Synergies are an interesting concept but they have one major problem. They can often lead to intensely OP loadouts in a real hurry. This is why Science got Held Down in a basement and Beat for several months with the biggest most vicious looking Nerf Bat you have ever seen until even its dentist could not recognize it.
If you pair a Tactical Captain with AP:A with Science abilities you used to be able to deal some intense damage (still can a little). If you put a Science Captain in an Escort you can do horrific things to fellow Players by conveniently removing their buffs and heals all of a sudden while using the Escort's intense damage dishing power to blow them away.
The main problem with the way people do stuff these days is that they run under the misconception that Engineers should fly Cruisers, Tacticals in Escorts, and Science in Science ships. That is all fine and well and Cryptic encourages this in character creation but it is utter nonsense.
Let us take a look at a Cruiser. It is a slow, bulky ship with massive tank. What does an Engineer Captain give that ship? More tank and power... More tank? Does a ship which has massive tank need MORE tank? No. Does it need more Power?... Well it does not hurt but it already can use EP2X and AP2X skills up the wazoo and run the most batteries of any ship out there... So not really.
What if you put a Tactical in a Cruiser? That adds a lot more DPS capability and better movement. It also means that you can actually USE Go Down Fighting AND being able to recycle your Tactical BOFF abilities (because you have so few) can really be an amazing boon.
Now let us take Tacticals in an Escort... So an Escort deals massive damage, turns and flies fast and nimble, and tanks poorly. So... Lets slap a Tactical in there and make it turn and deal more damage even better! Nevermind that recycling its tactical BOFF abilities is not really that helpful or that you will NEVER get good use out of GDF because you will die before you can feel its full benefit.
Now lets put the Engineer in there instead. The Engineer can keep those big burly cannons firing at top Energy no matter what you are doing, he can bump up your aux for heals, engines for speed, and shields for greater regen and resist. He can heal your ship including using Miracle Worker to pull your fat off the fire and give you a chance to dish out the damage needed to finish the job. Seems like a winner to me.
Just thought I would point that out. Choosing a Captain that is strong where the ship they fly is weak is the best way to go. Choosing a Captain with the same strengths and weaknesses as the ship they fly is not too bright.
Biggest problem of roles in sto is there is only a hull bar. If there were ways to defeat the enemy without killing it such as permanently taking systems off line or computer corruption then it would be better.
What I mean by this is: every target subsystem does ticks to the subsystem overload bar. If it reaches 100% then the ship powers down and has to withdrawl. Likewise jams, virals, etc corrupt the computer core and forces a withdrawl. This would likely only apply in pvp, would need counters of course, an the tcomputer/subsystem bar would constantly drain to 0 based on aux power (like shields/shield power).
Bottom line this is not a push button and win scenario, but permits attacks less physical in nature. Would contribute to more diversity in builds too.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
While a novel idea this doesn't address the biggest culprit to imbalances.
The whole Tactical/Engineering/Science Captain classes needs to go away, and the sooner the better. They never made sense to begin with in a system where players are able to fly any of the various ship roles. The two systems doesn't compliment each other.
The creative energy of the STO playerbase should be directed towards abolishing captain classes and creating a more neutral approach, something which is more dynamic and flexible and can accommodate the various ship classes from a more neutral stance.
Something which fosters players creativity and desire to server in different roles given the circumstances or mood.
While a novel idea this doesn't address the biggest culprit to imbalances.
The whole Tactical/Engineering/Science Captain classes needs to go away, and the sooner the better. They never made sense to begin with in a system where players are able to fly any of the various ship roles. The two systems doesn't compliment each other.
The creative energy of the STO playerbase should be directed towards abolishing captain classes and creating a more neutral approach, something which is more dynamic and flexible and can accommodate the various ship classes from a more neutral stance.
Something which fosters players creativity and desire to server in different roles given the circumstances or mood.
Irrelevant. While I agree with you I don't think this is negotiable. Even though all the cannon in the show points to when you are in command you wear the tos yellow or tng red there can be no assimilation in STO. Theywill resist.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
So you have the source of the imbalance we have now:
I concur with most of what you wrote cmdrskyfaller, it is an accurate assessment of the problems with STO presently.
Especially the point regarding skill point distribution. As I see it the classes hurts the game more than it benefits them, it confuses players in to assuming various roles which should be filled by the type of ship they choose to pilot, not by the class they choose during character creation.
Unification class revamp proposal, moving forward should involve a removable of the traditional player characters, towards a more dynamic and flexible system.
I like the idea of ability combos. I think its novel, and could be implemented pretty easily by having abilities apply a buff the player ship when activated that triggers a secondary effect when another ability is used.
I also like that bluegeek has drawn our attention to the role of synergy between our captains and our boff abilities. This highlights an intrinsic difference between the potential that different captain abilities can achieve.
A fire and forget captain ability like miracle worker does its thing and goes on cool down. The limit upon how usefull it can be is intrinsic to its own qualities and ballencing it is relatively simple.
A buff like attack pattern alpha on the other hand provides multiplications which can be combined with additional multiplications ontop of a number that has already been inflated to a maximum point. These sorts of abilities are a nightmare to balance as any addition to the game has the potential to alter the maximum achievable effect of the ability. That said there are plenty of people with no understanding of STOs stats and mechanics who will never approach the maximum potential benefit of the ability, so how do we ballence it?
Sadly I don't see combos as any sort of a solution to STOs current balance woes. I think that captain abilities themselves are not the cause of our problems. I think captain abilities mostly suffer from an imbalance in our perception of them rather then an imbalance in their usefulness.
Tactical captains can stack their damage buffs and get a big impressive damage output with lots of digits. the buffs themselves may not be too exciting to look at but every one agrees that multiple big digit numbers are good, you don't need to be a stat monkey to gawp at the massive BO3 crit that a tactical captain just did.
Science captains get abilities that are noticeable.
Every one can see the big bubble. Look a big bubble! get into the big bubble! Doesn't matter whether the big bubble really does very much, people see it and assume it helps.
Sensor scan is what we used to use on groups of enemies we had gathered up in a gravity well before the big aoe attacks hit. Not so useful since the EP2E buff but oh well, its still something people can still see happening.
Subnucleonic beam is largely ignored by PVEers, though it shouldn't be, it has its uses. But in PVP nothing annoys people more then seeing all their buffs disappear so it is also very noticeable.
Finally photonic fleet, is probably the flashiest captain ability around, so again it doesn't really matter how useful it is as it has 'Corr blimy, would you look at that' factor.
So this is why people see engineer's as being at the bottom of the pile. Their buffs are fantastic, but most people don't understand the stats, they are looking for 'flash', which engineering buffs don't have. Also pre-LOR their miracle worker really wasn't grate, now with the new trait it is.
Nadion inversion. Most under rated damage buff ever. People look at the description: 'resistance to power drain', and never bother to click it. This is a grate ability for any ship that uses all energy weapons, the diminishing damage numbers you see in each volley will magically fail to diminish.
EPS Power transfer. This ability buffs all power levels, that means it buffs EVERYTHING. How is that not good? by putting your weapons power over the 125 cap your reducing those diminishing damage numbers with successive shots again, by increasing your shield power your getting more passive regeneration which your tactical team can shunt to where it is needed, your engine power may be increasing your defense value if you arnt already at the cap, and helps you advance to deliver bigger damage or withdraw to take less, your aux power increases the effectiveness of your tanking abilities or science skills.
Rotate shield frequency and miracle worker require no explanation.
So that's why I see captain abilities as a PR problem rather then an actual balance problem. I love the idea of combos, but I see them as a fun addition rather then a balance fix.
That said I am very weary of anything that encourages us to use career appropriate ships. Encouragement usually becomes necessity after a few balance passes. I don't like the idea of peoples ship selection being limited by their career choice.
Personally I would rather see synergy between the 'science team', 'tactical team' and 'engineering team' abilities and their appropriate ships worked on, rather then between captain types and ships. If these buffs were striped of their healing components, all given shield rebalancing and all made to enhance the other abilities available from their slot type then I think a huge number of the complaints people have about ship balance would be resolved.
Regrettably, this thread was not a candidate to be revived from stasis since it was inactive for more than 30 days and I must close it now.
If you'd like to continue the discussion, please open a new thread.
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Comments
If you pair a Tactical Captain with AP:A with Science abilities you used to be able to deal some intense damage (still can a little). If you put a Science Captain in an Escort you can do horrific things to fellow Players by conveniently removing their buffs and heals all of a sudden while using the Escort's intense damage dishing power to blow them away.
The main problem with the way people do stuff these days is that they run under the misconception that Engineers should fly Cruisers, Tacticals in Escorts, and Science in Science ships. That is all fine and well and Cryptic encourages this in character creation but it is utter nonsense.
Let us take a look at a Cruiser. It is a slow, bulky ship with massive tank. What does an Engineer Captain give that ship? More tank and power... More tank? Does a ship which has massive tank need MORE tank? No. Does it need more Power?... Well it does not hurt but it already can use EP2X and AP2X skills up the wazoo and run the most batteries of any ship out there... So not really.
What if you put a Tactical in a Cruiser? That adds a lot more DPS capability and better movement. It also means that you can actually USE Go Down Fighting AND being able to recycle your Tactical BOFF abilities (because you have so few) can really be an amazing boon.
Now let us take Tacticals in an Escort... So an Escort deals massive damage, turns and flies fast and nimble, and tanks poorly. So... Lets slap a Tactical in there and make it turn and deal more damage even better! Nevermind that recycling its tactical BOFF abilities is not really that helpful or that you will NEVER get good use out of GDF because you will die before you can feel its full benefit.
Now lets put the Engineer in there instead. The Engineer can keep those big burly cannons firing at top Energy no matter what you are doing, he can bump up your aux for heals, engines for speed, and shields for greater regen and resist. He can heal your ship including using Miracle Worker to pull your fat off the fire and give you a chance to dish out the damage needed to finish the job. Seems like a winner to me.
Just thought I would point that out. Choosing a Captain that is strong where the ship they fly is weak is the best way to go. Choosing a Captain with the same strengths and weaknesses as the ship they fly is not too bright.
What I mean by this is: every target subsystem does ticks to the subsystem overload bar. If it reaches 100% then the ship powers down and has to withdrawl. Likewise jams, virals, etc corrupt the computer core and forces a withdrawl. This would likely only apply in pvp, would need counters of course, an the tcomputer/subsystem bar would constantly drain to 0 based on aux power (like shields/shield power).
Bottom line this is not a push button and win scenario, but permits attacks less physical in nature. Would contribute to more diversity in builds too.
The whole Tactical/Engineering/Science Captain classes needs to go away, and the sooner the better. They never made sense to begin with in a system where players are able to fly any of the various ship roles. The two systems doesn't compliment each other.
The creative energy of the STO playerbase should be directed towards abolishing captain classes and creating a more neutral approach, something which is more dynamic and flexible and can accommodate the various ship classes from a more neutral stance.
Something which fosters players creativity and desire to server in different roles given the circumstances or mood.
Irrelevant. While I agree with you I don't think this is negotiable. Even though all the cannon in the show points to when you are in command you wear the tos yellow or tng red there can be no assimilation in STO. Theywill resist.
I concur with most of what you wrote cmdrskyfaller, it is an accurate assessment of the problems with STO presently.
Especially the point regarding skill point distribution. As I see it the classes hurts the game more than it benefits them, it confuses players in to assuming various roles which should be filled by the type of ship they choose to pilot, not by the class they choose during character creation.
Unification class revamp proposal, moving forward should involve a removable of the traditional player characters, towards a more dynamic and flexible system.
I also like that bluegeek has drawn our attention to the role of synergy between our captains and our boff abilities. This highlights an intrinsic difference between the potential that different captain abilities can achieve.
A fire and forget captain ability like miracle worker does its thing and goes on cool down. The limit upon how usefull it can be is intrinsic to its own qualities and ballencing it is relatively simple.
A buff like attack pattern alpha on the other hand provides multiplications which can be combined with additional multiplications ontop of a number that has already been inflated to a maximum point. These sorts of abilities are a nightmare to balance as any addition to the game has the potential to alter the maximum achievable effect of the ability. That said there are plenty of people with no understanding of STOs stats and mechanics who will never approach the maximum potential benefit of the ability, so how do we ballence it?
Sadly I don't see combos as any sort of a solution to STOs current balance woes. I think that captain abilities themselves are not the cause of our problems. I think captain abilities mostly suffer from an imbalance in our perception of them rather then an imbalance in their usefulness.
Tactical captains can stack their damage buffs and get a big impressive damage output with lots of digits. the buffs themselves may not be too exciting to look at but every one agrees that multiple big digit numbers are good, you don't need to be a stat monkey to gawp at the massive BO3 crit that a tactical captain just did.
Science captains get abilities that are noticeable.
Every one can see the big bubble. Look a big bubble! get into the big bubble! Doesn't matter whether the big bubble really does very much, people see it and assume it helps.
Sensor scan is what we used to use on groups of enemies we had gathered up in a gravity well before the big aoe attacks hit. Not so useful since the EP2E buff but oh well, its still something people can still see happening.
Subnucleonic beam is largely ignored by PVEers, though it shouldn't be, it has its uses. But in PVP nothing annoys people more then seeing all their buffs disappear so it is also very noticeable.
Finally photonic fleet, is probably the flashiest captain ability around, so again it doesn't really matter how useful it is as it has 'Corr blimy, would you look at that' factor.
So this is why people see engineer's as being at the bottom of the pile. Their buffs are fantastic, but most people don't understand the stats, they are looking for 'flash', which engineering buffs don't have. Also pre-LOR their miracle worker really wasn't grate, now with the new trait it is.
Nadion inversion. Most under rated damage buff ever. People look at the description: 'resistance to power drain', and never bother to click it. This is a grate ability for any ship that uses all energy weapons, the diminishing damage numbers you see in each volley will magically fail to diminish.
EPS Power transfer. This ability buffs all power levels, that means it buffs EVERYTHING. How is that not good? by putting your weapons power over the 125 cap your reducing those diminishing damage numbers with successive shots again, by increasing your shield power your getting more passive regeneration which your tactical team can shunt to where it is needed, your engine power may be increasing your defense value if you arnt already at the cap, and helps you advance to deliver bigger damage or withdraw to take less, your aux power increases the effectiveness of your tanking abilities or science skills.
Rotate shield frequency and miracle worker require no explanation.
So that's why I see captain abilities as a PR problem rather then an actual balance problem. I love the idea of combos, but I see them as a fun addition rather then a balance fix.
That said I am very weary of anything that encourages us to use career appropriate ships. Encouragement usually becomes necessity after a few balance passes. I don't like the idea of peoples ship selection being limited by their career choice.
Personally I would rather see synergy between the 'science team', 'tactical team' and 'engineering team' abilities and their appropriate ships worked on, rather then between captain types and ships. If these buffs were striped of their healing components, all given shield rebalancing and all made to enhance the other abilities available from their slot type then I think a huge number of the complaints people have about ship balance would be resolved.
If you'd like to continue the discussion, please open a new thread.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek