It's like two forces working against each other. I certainly do not envy the devs job right now.
A) The benefit must be noticeable The drawback must be worth it
Low effect / low drawback vs. high effect / high drawback. Problem is, most people would like to get the new mechanics for free.
If people could get some of the lost power back via non-crappy engineering consoles (to at least one subsystem they feel they need), it wouldn't be half bad.
But seriously, mk XII purple consoles ? +4 to subsystem power ? :rolleyes:
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
If people could get some of the lost power back via non-crappy engineering consoles (to at least one subsystem they feel they need), it wouldn't be half bad.
But seriously, mk XII purple consoles ? +4 to subsystem power ? :rolleyes:
As an aside, I still think they should add separate drain/offline resistance to those consoles. You get a little power and you get resistance to that subsystem being taken offline sort of thing.
Indeed... if the power consoles weren't so useless, the power drain could be at least partially compensated for. Were they concerned that with +10 on a power console, people would super stack them? Introduce diminishing returns: Full benefit from the first one of a type, half benefit from a second of the same type, etc. Or just make it limit 1 per energy type.
But if they are going to take away something, I like the suggestion of a devices penalty. How about a romulan singularity core is sooooo ... *insert technobable*... that the ship has absolutely no room for devices, or can only have one device, so choose wisely.
Indeed... if the power consoles weren't so useless, the power drain could be at least partially compensated for. Were they concerned that with +10 on a power console, people would super stack them? Introduce diminishing returns: Full benefit from the first one of a type, half benefit from a second of the same type, etc. Or just make it limit 1 per energy type.
But if they are going to take away something, I like the suggestion of a devices penalty. How about a romulan singularity core is sooooo ... *insert technobable*... that the ship has absolutely no room for devices, or can only have one device, so choose wisely.
And what if they stack them ? Those ships with many engineering slots SHOULD stack them, to get benefit out of it. Energy dmg consoles are also stacked and noone minds it.
Beside armors, rcs consoles are all viable choices, stacking power means lowering surviability and turn and that is a fair tradeoff.
Right now, +4 is not worth for ANYONE. And I'm not sure if even +8 would be appealing.
I say my idea again, change those consoles to +10% power to a subsystem. So it is +5 at 50 but +10 on 100. All of the consoles can also have secondary effects.
Weapon - energy drain resistance
Shields - faster shield distribution
Engine - quicker acceleration / counter to inertia
Aux - whatever
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
As an aside, I still think they should add separate drain/offline resistance to those consoles. You get a little power and you get resistance to that subsystem being taken offline sort of thing.
I don't really care for that mechanic simply because there's already emergency powers and batteries to counter a targeted/offline subsystem, engineering team brings it back online too, does it not? Of course few have engineering team because tac team is the gold standard. :rolleyes: plus there's power insulators as a skill and as a console to mitigate that. This game has far too many hard counters for "clever" or "effect" skills as it is. Since targeting a subsystem or ejecting warp plasma or aceton beam, or tractor beams or pretty much anything that isn't pure escort pwn has a hard counter from abilities/items most people carry, these skills do next to nothing.
And what if they stack them ? Those ships with many engineering slots SHOULD stack them, to get benefit out of it. Energy dmg consoles are also stacked and noone minds it.
Beside armors, rcs consoles are all viable choices, stacking power means lowering surviability and turn and that is a fair tradeoff.
Right now, +4 is not worth for ANYONE. And I'm not sure if even +8 would be appealing.
I say my idea again, change those consoles to +10% power to a subsystem. So it is +5 at 50 but +10 on 100. All of the consoles can also have secondary effects.
Weapon - energy drain resistance
Shields - faster shield distribution
Engine - quicker acceleration / counter to inertia
Aux - whatever
Well they nerfed them for a reason... I'm not saying I think it would be OP to be able to stack the consoles, I'm just saying if they didn't like stacking to make it so there are diminishing returns.
Technically, I think the game would be better if energy weapon consoles and other tactical consoles had diminishing returns too. Then everyone wouldn't be clamoring for the ships with the most tac consoles all the time. Plus if they introduced accuracy or crit hit or crit damage tac consoles, an escort would have more selection in their field rather than the default stack 4-5 of whatever energy weapon type you're using. They would still have the option of stacking 4-5 consoles for maximum energy damage while sacrificing the efficiency of having better torps and accuracy and crits or what have you.
I think that the energy weapon drain mechanic should be sorted out in general before throwing a "fix" in for it on a weapon energy console. And technically more power in the system is a counter to the drain, so instead of drain resistance, just make the console a worth while +10 or +15 or whatever.
Shield distribution should work as quickly on manual as it does for tac team. The benefit of tac team is that it's intelligent, it diverts shields where they need to be as damage comes in on top of boosting weapon damage, it should not also distribute shields faster than you can manually.
I think if you give the energy boosting consoles a proper level of benefit, they don't need secondary effects. By simple virtue of adding power to a system, they resist drain as drain typically comes as a set -x to a system, not a constant -x per second. So if an ability is -20 to a subsystem and you normally have 25 but you have a +10 console, instead of dropping to 5 power, you drop to 15... that is sufficient counter to that subsystem targeting or other energy draining skill.
I don't really care for that mechanic simply because there's already emergency powers and batteries to counter a targeted/offline subsystem, engineering team brings it back online too, does it not? Of course few have engineering team because tac team is the gold standard. :rolleyes: plus there's power insulators as a skill and as a console to mitigate that. This game has far too many hard counters for "clever" or "effect" skills as it is. Since targeting a subsystem or ejecting warp plasma or aceton beam, or tractor beams or pretty much anything that isn't pure escort pwn has a hard counter from abilities/items most people carry, these skills do next to nothing.
Hrmm, see - I hate the majority of the current systems since they are after the fact instead of anything preventative. It leads to various absurd situations and painfully illogical scenarios.
As is, the game is entirely too Yo-Yo in its mechanics.
Hrmm, see - I hate the majority of the current systems since they are after the fact instead of anything preventative. It leads to various absurd situations and painfully illogical scenarios.
As is, the game is entirely too Yo-Yo in its mechanics.
I think the yo-yo is only really felt because a few things are over powered. If they introduced diminishing returns to tactical consoles, I don't think we'd have escorts/bops insta burning through your shields when emergency power to shields comes down (and often times they can burn through them despite it anyway)
There are plenty of preventatives like power insulators, inertial dampers, sensors, stealth, subsystem repair, the passive armor skills, starship maneuvers, they all help to reduce the effect of abilities or the length of time you are affected by them, and I'm sure there's probably a couple I missed.
I feel that there's too much "after the fact" abilities to hard counter the "special" abilities, which are primarily science and engineering. And I think it's this effortless ability to remove or ignore the effects of most science and engineering abilities plus the lack of diminishing returns on tactical consoles that makes most people feel that escorts are king of the hill.
I am surprised that they let you keep each power as you go up.
I would thought you have to choose. That way you lose power for 1 ability, or never use that ability and get a bonus from the charged core.
having 5 at max rank, gives you a lot of tactical options to use.
Now that in itself is fine as everyone loves options, but it does feel like the Klingons and Feds need their own system if the Romulan one is going to be so extensive.
Now that in itself is fine as everyone loves options, but it does feel like the Klingons and Feds need their own system if the Romulan one is going to be so extensive.
I was thinking the same. I could imagine battery mechanics, exactly the same as singularity stuff.
Except it would act as emergency power source of sort.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
There are plenty of preventatives like power insulators, inertial dampers, sensors, stealth, subsystem repair, the passive armor skills, starship maneuvers, they all help to reduce the effect of abilities or the length of time you are affected by them, and I'm sure there's probably a couple I missed.
Reducing the effect of something after it has taken place...is not preventative.
A person could have 9 in Sensors, 5x Mk XII Ultra-Rare Romulan Sensor Consoles, other +Sensor Gear, have popped QSM, etc, etc, etc...and they will still get jammed by the guy with a JS1 without a single point of CMS or any CMS gear. Sure, it wont' last long - but the jam will still have taken place. That's just silly. Subsystem Repair works the same way.
There's a difference between something that reduces the effect of something - such as Insulators vs. Drain - and - something that reduces the effect of something after the fact - such a Subsystem Repair bringing a system back online sooner. The Subsystem still went offline. There's no hardening.
There's Hull Damage Resistance and Shield Damage Reduction - which reduce the affect of the weapon that hits. There's also Maneuvers/Targeting which affect whether that hit took place in the first place. That To-Hit is sorely missing in many areas of the game.
There are many complaints about how weak certain things are...well, they've got a 100% chance to-hit. Perhaps if there was actually some form of To-Hit mechanic in place, then they could be boosted.
That guy oozing sensors....the guy with no CMS...that jam shouldn't have the same chance to jam that guy oozing sensors as a guy that's got no sensors. In turn, that guy without sensors should feel more of an effect from it than they currently do.
People should have a noticeable return on their investment - both offensively and defensively.
I was thinking the same. I could imagine battery mechanics, exactly the same as singularity stuff.
Except it would act as emergency power source of sort.
I believe the highest rarity of warp cores is supposed to get a "capacitor" ability with a longer cool and lower effect than a battery. And I think it's just one type of capacitor based on type of warpcore i.e. if you select a shield enhancing warp core, you get a shield enhancing capacitor, or maybe it's randomly attached so you could get a shield warpcore with an aux capacitor.
Either way, if they gave the feds and the klingons their own version of this singularity thing or some other bonus, it would negate the need for the penalties on these abilities... but then they keep saying they don't want "mudflation" so they don't want to give the feds and klinks something in exchange, they want to take away from some other part of the romulans to compensate for the system. Which, like I said, I think pretty much compensates for itself with how rarely and unreliably it will be available. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a touch of extra flavor and not some new uber something that requires balancing.
I also wouldn't mind them giving all cloaking vessels the ability to battle cloak if that would prevent "compensating" for it with tremendous power reductions. I always thought all cloaking ships should be able to cloak during battle anyway, the consequences of battle cloaking when in a big ship balance the ability to do so... shields down for 10 seconds and if you don't get blown to hell, you get an advantage... that is what we call 'self balanced.'
Romulans can simply be the "masters of cloak" in that their racial passives give them bonus to defense and stealth while cloaking and they have another passive that reduces cool time on cloaking abilities. And I wouldn't consider making all cloaking ships into battle cloakers "mudflation" I would consider it fixing an oversight. Despite klingon honor and their desire to die gloriously in battle, their big ships could cloak whenever they felt like it, they just knew it was more dangerous as a big, slower ship because the shields would go down making them a biiiig juicy target and they could easily get blown to stovokor.
However, instead of making the capacitor on the fed and klingon warp cores have a crappy cool time, they could make it more readily available and useable for every subsystem instead of just one. It could work just like the romulan system with the "pips" that charge up, and then have the four subsystems it can be put into... the more pips you fill, the longer the duration when you pop it or the stronger the effect or a combination of the two. The system and all four options of capacitor to weapons, shields, engines, and aux could be available from the start, which contrasts with the romulan system which gains a power each rank up.
Reducing the effect of something after it has taken place...is not preventative.
A person could have 9 in Sensors, 5x Mk XII Ultra-Rare Romulan Sensor Consoles, other +Sensor Gear, have popped QSM, etc, etc, etc...and they will still get jammed by the guy with a JS1 without a single point of CMS or any CMS gear. Sure, it wont' last long - but the jam will still have taken place. That's just silly. Subsystem Repair works the same way.
There's a difference between something that reduces the effect of something - such as Insulators vs. Drain - and - something that reduces the effect of something after the fact - such a Subsystem Repair bringing a system back online sooner. The Subsystem still went offline. There's no hardening.
There's Hull Damage Resistance and Shield Damage Reduction - which reduce the affect of the weapon that hits. There's also Maneuvers/Targeting which affect whether that hit took place in the first place. That To-Hit is sorely missing in many areas of the game.
There are many complaints about how weak certain things are...well, they've got a 100% chance to-hit. Perhaps if there was actually some form of To-Hit mechanic in place, then they could be boosted.
That guy oozing sensors....the guy with no CMS...that jam shouldn't have the same chance to jam that guy oozing sensors as a guy that's got no sensors. In turn, that guy without sensors should feel more of an effect from it than they currently do.
People should have a noticeable return on their investment - both offensively and defensively.
They do have a noticeable return on investment, instead of being jammed or scrambled for 20 seconds or more, you get jammed/scrambled for less time. No one should be immune to abilities, for TRIBBLE's sake, most people are basically immune to most everything anyway with hazard emitters and tac and sci teams and all kinds of everything flying around the field. Even if someone was lucky enough to catch you in warp plasma when your hazard emitters were down, chances are one of your team mates has it and can send it your way.
The special abilities in the game would probably work fine if there weren't so many hard counters to them.
P.S. If you put on a helmet and get in an accident and get a concussion rather than dieing, the helmet was preventative. Just like these abilities are preventative of you being AS screwed as you would have been otherwise.
They do have a noticeable return on investment, instead of being jammed or scrambled for 20 seconds or more, you get jammed/scrambled for less time. No one should be immune to abilities, for TRIBBLE's sake, most people are basically immune to most everything anyway with hazard emitters and tac and sci teams and all kinds of everything flying around the field. Even if someone was lucky enough to catch you in warp plasma when your hazard emitters were down, chances are one of your team mates has it and can send it your way.
You have 9 Sensors, 9 Graviton, a mix of Sensors/Grav gear. You use a TB3 on somebody. That person has 0 CMS and uses a JS1 on you. What happened to your Tractor? Broken, eh? Yes, broken...double entendre love.
P.S. If you put on a helmet and get in an accident and get a concussion rather than dieing, the helmet was preventative. Just like these abilities are preventative of you being AS screwed as you would have been otherwise.
It prevented death. It did not prevent the concussion. It's specific. Something preventing you from suffering as much is no the same as something preventing you from suffering at all.
If a person does not have the accuracy to hit you with their weapons, you have prevented them doing any damage to you. Likewise, if you're Sensors skill is at such a level in comparison to their Countermeasures skill...they shouldn't be able to jam you.
Say somebody wants to steal your car.
Initially, it's a case that you've left the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked. Doesn't require much effort on their part.
You don't leave the keys in the ignition. That increases their required effort.
You don't leave the doors unlocked. That increase their required effort.
You add an alarm...
You put it a garage...
You move to a gated community...
Etc, etc, etc. As you've increased your investment, as you've put more effort into something not happening...it in turn requires more effort on their part to make it happen. If you make that investment and they don't...then it doesn't happen.
That is sorely missing from STO.
edit: This is getting woefully off topic. It was merely a suggestion to make the Eng Power consoles more viable and how those in turn might help to alleviate some of the power concerns for the Singularity Cores...
You have 9 Sensors, 9 Graviton, a mix of Sensors/Grav gear. You use a TB3 on somebody. That person has 0 CMS and uses a JS1 on you. What happened to your Tractor? Broken, eh? Yes, broken...double entendre love.
Hmm... I don't have a problem with their jam landing, but I think the tractor shouldn't be broken. If the beam isn't shut off, they should still be stuck in it even if you can't "see" them. But I think the potentially problematic mechanic there is that if tractors actually slowed rather than stopping ships, the tractor wouldn't be able to follow the ship's movement to keep it slowed. So in a world where tractor beams actually slowed rather than stopped ships and inertial dampers actually reduced the amount you were slowed by a tractor beam, I think it would make sense for the beam to break. However, if your sensors cleared and the duration of tractor beam was still active e.g. your tractor lasts 15 seconds, because they used a low jam and your sensors are so good, it clears in 5 seconds, if they didn't get out of range of the tractor due to incompetence or they can't move that fast, your tractor should catch them and finish the 10 seconds of hold.
They're too easy to spam. Just like the counters are too easy to spam. It's all too easy...thus, the Yo-Yo mechanic.
I don't think most of the skills are too easy to spam, I think many of them are way too powerful. If scramble sensors reduced your targeting range and accuracy rather than making you heal your enemy, that skill would still be insanely useful but not the ridiculousness it is currently. Jam sensors only affects one person and only jams their perception of the caster, not everyone else, so that's pretty limited anyway. It's so damn hard to catch someone in warp plasma anyway... but I don't think that one's working properly, it should slow ships and with a certain doff have a *chance* to disable, but it pretty much stops anything caught in it hard. So I don't think that is working as intended.
It prevented death. It did not prevent the concussion. It's specific. Something preventing you from suffering as much is no the same as something preventing you from suffering at all.
If a person does not have the accuracy to hit you with their weapons, you have prevented them doing any damage to you. Likewise, if you're Sensors skill is at such a level in comparison to their Countermeasures skill...they shouldn't be able to jam you.
Say somebody wants to steal your car.
Initially, it's a case that you've left the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked. Doesn't require much effort on their part.
You don't leave the keys in the ignition. That increases their required effort.
You don't leave the doors unlocked. That increase their required effort.
You add an alarm...
You put it a garage...
You move to a gated community...
Etc, etc, etc. As you've increased your investment, as you've put more effort into something not happening...it in turn requires more effort on their part to make it happen. If you make that investment and they don't...then it doesn't happen.
That is sorely missing from STO.
They've made a point of making it so that evasion in this game can never be so strong as to prevent you from hitting someone/something at all, so if they made it so that one could up their stats so far as to not get jammed at all, they would be violating that "you'll never be invulnerable" mechanic. And even if they introduced a mechanic that allows you a chance to "resist" an effect taking hold at all, so many of the special abilities are once every 45 seconds or more, and specifically with jams/scrambles, they leave you with a resistance to a second jam/scramble. So they didn't invest in countermeasures or whatever, you have super advanced sensors, they jam your sensors, but it's for like 5 seconds because your sensors are so advanced they quickly compensate for the interference. That makes perfect sense. If they had invested in countermesures, they could get it up to 10, if you hadn't invested in sensors, they can get it up to 15. Also, since your sensors cleared within 5 seconds instead of 15 or 20, you didn't have to use a sci team to clear it or lessen it further. And what has this ship that hasn't invested in countermeasures doing with such a weak jam sensors? Is this an escort that gave up a vital heal just to have this tractor counter? Well damn, you've been foiled from pinning them down, but they have given up something for that tactic. But also, if you've taken a second copy of tractor beam, you can have another go at them before their jam refreshes, or if you had a wingman with tractor, they could. But as I explained above, tractors don't work as intended anyway.
Honestly, one of my pet peaves is that the "tractors will hold you less" inertial dampers skill pretty much does nothing. If you invest into it, tractor beams will still stop you dead, the only thing it does is prevent repulsers from pushing you which means it actually hits you harder by keeping you in its damage instead of getting pushed away, now THAT's broken. I don't think tractors would need the hard counters of attack pattern omega or polarize hull if they legitimately slowed you rather than stopping you dead and if inertial dampers actually mitigated their effects.
edit: This is getting woefully off topic. It was merely a suggestion to make the Eng Power consoles more viable and how those in turn might help to alleviate some of the power concerns for the Singularity Cores...
Technically this isn't off topic, they suggested that a fleet D'Deridex would have the same boffs as a fleet galaxy and the villagers started lighting torches and gathering pitch forks... I'm pretty sure I heard someone shout, "I'll get the rope!" If they don't want this rage toward the builds they're thinking for these ships, they need to fix these boff powers. If boarding party weren't constantly cleared by the back to back tac team most everyone has, if eject warp plasma AND aceton beam weren't both completely cleared by hazard emitters, if directed energy modulation did more than scratch paint, people wouldn't be so averse to the idea, and you'd see several more galaxy class ships flying around... because they're effective, not because a fanboy's gonna fly his favorite ship no matter how TRIBBLE it is.
Technically this isn't off topic, they suggested that a fleet D'Deridex would have the same boffs as a fleet galaxy and the villagers started lighting torches and gathering pitch forks... I'm pretty sure I heard someone shout, "I'll get the rope!" If they don't want this rage toward the builds they're thinking for these ships, they need to fix these boff powers. If boarding party weren't constantly cleared by the back to back tac team most everyone has, if eject warp plasma AND aceton beam weren't both completely cleared by hazard emitters, if directed energy modulation did more than scratch paint, people wouldn't be so averse to the idea, and you'd see several more galaxy class ships flying around... because they're effective, not because a fanboy's gonna fly his favorite ship no matter how TRIBBLE it is.
"Official Romulan Ship and Singularity Mechanic Feedback Thread"
This discussion is relevant to this thread only in that it is relevant to all ships, including Romulans. It has nothing to do specifically with Romulan ships or the Singularity mechanics anymore; as such, it's so far out in left field right now it's in the parking lot. Of a different stadium. :P
Not saying it's not a worthwhile discussion, but not one for this thread anymore.
"Official Romulan Ship and Singularity Mechanic Feedback Thread"
This discussion is relevant to this thread only in that it is relevant to all ships, including Romulans. It has nothing to do specifically with Romulan ships or the Singularity mechanics anymore; as such, it's so far out in left field right now it's in the parking lot. Of a different stadium. :P
Not saying it's not a worthwhile discussion, but not one for this thread anymore.
I disagree, I am specifically referring to romulan vessels and their performance when I am speaking of these abilities. I may occasionally reference other ships to make a point as we have more experience with them and as romulan vessels will ultimately be compared to them. If my presentation has ever been so unclear as to my intention or the subject matter at hand, I thoroughly apologize. However, this discussion is entirely centered on making the proposed romulan ship layouts effective. Are you are saying that these changes might also fix other ships too? Well, my goodness, I hadn't even considered that...
Well they nerfed them for a reason... I'm not saying I think it would be OP to be able to stack the consoles, I'm just saying if they didn't like stacking to make it so there are diminishing returns.
They did nerf them for a reason, but times have changed. +3.5 or 4 is meaningless now. +7 or 8 to a single subsystem is still nowhere near OP.
The cost comparison of Purple Mk XII +power consoles is kind of skewed because the consoles themselves are so underpowered.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
They did nerf them for a reason, but times have changed. +3.5 or 4 is meaningless now. +7 or 8 to a single subsystem is still nowhere near OP.
The cost comparison of Purple Mk XII +power consoles is kind of skewed because the consoles themselves are so underpowered.
Just to clarify, I meant that they had a reason for nerfing the consoles, not that it was a good one or that I agreed with it. Not even sure if I was playing the game at the time of the nerf to have been affected by it or know the rationale behind it. I was just suggesting that if the reason they nerfed the power consoles was because people were stacking +40 power to a single subsystem or something and this displeased the gods for some reason, that they could simply introduce diminishing returns or limit it to one console per energy type. Personally, if they were +10 or more power, I would consider throwing in one or two, but as it stands, I'd never use the energy consoles.
As the singularity charges give +1 every level of charge until all power is -5 at full charge plus whatever bonus one would receive from a particular core.
I would suggest the power bonus be + 10 for a + 5 to a system to make it closer to the +7.5 that warp cores receive.
Have the singularity charge faster while cloaked, perhaps twice as fast as when not cloaked.
This would give Romulan captains time to plot their next devious move.
Make the cool down to charge the singularity 30 seconds with the 50% reduction from the T'Varo console making it 15 seconds plus whatever bonus you may receive from certain cores.
Singularity abilities should come with a 60 to 180 second cool down based on their tier.
Plasma Shockwave 60 seconds
Shield heal 90 seconds
Warp Shadows 120 seconds
Exploding Gravity Well or whatever it's called 150 seconds
Overload 180 seconds
This way we get faster charging but eliminates spamming higher powered abilities.
Warp Shadows:
Make this behave more like the Shard of Possibilities for space.
Have the shadows actually move so they follow and pseudo attack your target.
The shadows should grab aggro/ targeting from any npc/player that had been targeting them.
Give the shadows 500% threat so to draw npc fire.
You should automatically cloak when engaging this ability ignoring any cool down that may have been in play.
The shadows should last for around 30 to 45 seconds.
A scenario where a target chooses to ignore the shadows and does not notice you decloak in the middle of them could fall victim and hesitate to respond quickly enough to your attack which sounds very "Romulan" indeed.
The Overload ability:
Sorry that I don't use the proper name or know how it will work but I have an idea for it.
My idea for this ability would be at max power you would receive a 5 second burst of +20 power to all subsystems or +15 over max for a Warbird.
After the power ends you are left with -30 power to all subsystems with a minimum of 5 in any subsystem that was below 35 to begin with.
You also lose you boff powers for 5 seconds.
You would recharge you power levels normally but your singularity recharge would not happen until all subsystems were at their -10 start levels or 30 seconds whichever is longer.
The 30 seconds would be affected by the T'Varo console but only if the -10 power levels had been reached so the longer would still prevail.
You could have the most devastatingly powerful alpha in the game at the cost of crippling yourself without cloak being the prey to your targets PvP teammate or have a second alpha chance with the cloak there to get you out of trouble.
It would seem to be the perfect example of the high risk, high reward Romulan philosophy at work..
These numbers and times are all subject to change and enhancement but the concept of these two abilities are what I'm trying to showcase here.
I don't think singularity overcharge drains your starship's energy levels to fire. The text on the dev blog says it drains power from your warp core to significantly boost the effectiveness of energy weapons for a short time. Now we typically think of pretty much all meaningful levels of ship power coming from the warp core and would think that draining the warp core makes all your energy levels drop, but I think they just mean it drains all that stored power from the singularity gauge to boost your energy weapons for a short time.
Is there any negative to using the overcharge ability then?
If not, it would seem one can have the reward without risk.
I wouldn't take the "High risk, high reward" thing too far. I think it just refers to battle cloak, which is a very risky maneuver, your shields drop and if you don't have enough stealth/the enemy has enough stealth sight, a large ship like the D'Deridex shouldn't be too hard to stay on top of and attack despite the cloak. So provided you survive the cloaking procedure, you get a high reward in the form of a few seconds bonus to weapon damage when you decloak.
In regard to the singularity abilities, I think they are looking at balancing that out by gimping the ship in some other area, like they've said, reduced power levels, fewer boffs, fewer consoles, something. So I'm not sure the singularity powers are supposed to come with a 50% chance to blow yourself up by using them or anything like that, lol.
Sorry that I don't use the proper name or know how it will work but I have an idea for it.
This is why I keep saying "wait and see, wait and see." We don't know exactly how 2/5s of the powers work, and we have people dismissing them ALL as "gimmicks" (which, btw, tells me that they're too lazy to think of how to use it to its best advantage.)
We have two methods for reducing the cooldown between uses of Singularity skills, one of which we haven't even been able to get our hands on yet (T'Varo console), with other methods that may yet come (from traits, DOffs, etc.) and yet people are already clamoring "cut the cooldown! it's useless to me!"
We haven't seen a fraction of what the system can do, but people are taking the most superficial glances at it, rejecting it as "broken", and throwing out "fixes" willy-nilly.
CHILL, people. Wait and see. Actually TEST the damn things.
Also, pay attention while you're testing it. I'm seeing a lot of people saying "plasma shockwave sucks, it's useless!" because they stopped watching after the initial disappointing burst, not realizing that more than three times the initial damage was going straight to the hull after the burst.
And always remember, if you don't like the singularity system, with its particular perks and flaws, you always have an out; a whole wealth of ally and lockbox ships are available to you too.
So Warp Shadows gives you a jump with some kind of semi belated cloak?
I only used it once and was not too impressed by the statues of my ship.
Singularity gives you a jump with debuffs but not much damage, so 2 jumping powers?
I would LOVE to have Warp Shadows in Infected Space Elite, as I'm always the one making a kamikaze crowd control run on the spheres at the gate. When someone pops one generator well before the rest, I'm charging over to the gate to use TB Repulsors to push back the spheres, and then pin them down with Gravity Well to buy as much time as possible. Since I use Evasive Maneuvers to get there in time, I have to get away under standard power, and since TB Repulsors decides to tick off the gateway ~90% of the time, it's usually not safe to cloak. So when the transformer goes down, I have a swarm of angry, angry spheres (and/or a tac cube) all after me (because of the damage from TB-R and GW) and still on cooldown so I can't run away. I would LOVE to be able to drop 5 indestructible clones behind me to take the heat off long enough for me to get away. Or, if I'm lined up properly and we needed yet another delay, a singularity jump to slow them down (and if the transformer pops while it's active, well, I'm 5km further away and they have an accuracy debuff.)
So Warp Shadows gives you a jump with some kind of semi belated cloak?
I only used it once and was not too impressed by the statues of my ship.
Singularity gives you a jump with debuffs but not much damage, so 2 jumping powers?
Singularity Overcharge seems as if it could be OP so everyone will only use this ability at end game.
There is no real danger in just super buffing your weapons at least not mentioned.
This is kind of the reason I suggested having individual cool downs for the abilities that were linked to their tier.
I'm sure it won't always be most advantageous to use the overcharge ability, there will be times where taking the heal is most critical to stay in the fight or ducking out through shadows is your last ditch maneuver to prevent yourself from staring at the respawn timer. The singularity jump could be just what you need to get an escort off your aft and keep it busy for a few seconds to give you the opportunity to get away or reposition yourself to take it out. So I don't think the overcharge will be the only ability anyone ever uses.
This is why I keep saying "wait and see, wait and see." We don't know exactly how 2/5s of the powers work, and we have people dismissing them ALL as "gimmicks" (which, btw, tells me that they're too lazy to think of how to use it to its best advantage.)
We have two methods for reducing the cooldown between uses of Singularity skills, one of which we haven't even been able to get our hands on yet (T'Varo console), with other methods that may yet come (from traits, DOffs, etc.) and yet people are already clamoring "cut the cooldown! it's useless to me!"
We haven't seen a fraction of what the system can do, but people are taking the most superficial glances at it, rejecting it as "broken", and throwing out "fixes" willy-nilly.
CHILL, people. Wait and see. Actually TEST the damn things.
Also, pay attention while you're testing it. I'm seeing a lot of people saying "plasma shockwave sucks, it's useless!" because they stopped watching after the initial disappointing burst, not realizing that more than three times the initial damage was going straight to the hull after the burst.
And always remember, if you don't like the singularity system, with its particular perks and flaws, you always have an out; a whole wealth of ally and lockbox ships are available to you too.
Well you don't have ally ships at end game, so not really, but lockbox ships would be an option... a super expensive option. But then I don't see the point of playing a romulan and playing a non romulan ship... especially not one that doesn't cloak at all... let alone battle cloak since many of the traits seem to revolve around that tactic.
If the damage from the plasma shockwave is ultimately comparable to the hull melt from the experimental beam plasma hyperflux, that will be pretty sweet. I remember using that ability and thinking "meh... that didn't do much." and then the hull on the enemy starts... well... melting, lol. They may not be having that ability be boosted by tactical consoles to prevent a fully plasma romulan from being OP, or only making it particle gens so that a romulan who doesn't want to take plasma weapons doesn't obviously gimp their plasma shockwave... though it does strongly encourage (I won't say force) you to take particle gens when you might not otherwise... which reminds me, I need to pop in and figure out for sure if particle gens increase plasma dot damage for plasma weapons and torps...
I'm sure the devs are taking feedback with a grain of salt. They have the bigger picture and may have it planned out that once you get to end game and equip up, the singularity powers cool faster or become more powerful or both. But I think one of them also mentioned it was good to know if it felt underpowered or lame at lower levels cause they want it to feel good and useful at all levels.
But you're right, we're not going to know how this thing really performs until we can see what doffs/equips/traits affect it and in what ways and to what extent. The devs want to keep progression in mind, and since there's progression, they feel it can't start at its best. The players may be saying "the cool needs to be 30 seconds!" well... that might be what the devs intend at the end of the day once you've put the appropriate core and traits and doffs in the mix... and they may have it set up so that you can use your abilities more frequently or accept the current cool and have them be much more devastating/effective instead. We'll just have to wait and see... though it seems it would be most productive to show us everything before asking our opinions. On one hand, It's like showing us nothing but the kitchen and asking us what we think of the house. On the other, it does give them what our gut reactions are to the system when we see nothing but the beginning. They want that reaction to be good, but they also know what the rest of the house looks like, so if we say "this kitchen is TRIBBLE and this house would be insufferable unless every room had its own bathroom." Well... maybe every room does have its own bathroom and we just haven't seen it yet.
I wouldn't take the "High risk, high reward" thing too far. I think it just refers to battle cloak, which is a very risky maneuver, your shields drop and if you don't have enough stealth/the enemy has enough stealth sight, a large ship like the D'Deridex shouldn't be too hard to stay on top of and attack despite the cloak. So provided you survive the cloaking procedure, you get a high reward in the form of a few seconds bonus to weapon damage when you decloak.
Geko reiterated it in the 4:20:19 UGC interview. Warbirds have that hybrid-assassin playstyle going for them. Ships are classes to him. BoPs are assassins. The Warbirds are different types of assassins.
Geko reiterated it in the 4:20:19 UGC interview. Warbirds have that hybrid-assassin playstyle going for them. Ships are classes to him. BoPs are assassins. The Warbirds are different types of assassins.
I know. I listened to the whole thing, but I don't think the idea of "high risk, high reward" is intended to extend into something like "pulls all the energy out of your shields to deliver a devastating blow!" By which I mean all the hp in your shields, not your shield power. In which case, if you didn't destroy your enemy, you've now wasted your shields and they might blow right through you.
I think that the biggest "high risk, high reward" of bops is simply the battle cloak. Despite their low hull and shields, they can be remarkably durable depending on the skill of the pilot and how you build them, and they can do a considerable amount of damage, plus they are so maneuverable that their low shields and hull are largely compensated for by their ability to get out of an enemy's kill zone with relative ease. Where they will most certainly have the biggest risk is when they cloak, particularly by virtue of their low hull strength, but again, with the maneuverability and small size, they can cloak and be gone. A D'deridex on the other hand won't be that maneuverable even with battle cloak improving the turn and speed, and it's much larger, making it an easier target to find and stay on top of. So the D'deridex, I imagine, will take a tremendous risk when cloaking even with a thicker hull, perhaps an even bigger risk than a bop does.
Well you don't have ally ships at end game, so not really, but lockbox ships would be an option... a super expensive option. But then I don't see the point of playing a romulan and playing a non romulan ship... especially not one that doesn't cloak at all... let alone battle cloak since many of the traits seem to revolve around that tactic.
There have been a fair number of people clamoring for that anyways, though, saying "we don't want the -10, so just take the singularity core!" (um, that's also paying for that nifty battle cloak, so we'd have to take that too, ssssooooo....why are you playing a Romulan?) I agree about the lockbox ships being expensive, but I expect a bit of a price drop as the effects of all those 30-packs of master keys starts hitting the market.
If the damage from the plasma shockwave is ultimately comparable to the hull melt from the experimental beam plasma hyperflux, that will be pretty sweet. I remember using that ability and thinking "meh... that didn't do much." and then the hull on the enemy starts... well... melting, lol.
I noticed this while in the T'liss, I'd move into a group of frigates with a charge left over from the previous fight, pop the Plasma Shockwave, finish the first frigate and turn...just in time to see the other two collapse on themselves and blow.
Sadly, scaling means I can't do that NOW at 26, but it still takes a nice chunk out, bypassing shields.
They may not be having that ability be boosted by tactical consoles to prevent a fully plasma romulan from being OP, or only making it particle gens so that a romulan who doesn't want to take plasma weapons doesn't obviously gimp their plasma shockwave... though it does strongly encourage (I won't say force) you to take particle gens when you might not otherwise... which reminds me, I need to pop in and figure out for sure if particle gens increase plasma dot damage for plasma weapons and torps...
Just tested with a Particle Gen I snagged for my Rommie, PG does NOT affect plasma weapon fire. I think the Plasma Shockwave might be intended to give science officers an edge (especially considering the Conservation of Energy trait can push its damage up by 30%), especially especially considering all that shield bypassing damage.
I'm sure the devs are taking feedback with a grain of salt. They have the bigger picture and may have it planned out that once you get to end game and equip up, the singularity powers cool faster or become more powerful or both. But I think one of them also mentioned it was good to know if it felt underpowered or lame at lower levels cause they want it to feel good and useful at all levels.
But you're right, we're not going to know how this thing really performs until we can see what doffs/equips/traits affect it and in what ways and to what extent. The devs want to keep progression in mind, and since there's progression, they feel it can't start at its best. The players may be saying "the cool needs to be 30 seconds!" well... that might be what the devs intend at the end of the day once you've put the appropriate core and traits and doffs in the mix... and they may have it set up so that you can use your abilities more frequently or accept the current cool and have them be much more devastating/effective instead. We'll just have to wait and see... though it seems it would be most productive to show us everything before asking our opinions. On one hand, It's like showing us nothing but the kitchen and asking us what we think of the house. On the other, it does give them what our gut reactions are to the system when we see nothing but the beginning. They want that reaction to be good, but they also know what the rest of the house looks like, so if we say "this kitchen is TRIBBLE and this house would be insufferable unless every room had its own bathroom." Well... maybe every room does have its own bathroom and we just haven't seen it yet.
Comments
A) The benefit must be noticeable
Low effect / low drawback vs. high effect / high drawback. Problem is, most people would like to get the new mechanics for free.
If people could get some of the lost power back via non-crappy engineering consoles (to at least one subsystem they feel they need), it wouldn't be half bad.
But seriously, mk XII purple consoles ? +4 to subsystem power ? :rolleyes:
As an aside, I still think they should add separate drain/offline resistance to those consoles. You get a little power and you get resistance to that subsystem being taken offline sort of thing.
But if they are going to take away something, I like the suggestion of a devices penalty. How about a romulan singularity core is sooooo ... *insert technobable*... that the ship has absolutely no room for devices, or can only have one device, so choose wisely.
And what if they stack them ? Those ships with many engineering slots SHOULD stack them, to get benefit out of it. Energy dmg consoles are also stacked and noone minds it.
Beside armors, rcs consoles are all viable choices, stacking power means lowering surviability and turn and that is a fair tradeoff.
Right now, +4 is not worth for ANYONE. And I'm not sure if even +8 would be appealing.
I say my idea again, change those consoles to +10% power to a subsystem. So it is +5 at 50 but +10 on 100. All of the consoles can also have secondary effects.
Weapon - energy drain resistance
Shields - faster shield distribution
Engine - quicker acceleration / counter to inertia
Aux - whatever
I don't really care for that mechanic simply because there's already emergency powers and batteries to counter a targeted/offline subsystem, engineering team brings it back online too, does it not? Of course few have engineering team because tac team is the gold standard. :rolleyes: plus there's power insulators as a skill and as a console to mitigate that. This game has far too many hard counters for "clever" or "effect" skills as it is. Since targeting a subsystem or ejecting warp plasma or aceton beam, or tractor beams or pretty much anything that isn't pure escort pwn has a hard counter from abilities/items most people carry, these skills do next to nothing.
Well they nerfed them for a reason... I'm not saying I think it would be OP to be able to stack the consoles, I'm just saying if they didn't like stacking to make it so there are diminishing returns.
Technically, I think the game would be better if energy weapon consoles and other tactical consoles had diminishing returns too. Then everyone wouldn't be clamoring for the ships with the most tac consoles all the time. Plus if they introduced accuracy or crit hit or crit damage tac consoles, an escort would have more selection in their field rather than the default stack 4-5 of whatever energy weapon type you're using. They would still have the option of stacking 4-5 consoles for maximum energy damage while sacrificing the efficiency of having better torps and accuracy and crits or what have you.
I think that the energy weapon drain mechanic should be sorted out in general before throwing a "fix" in for it on a weapon energy console. And technically more power in the system is a counter to the drain, so instead of drain resistance, just make the console a worth while +10 or +15 or whatever.
Shield distribution should work as quickly on manual as it does for tac team. The benefit of tac team is that it's intelligent, it diverts shields where they need to be as damage comes in on top of boosting weapon damage, it should not also distribute shields faster than you can manually.
I think if you give the energy boosting consoles a proper level of benefit, they don't need secondary effects. By simple virtue of adding power to a system, they resist drain as drain typically comes as a set -x to a system, not a constant -x per second. So if an ability is -20 to a subsystem and you normally have 25 but you have a +10 console, instead of dropping to 5 power, you drop to 15... that is sufficient counter to that subsystem targeting or other energy draining skill.
Hrmm, see - I hate the majority of the current systems since they are after the fact instead of anything preventative. It leads to various absurd situations and painfully illogical scenarios.
As is, the game is entirely too Yo-Yo in its mechanics.
I think the yo-yo is only really felt because a few things are over powered. If they introduced diminishing returns to tactical consoles, I don't think we'd have escorts/bops insta burning through your shields when emergency power to shields comes down (and often times they can burn through them despite it anyway)
There are plenty of preventatives like power insulators, inertial dampers, sensors, stealth, subsystem repair, the passive armor skills, starship maneuvers, they all help to reduce the effect of abilities or the length of time you are affected by them, and I'm sure there's probably a couple I missed.
I feel that there's too much "after the fact" abilities to hard counter the "special" abilities, which are primarily science and engineering. And I think it's this effortless ability to remove or ignore the effects of most science and engineering abilities plus the lack of diminishing returns on tactical consoles that makes most people feel that escorts are king of the hill.
I would thought you have to choose. That way you lose power for 1 ability, or never use that ability and get a bonus from the charged core.
having 5 at max rank, gives you a lot of tactical options to use.
Now that in itself is fine as everyone loves options, but it does feel like the Klingons and Feds need their own system if the Romulan one is going to be so extensive.
I was thinking the same. I could imagine battery mechanics, exactly the same as singularity stuff.
Except it would act as emergency power source of sort.
Reducing the effect of something after it has taken place...is not preventative.
A person could have 9 in Sensors, 5x Mk XII Ultra-Rare Romulan Sensor Consoles, other +Sensor Gear, have popped QSM, etc, etc, etc...and they will still get jammed by the guy with a JS1 without a single point of CMS or any CMS gear. Sure, it wont' last long - but the jam will still have taken place. That's just silly. Subsystem Repair works the same way.
There's a difference between something that reduces the effect of something - such as Insulators vs. Drain - and - something that reduces the effect of something after the fact - such a Subsystem Repair bringing a system back online sooner. The Subsystem still went offline. There's no hardening.
There's Hull Damage Resistance and Shield Damage Reduction - which reduce the affect of the weapon that hits. There's also Maneuvers/Targeting which affect whether that hit took place in the first place. That To-Hit is sorely missing in many areas of the game.
There are many complaints about how weak certain things are...well, they've got a 100% chance to-hit. Perhaps if there was actually some form of To-Hit mechanic in place, then they could be boosted.
That guy oozing sensors....the guy with no CMS...that jam shouldn't have the same chance to jam that guy oozing sensors as a guy that's got no sensors. In turn, that guy without sensors should feel more of an effect from it than they currently do.
People should have a noticeable return on their investment - both offensively and defensively.
I believe the highest rarity of warp cores is supposed to get a "capacitor" ability with a longer cool and lower effect than a battery. And I think it's just one type of capacitor based on type of warpcore i.e. if you select a shield enhancing warp core, you get a shield enhancing capacitor, or maybe it's randomly attached so you could get a shield warpcore with an aux capacitor.
Either way, if they gave the feds and the klingons their own version of this singularity thing or some other bonus, it would negate the need for the penalties on these abilities... but then they keep saying they don't want "mudflation" so they don't want to give the feds and klinks something in exchange, they want to take away from some other part of the romulans to compensate for the system. Which, like I said, I think pretty much compensates for itself with how rarely and unreliably it will be available. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a touch of extra flavor and not some new uber something that requires balancing.
I also wouldn't mind them giving all cloaking vessels the ability to battle cloak if that would prevent "compensating" for it with tremendous power reductions. I always thought all cloaking ships should be able to cloak during battle anyway, the consequences of battle cloaking when in a big ship balance the ability to do so... shields down for 10 seconds and if you don't get blown to hell, you get an advantage... that is what we call 'self balanced.'
Romulans can simply be the "masters of cloak" in that their racial passives give them bonus to defense and stealth while cloaking and they have another passive that reduces cool time on cloaking abilities. And I wouldn't consider making all cloaking ships into battle cloakers "mudflation" I would consider it fixing an oversight. Despite klingon honor and their desire to die gloriously in battle, their big ships could cloak whenever they felt like it, they just knew it was more dangerous as a big, slower ship because the shields would go down making them a biiiig juicy target and they could easily get blown to stovokor.
However, instead of making the capacitor on the fed and klingon warp cores have a crappy cool time, they could make it more readily available and useable for every subsystem instead of just one. It could work just like the romulan system with the "pips" that charge up, and then have the four subsystems it can be put into... the more pips you fill, the longer the duration when you pop it or the stronger the effect or a combination of the two. The system and all four options of capacitor to weapons, shields, engines, and aux could be available from the start, which contrasts with the romulan system which gains a power each rank up.
They do have a noticeable return on investment, instead of being jammed or scrambled for 20 seconds or more, you get jammed/scrambled for less time. No one should be immune to abilities, for TRIBBLE's sake, most people are basically immune to most everything anyway with hazard emitters and tac and sci teams and all kinds of everything flying around the field. Even if someone was lucky enough to catch you in warp plasma when your hazard emitters were down, chances are one of your team mates has it and can send it your way.
The special abilities in the game would probably work fine if there weren't so many hard counters to them.
P.S. If you put on a helmet and get in an accident and get a concussion rather than dieing, the helmet was preventative. Just like these abilities are preventative of you being AS screwed as you would have been otherwise.
You have 9 Sensors, 9 Graviton, a mix of Sensors/Grav gear. You use a TB3 on somebody. That person has 0 CMS and uses a JS1 on you. What happened to your Tractor? Broken, eh? Yes, broken...double entendre love.
They're too easy to spam. Just like the counters are too easy to spam. It's all too easy...thus, the Yo-Yo mechanic.
It prevented death. It did not prevent the concussion. It's specific. Something preventing you from suffering as much is no the same as something preventing you from suffering at all.
If a person does not have the accuracy to hit you with their weapons, you have prevented them doing any damage to you. Likewise, if you're Sensors skill is at such a level in comparison to their Countermeasures skill...they shouldn't be able to jam you.
Say somebody wants to steal your car.
Initially, it's a case that you've left the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked. Doesn't require much effort on their part.
You don't leave the keys in the ignition. That increases their required effort.
You don't leave the doors unlocked. That increase their required effort.
You add an alarm...
You put it a garage...
You move to a gated community...
Etc, etc, etc. As you've increased your investment, as you've put more effort into something not happening...it in turn requires more effort on their part to make it happen. If you make that investment and they don't...then it doesn't happen.
That is sorely missing from STO.
edit: This is getting woefully off topic. It was merely a suggestion to make the Eng Power consoles more viable and how those in turn might help to alleviate some of the power concerns for the Singularity Cores...
Hmm... I don't have a problem with their jam landing, but I think the tractor shouldn't be broken. If the beam isn't shut off, they should still be stuck in it even if you can't "see" them. But I think the potentially problematic mechanic there is that if tractors actually slowed rather than stopping ships, the tractor wouldn't be able to follow the ship's movement to keep it slowed. So in a world where tractor beams actually slowed rather than stopped ships and inertial dampers actually reduced the amount you were slowed by a tractor beam, I think it would make sense for the beam to break. However, if your sensors cleared and the duration of tractor beam was still active e.g. your tractor lasts 15 seconds, because they used a low jam and your sensors are so good, it clears in 5 seconds, if they didn't get out of range of the tractor due to incompetence or they can't move that fast, your tractor should catch them and finish the 10 seconds of hold.
I don't think most of the skills are too easy to spam, I think many of them are way too powerful. If scramble sensors reduced your targeting range and accuracy rather than making you heal your enemy, that skill would still be insanely useful but not the ridiculousness it is currently. Jam sensors only affects one person and only jams their perception of the caster, not everyone else, so that's pretty limited anyway. It's so damn hard to catch someone in warp plasma anyway... but I don't think that one's working properly, it should slow ships and with a certain doff have a *chance* to disable, but it pretty much stops anything caught in it hard. So I don't think that is working as intended.
They've made a point of making it so that evasion in this game can never be so strong as to prevent you from hitting someone/something at all, so if they made it so that one could up their stats so far as to not get jammed at all, they would be violating that "you'll never be invulnerable" mechanic. And even if they introduced a mechanic that allows you a chance to "resist" an effect taking hold at all, so many of the special abilities are once every 45 seconds or more, and specifically with jams/scrambles, they leave you with a resistance to a second jam/scramble. So they didn't invest in countermeasures or whatever, you have super advanced sensors, they jam your sensors, but it's for like 5 seconds because your sensors are so advanced they quickly compensate for the interference. That makes perfect sense. If they had invested in countermesures, they could get it up to 10, if you hadn't invested in sensors, they can get it up to 15. Also, since your sensors cleared within 5 seconds instead of 15 or 20, you didn't have to use a sci team to clear it or lessen it further. And what has this ship that hasn't invested in countermeasures doing with such a weak jam sensors? Is this an escort that gave up a vital heal just to have this tractor counter? Well damn, you've been foiled from pinning them down, but they have given up something for that tactic. But also, if you've taken a second copy of tractor beam, you can have another go at them before their jam refreshes, or if you had a wingman with tractor, they could. But as I explained above, tractors don't work as intended anyway.
Honestly, one of my pet peaves is that the "tractors will hold you less" inertial dampers skill pretty much does nothing. If you invest into it, tractor beams will still stop you dead, the only thing it does is prevent repulsers from pushing you which means it actually hits you harder by keeping you in its damage instead of getting pushed away, now THAT's broken. I don't think tractors would need the hard counters of attack pattern omega or polarize hull if they legitimately slowed you rather than stopping you dead and if inertial dampers actually mitigated their effects.
Technically this isn't off topic, they suggested that a fleet D'Deridex would have the same boffs as a fleet galaxy and the villagers started lighting torches and gathering pitch forks... I'm pretty sure I heard someone shout, "I'll get the rope!" If they don't want this rage toward the builds they're thinking for these ships, they need to fix these boff powers. If boarding party weren't constantly cleared by the back to back tac team most everyone has, if eject warp plasma AND aceton beam weren't both completely cleared by hazard emitters, if directed energy modulation did more than scratch paint, people wouldn't be so averse to the idea, and you'd see several more galaxy class ships flying around... because they're effective, not because a fanboy's gonna fly his favorite ship no matter how TRIBBLE it is.
"Official Romulan Ship and Singularity Mechanic Feedback Thread"
This discussion is relevant to this thread only in that it is relevant to all ships, including Romulans. It has nothing to do specifically with Romulan ships or the Singularity mechanics anymore; as such, it's so far out in left field right now it's in the parking lot. Of a different stadium. :P
Not saying it's not a worthwhile discussion, but not one for this thread anymore.
I disagree, I am specifically referring to romulan vessels and their performance when I am speaking of these abilities. I may occasionally reference other ships to make a point as we have more experience with them and as romulan vessels will ultimately be compared to them. If my presentation has ever been so unclear as to my intention or the subject matter at hand, I thoroughly apologize. However, this discussion is entirely centered on making the proposed romulan ship layouts effective. Are you are saying that these changes might also fix other ships too? Well, my goodness, I hadn't even considered that...
What a fortuitous coincidence...
They did nerf them for a reason, but times have changed. +3.5 or 4 is meaningless now. +7 or 8 to a single subsystem is still nowhere near OP.
The cost comparison of Purple Mk XII +power consoles is kind of skewed because the consoles themselves are so underpowered.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Just to clarify, I meant that they had a reason for nerfing the consoles, not that it was a good one or that I agreed with it. Not even sure if I was playing the game at the time of the nerf to have been affected by it or know the rationale behind it. I was just suggesting that if the reason they nerfed the power consoles was because people were stacking +40 power to a single subsystem or something and this displeased the gods for some reason, that they could simply introduce diminishing returns or limit it to one console per energy type. Personally, if they were +10 or more power, I would consider throwing in one or two, but as it stands, I'd never use the energy consoles.
As the singularity charges give +1 every level of charge until all power is -5 at full charge plus whatever bonus one would receive from a particular core.
I would suggest the power bonus be + 10 for a + 5 to a system to make it closer to the +7.5 that warp cores receive.
Have the singularity charge faster while cloaked, perhaps twice as fast as when not cloaked.
This would give Romulan captains time to plot their next devious move.
Make the cool down to charge the singularity 30 seconds with the 50% reduction from the T'Varo console making it 15 seconds plus whatever bonus you may receive from certain cores.
Singularity abilities should come with a 60 to 180 second cool down based on their tier.
Plasma Shockwave 60 seconds
Shield heal 90 seconds
Warp Shadows 120 seconds
Exploding Gravity Well or whatever it's called 150 seconds
Overload 180 seconds
This way we get faster charging but eliminates spamming higher powered abilities.
Warp Shadows:
Make this behave more like the Shard of Possibilities for space.
Have the shadows actually move so they follow and pseudo attack your target.
The shadows should grab aggro/ targeting from any npc/player that had been targeting them.
Give the shadows 500% threat so to draw npc fire.
You should automatically cloak when engaging this ability ignoring any cool down that may have been in play.
The shadows should last for around 30 to 45 seconds.
A scenario where a target chooses to ignore the shadows and does not notice you decloak in the middle of them could fall victim and hesitate to respond quickly enough to your attack which sounds very "Romulan" indeed.
The Overload ability:
Sorry that I don't use the proper name or know how it will work but I have an idea for it.
My idea for this ability would be at max power you would receive a 5 second burst of +20 power to all subsystems or +15 over max for a Warbird.
After the power ends you are left with -30 power to all subsystems with a minimum of 5 in any subsystem that was below 35 to begin with.
You also lose you boff powers for 5 seconds.
You would recharge you power levels normally but your singularity recharge would not happen until all subsystems were at their -10 start levels or 30 seconds whichever is longer.
The 30 seconds would be affected by the T'Varo console but only if the -10 power levels had been reached so the longer would still prevail.
You could have the most devastatingly powerful alpha in the game at the cost of crippling yourself without cloak being the prey to your targets PvP teammate or have a second alpha chance with the cloak there to get you out of trouble.
It would seem to be the perfect example of the high risk, high reward Romulan philosophy at work..
These numbers and times are all subject to change and enhancement but the concept of these two abilities are what I'm trying to showcase here.
I don't think singularity overcharge drains your starship's energy levels to fire. The text on the dev blog says it drains power from your warp core to significantly boost the effectiveness of energy weapons for a short time. Now we typically think of pretty much all meaningful levels of ship power coming from the warp core and would think that draining the warp core makes all your energy levels drop, but I think they just mean it drains all that stored power from the singularity gauge to boost your energy weapons for a short time.
If not, it would seem one can have the reward without risk.
I wouldn't take the "High risk, high reward" thing too far. I think it just refers to battle cloak, which is a very risky maneuver, your shields drop and if you don't have enough stealth/the enemy has enough stealth sight, a large ship like the D'Deridex shouldn't be too hard to stay on top of and attack despite the cloak. So provided you survive the cloaking procedure, you get a high reward in the form of a few seconds bonus to weapon damage when you decloak.
In regard to the singularity abilities, I think they are looking at balancing that out by gimping the ship in some other area, like they've said, reduced power levels, fewer boffs, fewer consoles, something. So I'm not sure the singularity powers are supposed to come with a 50% chance to blow yourself up by using them or anything like that, lol.
So Warp Shadows gives you a jump with some kind of semi belated cloak?
I only used it once and was not too impressed by the statues of my ship.
Singularity gives you a jump with debuffs but not much damage, so 2 jumping powers?
Singularity Overcharge seems as if it could be OP so everyone will only use this ability at end game.
There is no real danger in just super buffing your weapons at least not mentioned.
This is kind of the reason I suggested having individual cool downs for the abilities that were linked to their tier.
This is why I keep saying "wait and see, wait and see." We don't know exactly how 2/5s of the powers work, and we have people dismissing them ALL as "gimmicks" (which, btw, tells me that they're too lazy to think of how to use it to its best advantage.)
We have two methods for reducing the cooldown between uses of Singularity skills, one of which we haven't even been able to get our hands on yet (T'Varo console), with other methods that may yet come (from traits, DOffs, etc.) and yet people are already clamoring "cut the cooldown! it's useless to me!"
We haven't seen a fraction of what the system can do, but people are taking the most superficial glances at it, rejecting it as "broken", and throwing out "fixes" willy-nilly.
CHILL, people. Wait and see. Actually TEST the damn things.
Also, pay attention while you're testing it. I'm seeing a lot of people saying "plasma shockwave sucks, it's useless!" because they stopped watching after the initial disappointing burst, not realizing that more than three times the initial damage was going straight to the hull after the burst.
And always remember, if you don't like the singularity system, with its particular perks and flaws, you always have an out; a whole wealth of ally and lockbox ships are available to you too.
EDIT: Case in point...
I would LOVE to have Warp Shadows in Infected Space Elite, as I'm always the one making a kamikaze crowd control run on the spheres at the gate. When someone pops one generator well before the rest, I'm charging over to the gate to use TB Repulsors to push back the spheres, and then pin them down with Gravity Well to buy as much time as possible. Since I use Evasive Maneuvers to get there in time, I have to get away under standard power, and since TB Repulsors decides to tick off the gateway ~90% of the time, it's usually not safe to cloak. So when the transformer goes down, I have a swarm of angry, angry spheres (and/or a tac cube) all after me (because of the damage from TB-R and GW) and still on cooldown so I can't run away. I would LOVE to be able to drop 5 indestructible clones behind me to take the heat off long enough for me to get away. Or, if I'm lined up properly and we needed yet another delay, a singularity jump to slow them down (and if the transformer pops while it's active, well, I'm 5km further away and they have an accuracy debuff.)
I cannot WAIT to get this into STFs.
I'm sure it won't always be most advantageous to use the overcharge ability, there will be times where taking the heal is most critical to stay in the fight or ducking out through shadows is your last ditch maneuver to prevent yourself from staring at the respawn timer. The singularity jump could be just what you need to get an escort off your aft and keep it busy for a few seconds to give you the opportunity to get away or reposition yourself to take it out. So I don't think the overcharge will be the only ability anyone ever uses.
Well you don't have ally ships at end game, so not really, but lockbox ships would be an option... a super expensive option. But then I don't see the point of playing a romulan and playing a non romulan ship... especially not one that doesn't cloak at all... let alone battle cloak since many of the traits seem to revolve around that tactic.
If the damage from the plasma shockwave is ultimately comparable to the hull melt from the experimental beam plasma hyperflux, that will be pretty sweet. I remember using that ability and thinking "meh... that didn't do much." and then the hull on the enemy starts... well... melting, lol. They may not be having that ability be boosted by tactical consoles to prevent a fully plasma romulan from being OP, or only making it particle gens so that a romulan who doesn't want to take plasma weapons doesn't obviously gimp their plasma shockwave... though it does strongly encourage (I won't say force) you to take particle gens when you might not otherwise... which reminds me, I need to pop in and figure out for sure if particle gens increase plasma dot damage for plasma weapons and torps...
I'm sure the devs are taking feedback with a grain of salt. They have the bigger picture and may have it planned out that once you get to end game and equip up, the singularity powers cool faster or become more powerful or both. But I think one of them also mentioned it was good to know if it felt underpowered or lame at lower levels cause they want it to feel good and useful at all levels.
But you're right, we're not going to know how this thing really performs until we can see what doffs/equips/traits affect it and in what ways and to what extent. The devs want to keep progression in mind, and since there's progression, they feel it can't start at its best. The players may be saying "the cool needs to be 30 seconds!" well... that might be what the devs intend at the end of the day once you've put the appropriate core and traits and doffs in the mix... and they may have it set up so that you can use your abilities more frequently or accept the current cool and have them be much more devastating/effective instead. We'll just have to wait and see... though it seems it would be most productive to show us everything before asking our opinions. On one hand, It's like showing us nothing but the kitchen and asking us what we think of the house. On the other, it does give them what our gut reactions are to the system when we see nothing but the beginning. They want that reaction to be good, but they also know what the rest of the house looks like, so if we say "this kitchen is TRIBBLE and this house would be insufferable unless every room had its own bathroom." Well... maybe every room does have its own bathroom and we just haven't seen it yet.
Geko reiterated it in the 4:20:19 UGC interview. Warbirds have that hybrid-assassin playstyle going for them. Ships are classes to him. BoPs are assassins. The Warbirds are different types of assassins.
I know. I listened to the whole thing, but I don't think the idea of "high risk, high reward" is intended to extend into something like "pulls all the energy out of your shields to deliver a devastating blow!" By which I mean all the hp in your shields, not your shield power. In which case, if you didn't destroy your enemy, you've now wasted your shields and they might blow right through you.
I think that the biggest "high risk, high reward" of bops is simply the battle cloak. Despite their low hull and shields, they can be remarkably durable depending on the skill of the pilot and how you build them, and they can do a considerable amount of damage, plus they are so maneuverable that their low shields and hull are largely compensated for by their ability to get out of an enemy's kill zone with relative ease. Where they will most certainly have the biggest risk is when they cloak, particularly by virtue of their low hull strength, but again, with the maneuverability and small size, they can cloak and be gone. A D'deridex on the other hand won't be that maneuverable even with battle cloak improving the turn and speed, and it's much larger, making it an easier target to find and stay on top of. So the D'deridex, I imagine, will take a tremendous risk when cloaking even with a thicker hull, perhaps an even bigger risk than a bop does.
There have been a fair number of people clamoring for that anyways, though, saying "we don't want the -10, so just take the singularity core!" (um, that's also paying for that nifty battle cloak, so we'd have to take that too, ssssooooo....why are you playing a Romulan?) I agree about the lockbox ships being expensive, but I expect a bit of a price drop as the effects of all those 30-packs of master keys starts hitting the market.
I noticed this while in the T'liss, I'd move into a group of frigates with a charge left over from the previous fight, pop the Plasma Shockwave, finish the first frigate and turn...just in time to see the other two collapse on themselves and blow.
Sadly, scaling means I can't do that NOW at 26, but it still takes a nice chunk out, bypassing shields.
Just tested with a Particle Gen I snagged for my Rommie, PG does NOT affect plasma weapon fire. I think the Plasma Shockwave might be intended to give science officers an edge (especially considering the Conservation of Energy trait can push its damage up by 30%), especially especially considering all that shield bypassing damage.
Absolutely.