Yeah, I'd like to know what justifies the increase on the battle cloak cooldown.
At 40 seconds, most of the "battle" in "Battle Cloak" has pretty much been neutered. Not to mention Romulan Cloaking is supposedly better than Klingon cloaks, and Klingons have a shorter 15 second cooldown?
Is this because of the in-built traits Romulans have... with this being an attempt to 'pad' the cooldown times to compensate for the racial bonuses? If that's the case, you've more or less crippled the racial bonus Romulans were supposed to get - less a bonus and more a compensation for a penalty.
I'm very interested in hearing what justified this change.
Problem will be solved when they do the same to KDF and Fed ships later on (I'm pretty sure that's coming since Romulans can use KDF ships from T1-4), so the Romulans get the faster cooldowns.
At 40 seconds, most of the "battle" in "Battle Cloak" has pretty much been neutered.
Its because with Boffs and a captain trait, you can get up to a 72.5% CD reduction. At 20s, that means it went all the way down to 5.5s; Way OP. With 40s, it goes down to 11s (better than the previous base, but not like you have have a get out of jail free card).
taking a glass half full approach here, lets try to remember that all these changes at this point are in testing to see how it goes and what feedback they get so I will wait it out and see. That being said 40 seconds does seem a bit long specially considering how fast pace the combat is
Well, I see two schools of thought on this:
1. Padding cooldown times all over so to make the Romulans look like their racial benefits counts for something in comparison to other factions, while not making the end bonus 'overpowered'. End result, though, is that everyone's cloak ends up being affected and effectively gimped. A 40 second cooldown battlecloak has only tenuous ownership to that title.
2. Keep the cloak cooldown like it was, and instead alter the scope of the Romulan racial ability. That way, only one race is altered, rather than messing around with cloaking devices everywhere!
...
Personally, I thought the short cloaking cooldown times were acceptable. It did make Enhance Battle Cloaking redundant... but if you went and got a romulan bridge crew with all the right boosts to make that happen (rather than getting other advantages from other BOFFs)... why not? There was a caveat, with the singularity mechanic, already.
Or heck, if it goes too far, apply a diminishing return.
In any case, IMHO I think the whole cloak cooldown nerf is rather disingenious.
Cryptic you have nerfed my Romulan....I am displeased. The whole point of playing a Romulan is to use your cloak, get in hit em, cloak, get out and so on.
Cryptic you have nerfed my Romulan....I am displeased. The whole point of playing a Romulan is to use your cloak, get in hit em, cloak, get out and so on.
Ummm, not when it's 5 seconds.
this is still a game....and no one should have that much of an advantage.
*ahems* The Enterprise Incident is pretty much proof to that deal; cloaking technology for ship designs?
*shrugs*
Back to the cloak issue, I just think it's a bad solution that focuses on having an exclusively romulan bridge crew. What about Reman characters? Reman captains wanting a whole Reman bridge crew? Or those people wanting to populate their bridge crew with liberated borgs?
Do they end up stuck with 40 second cooldown battlecloaks because they have different traits (like efficient, or Superior Telepathic/Mental Burst/Mental Discipline/Stubborn)?
That's why I stress the 'fix' to the point atassault brought up. It's a good point, but it's the wrong solution.
As I see it, the romulan racial trait needs to be defined as an advantage, other captain possibilities shouldn't be punished in the choice of using warbirds and not having a full-on Romulan crew. Also is the need to determine just how much bonus the Romulan racial trait should give: apparently shortening the cloak down to 5-6 seconds is too much, but shortening it down to 10-11 is fine.
From there, determine what the desired cap to the cooldown reduction should be (maybe a middleground of ~8 seconds?) and apply it.
An added bonus would be to provide the player with a way of determining how much investment in cloak cooldown reduction is too much. Perhaps list it in the trait itself in a "this reduces cloak cooldown by 1.5 seconds, down to a minimum of 8 seconds".
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
An added bonus would be to provide the player with a way of determining how much investment in cloak cooldown reduction is too much. Perhaps list it in the trait itself in a "this reduces cloak cooldown by 1.5 seconds, down to a minimum of 8 seconds".
...let the Canon debate rage about that. It's not a case of it being Fanon - as opposed to whether the book is Canon. It's usually the fans that argue that it's not while those that hold all the licenses/trademarks/copyrights say it is or do not deny it is. Funny how that works, eh?
I suspect the cloak change is just a 'testing the waters' experiment, but I have to say that is a pretty painful change.
I don't really mind the rapid cloaking - it comes with its own set of risks and tradeoffs - and lends to creating a unique playstyle for the Romulan faction. If it is really a 'problem' though, reducing bridge officer modifiers would be a far more sensible route. The problem with a change like this is that it makes the difference of having or not having an entirely romulan crew even more severe(taking away viable options instead of adding more choices for the player to make).
The battle cloak changes are really good so between kdf and romulan republic they both have their uniqueness.
The only thing tho I'm wanting to test that mega torpedo console tho to see if it helps out the enhanced battle cloak on T'varo because at the moment KDF doesn't have anything special that helps the b'rel be anymore more than an annoyance.
what's in the flotilla you can't get in the command center?
plasma weaponary
We are the Borg. Existence as you know it is over. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
Yeah I'd like to say about the cooldown for the battle cloak, bad idea, horrible idea, and just out right STUPID idea 30s like someone else said would have been fine, but in 40s the battle may very well be over making it of no use especially if you use it to get in the middle of your enemies
Edit: OK just tried it and at the 10s mark I had defeated ALL my opponents yeah, of no use
We are the Borg. Existence as you know it is over. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
doubled the romulan battle cloak recharge to 40sec? ouch lol
Yeah, not really sure about the thought process around this, seems to me that battle cloak was supposed to make up for big slow ships. Also, this is going to suck when talking to your boff next to you on the bridge pulls you out of cloak.
IF the cooldown change on the cloaking was done simply to fix the 5.5 cooldown time, I'd say they went in the wrong direction and should instead have looked at "diminishing returns" on stacking multiple cloak cooldown BOffs.
What I suspect it was for was to get a bit more variety in the ranges of Battle Cloak durations. So that those who said "Battle Cloak? Pfft, whatever" doesn't get full use of the cloak, while someone who wants to specialize in it gets full benefit.
40 sec for a non-specialist feels a little extreme, personally I'd go a bit shorter on the worst end (30 sec, maybe?) and then implement diminishing returns so that stacking multiple stealth traits adds just a little less each time.
As it was before, when people specialized to the max, it was awe inspiring; when people didn't bother to specialize at all, it was pretty darn okay.
IF the cooldown change on the cloaking was done simply to fix the 5.5 cooldown time, I'd say they went in the wrong direction and should instead have looked at "diminishing returns" on stacking multiple cloak cooldown BOffs.
What I suspect it was for was to get a bit more variety in the ranges of Battle Cloak durations. So that those who said "Battle Cloak? Pfft, whatever" doesn't get full use of the cloak, while someone who wants to specialize in it gets full benefit.
40 sec for a non-specialist feels a little extreme, personally I'd go a bit shorter on the worst end (30 sec, maybe?) and then implement diminishing returns so that stacking multiple stealth traits adds just a little less each time.
As it was before, when people specialized to the max, it was awe inspiring; when people didn't bother to specialize at all, it was pretty darn okay.
and how, pray tell do you specialize in cloak? actually I have been wondering that
We are the Borg. Existence as you know it is over. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
Comments
Problem will be solved when they do the same to KDF and Fed ships later on (I'm pretty sure that's coming since Romulans can use KDF ships from T1-4), so the Romulans get the faster cooldowns.
40 second cooldown on battle cloak is excessive. Granted 20 was a bit too short. 30 would be fine.
30 second cooldown on singularity powers is still pointless when you can't charge it for at least 40 seconds after you use it.
1. Padding cooldown times all over so to make the Romulans look like their racial benefits counts for something in comparison to other factions, while not making the end bonus 'overpowered'. End result, though, is that everyone's cloak ends up being affected and effectively gimped. A 40 second cooldown battlecloak has only tenuous ownership to that title.
2. Keep the cloak cooldown like it was, and instead alter the scope of the Romulan racial ability. That way, only one race is altered, rather than messing around with cloaking devices everywhere!
...
Personally, I thought the short cloaking cooldown times were acceptable. It did make Enhance Battle Cloaking redundant... but if you went and got a romulan bridge crew with all the right boosts to make that happen (rather than getting other advantages from other BOFFs)... why not? There was a caveat, with the singularity mechanic, already.
Or heck, if it goes too far, apply a diminishing return.
In any case, IMHO I think the whole cloak cooldown nerf is rather disingenious.
Ummm, not when it's 5 seconds.
this is still a game....and no one should have that much of an advantage.
That is fanon and wasn't stated on screen.
Ouch, ya, that could be problematic. Of course, aren't those abilities also available on the Embassy BOFFs?
*shrugs*
Back to the cloak issue, I just think it's a bad solution that focuses on having an exclusively romulan bridge crew. What about Reman characters? Reman captains wanting a whole Reman bridge crew? Or those people wanting to populate their bridge crew with liberated borgs?
Do they end up stuck with 40 second cooldown battlecloaks because they have different traits (like efficient, or Superior Telepathic/Mental Burst/Mental Discipline/Stubborn)?
That's why I stress the 'fix' to the point atassault brought up. It's a good point, but it's the wrong solution.
As I see it, the romulan racial trait needs to be defined as an advantage, other captain possibilities shouldn't be punished in the choice of using warbirds and not having a full-on Romulan crew. Also is the need to determine just how much bonus the Romulan racial trait should give: apparently shortening the cloak down to 5-6 seconds is too much, but shortening it down to 10-11 is fine.
From there, determine what the desired cap to the cooldown reduction should be (maybe a middleground of ~8 seconds?) and apply it.
An added bonus would be to provide the player with a way of determining how much investment in cloak cooldown reduction is too much. Perhaps list it in the trait itself in a "this reduces cloak cooldown by 1.5 seconds, down to a minimum of 8 seconds".
ROFL. Thanks for fixing, though. My Tribble has been unplayable since yesterday.
Just wondering, do the KDF have their own intro cutscene as well?
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
TNG Tech Manual...
...let the Canon debate rage about that. It's not a case of it being Fanon - as opposed to whether the book is Canon. It's usually the fans that argue that it's not while those that hold all the licenses/trademarks/copyrights say it is or do not deny it is. Funny how that works, eh?
I don't really mind the rapid cloaking - it comes with its own set of risks and tradeoffs - and lends to creating a unique playstyle for the Romulan faction. If it is really a 'problem' though, reducing bridge officer modifiers would be a far more sensible route. The problem with a change like this is that it makes the difference of having or not having an entirely romulan crew even more severe(taking away viable options instead of adding more choices for the player to make).
The only thing tho I'm wanting to test that mega torpedo console tho to see if it helps out the enhanced battle cloak on T'varo because at the moment KDF doesn't have anything special that helps the b'rel be anymore more than an annoyance.
plasma weaponary
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
yes this, command center seems to be bugged and carrying phaser and other fed weapons, I rarely go to the command for anything atm
Edit: OK just tried it and at the 10s mark I had defeated ALL my opponents yeah, of no use
Nor is the ship in your sig :P
(Couldn't help myself there)
[/SIGPIC]
Yes. Now.
tribble is back up
Charge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! onward to tribble
[/SIGPIC]
Yeah, not really sure about the thought process around this, seems to me that battle cloak was supposed to make up for big slow ships. Also, this is going to suck when talking to your boff next to you on the bridge pulls you out of cloak.
What I suspect it was for was to get a bit more variety in the ranges of Battle Cloak durations. So that those who said "Battle Cloak? Pfft, whatever" doesn't get full use of the cloak, while someone who wants to specialize in it gets full benefit.
40 sec for a non-specialist feels a little extreme, personally I'd go a bit shorter on the worst end (30 sec, maybe?) and then implement diminishing returns so that stacking multiple stealth traits adds just a little less each time.
As it was before, when people specialized to the max, it was awe inspiring; when people didn't bother to specialize at all, it was pretty darn okay.
and how, pray tell do you specialize in cloak? actually I have been wondering that