3 every 20 seconds for continuous coverage and as a bonus omega3 at cooldown as well plus it has all that wonderful super burst capacity to paste anything in the 5 seconds they lack a epts#. GG systems
The best part of that is the lack of two ensign engineer abilities!
if any thing that right there is proof of the issue with the ensign engineer abilities
Pfft, what are you talking about, you can totally throw 2 copies of Engineering Team in there! :rolleyes:
Come on Devs, this change is detrimental and we all know it.
Given the JUST the changes to EPtE , Aux, and Weapons, Without the whole clunky cooldown trainwreck, would have been amazing.
The turn rate buff from EPtE was actually quite substantial and would be a viable option for some cruiser builds to get. However without being able to cycle EPtS alongside anything else, you have now put those options out of reach.
It is ridiculous and the vast majority of players know it, which is why we have had a few days now of it being the number one issue on multiple threads in multiple locations.
Please fix this nonsense soon.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=9221681&postcount=362
The final death of the PvE Cruiser, yes.
I would only support that change if Cryptic also removed the speed and damage resistance bonuses from Attack Pattern Omega.
Bad ideas like this happen when you sack the guy who made the system in the first place and replace him with someone else who has no idea what is going on and doesn't actually play the game...
I'm not asking them to remove shared cooldowns.
I'm asking them to put the cooldowns either back the way it was (along with the benefits), or reduce the shared cooldown so EPTx powers can continue to function as they have since, what is it, S1.2?
You can't just muck about with the cooldowns of such foundational abilities like EPTx without taking into consideration the adverse effects or why those cooldowns were designed like that in the first place.
The goal was to make these powers "more dynamic", the result will be "less dynamic" as the vast majority of players simply continue to chain EPTS x2 and the other 3 EPTx abilities end up either sidelined by most builds or only utilized situationaly by a small handful of outlier builds that can actually make use of them.
Considering the EPTx family is actually a bread and butter BOFF ability tree within Engineering, that would be a terrible shame.
I like the driving motivation behind the improvement of the other EPTx abilities, and in fact I'd like to think I helped jumpstart that conversation.
On the other hand, making EPTx & EPTy worse to use for cruisers is not the way to do it.
For Eng / Cruisers, the current changes bring a level of frustration that likely would only be exceeded if the devs decided to make Tac abilities "more dynamic" by putting all the weapon buffs on the same global cooldown.
Using the Operations Odyssey Cruiser
Ensign Universal > EPtS1 A
Commander > EPtS1 B RSP1 EPtS3 RSP 3
start EPtS3
2 copies EPtS1 start 20 sec cd
pop EPtS1A after 20 sec
EPtS3 has 25 seconds left
pop EPtS1B after 20 seconds
EPtS3 resets to 20 seconds
After the Bs duration, EPtS3 will be ready to reuse.
This is awkward as it puts two cycles of EPtS1 with every one use of EPtS3, instead of being able to chain one after the other like we can now.
i like how you used all your ens eng skills as effectively as you possibly could with the new changes. to bad you have to leave them empty like that. oh well, that must be what cryptic wants you to do i guess
tech doffs, with 2 AtB. he very, very nearly has full up time with 1 copy
Hmmm perhaps my sarcasm misfired.
You don't think I was serious do you?
Still you're not wrong about it being the best tank in the game.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
But if EPtS is too good, then maybe it needs to be split up. If EPtS should be a "for emergencies" ability as the name suggests, make it provide a high level of shield resistance for a short duration, maybe 15 seconds, and keep the shield heal and shield power as-is, no changes to the existing cooldown. This gives it a good anti-burst strength to it with reasonably regular usage, and brings it more in line with the other EPtX powers (which should maybe be moved up to 15 second buffs instead of 20). At the same time, a new power that provides moderate shield resistance (and maybe some bleedthrough mitigation? I'm still not sure what else this ability should have) should be introduced at the ENS/LT/LTC level so cruisers finally have some more options.
If this is balanced right, this swings things back the way they should be: cruisers are still capable of tanking by being able to use BOTH the new shield resist ability AND EPtS in the same build, escorts and science vessels lose some of their tankiness (generally being forced to choose between EPtS and the new ability) without being super gimped. This also makes the other EPtS powers more equally desirable since EPtS is no longer a must-have, which seems to be where Cryptic is trying to go with them.
Edit: one problem I can already see with the above suggestion is that EPtS would function maybe too similarly to RSP, not sure what I would change to fix that.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
That is just it though, contrary to popular belief EPtS is not amazing because of how it counters 'burst' damage. TSS, RSP, TT, and those type of abilities are for that purpose.
EPtS is amazing because of the sustain it adds, how it allows you to survive double the damage over a set period of time than you would without it. All for the super low cost of an ensign slot or two.
Fix shield power. Fix shield resistance math. Until those two things are done there can be no balance achieved for EPtS other than it being an ability everyone takes. Just like Tac Team and it's shield distribution has become.
I do recognize that, as it currently exists, EPtS is a sustained tanking ability, not a burst tank (and again, I agree that largely belongs to RSP and TT, I wouldn't really say TSS is a good anti-burst power on its own though). I also recognize that maybe the reason EPtS is being nerfed is because it's too good, thus my suggestion, splitting it up into 2 separate powers.
There's plenty of other things that can (and probably should) also be fixed, but since Cryptic is currently looking at the EPtX powers, my suggestion is aimed specifically at them, and most specifically at EPtS as it's the most controversial.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Do the people making the changes/decisions these days even know who Snix was?
Right now on Holodeck you can run 2 copies of EPtS with no downtime between the two. After this change there's forced downtime. As stated above, this is in direct contradiction to the changes that created the shared cooldowns and other changes waaaaay back in 2010 in the first place.
And it shoots the entire set of changes to the non-shield emergency powers in the foot. Why use Emergency Power to Engines when you now have to keep 2 copies of EPtS and never really get a chance to use one of the others in any sort of rotation anyways?
It also makes some Cruisers have a useless ensign engineering slot because nobody has room for Engineering Team due to having to run Tactical Team.
This is the part that gets me, how are you doing that? Whenever I slot two copies of EPtS 1 or two copies of EPtS 2 I always get a 45/30 second cooldown.
Yes, and the ability last for 30 seconds, so you just simply hit the 2nd one the moment the 1st runs out.
So...
1. Hit first EPTS, the 2nd one goes on a 30 second CD
2. 30 seconds later, hit 2nd EPTS, and the first one (which would be at 15 seconds left) goes back to 30 seconds.
3. Repeat.