your talking pve which any brain dead monkey can do im talking pvp where every little bit counts and btw you do realise of course that singularity jumps you the direction your looking and puts the singularity at your position before jump other then the fact that in pvp most people are IMMUNE to control due to Attack pattern omega and polerize hull/dampners being a must have right?
what im saying is pve you can do pvp your not even close to being competitive i have been playing science since season 2 i know the combos what works what doesnt the only use for gravity well these days is npcs/fighters/decloaking and most of those there is a better option that's usually much faster(it involved stupid high dps that the devs miraculously gave to tacts)
and a tact rom isnt at as high a useless factor as a sci rom this is the main point even if you can control your enemy your damage won't be enough to do jack diddly to him and the longer time goes the more 1v1s or even 2v2s become impossible eventually i imagine you wont be able to do 5v5s anymore ither due to the power creep cryptic is putting out...
im asking for parity at least for the romulans im not asking for a silver spoon to feed me or a golden parachute the -10 to all subsystems digs way too deep it will lessen the effectiveness of your heals/tank/turning/speed/damage to a point where even a weak player could stomp on you skill be darned
the abilities you say to build around do basically NOTHING its why i also dont build around c-store ship consoles i build from base parts and skills the rest should be nothing more then sprinkles on top well the singularity abilities are spinkles made of dirt and its putting a bitter flavor in my mouth.
Firstly, warp core efficiency works off what the power is SET TO, not what it actually is. Meaning that a Romulan ship running 90/100, 40/50, 15/25, 15/25 gets no more benefit than a Fed ship running at 100/100, 50/50, 25/25, 25/25.
No TRIBBLE, really? Of course, not that it has anything to do with what I'm discussing, which is offsetting the singularity core penalty itself, not singularity core power comparative to Fed/KDF M/AM cores.
Secondly, 6 points in warp core efficiency equates to about 3 power when set at 25.
( Skill Level / 533.33) * ( 75 - Current Subsystem Power Setting )
This is the latest efficiency equation, as far as I know. Six points in WCE is 84 skill, which at 25 power setting gives +8, nearly completely offsetting the singularity core penalty at low power levels.
Thirdly, Romulan captains cant get Efficient Captain.
Last I checked, alien-gen will be playable and so will be liberated borg. Either get efficient captain.
Fourthly, there is currently no Romulan faction Boff that has the Efficient Trait.
Keyword, currently. The game's still in beta, you know. Romulans will invariably get their own liberated borg boff, Romulan-Feds will probably be able to have saurians, and Romulan-KDF will probably be able to have letheans, in the near future.
Actually now that I think of it, I think my Romulan-KDF has a lethean boff recruitment assignment on timer. Might be nausicaan, I can't remember offhand.
There is a way to effectively negate the penalty to power levels for Romulan ships.
This would be what I'm discussing. In no way am I discussing whether or not...
...you can do the same thing on Fed or KDF ships and end up with much better power levels.
Also, in edit, a postscript. Yeah, give it two months after the LoR metagame develops and people realize how ridiculously powerful quantum absorption is. Not many people will be flying around with a full singularity charge just for the sake of power levels.
Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:
That's the tradeoff for those oh so wonderful singularity powers your romulan ship has.
I can't speak for any one else, but I don't find the singularity powers to be wonderful on any level. The slow build up and long dead period after using them makes them the farthest thing in the world from being dynamic.
Giving up 40 power is an extreme cost that isn't justified by an occasional use of a flashy power. In order for the powers to justify the lack of fun otherwise, they'd have to basically be "I WIN" buttons, which of course is also a bad idea.
If they want to make singularity powers/cores attractive then one or more of the following:
1) Get rid of the "dead" period after using a singularity power. The loss of the accumulated charge should be the penalty for using the power, not the loss of any benefit from the warp core. Any time you're in combat, the core is charging, and you simply decide when it's at a high enough level and/or the situation calls for using it.
If you want to make it a binary on/off thing then instead do this:
2) Singularity powers can be used any time the core is on line. They don't "charge up" they're just available or unavailable. There's no base penalty to the power level of romulan ships, but after they use a singularity power, their power levels drop -40 for 30 second or a minute or however long it takes for the core to recharge. Maybe have power levels come back up gradually, but the singularity powers aren't available until the full -40 penalty has worn off. Maybe even allow things like Siphon Power to speed this recharge up.
One or the other. Either a warp core is a thing that charges up until it can be used for some purpose, or it's a thing that can normally be used, but becomes "exhausted" temporarily. You cannot have this "Start with a penalty, slowly raise yourself out of that penalty, then use a power to put yourself back in queue before you can start raising yourself out of the penalty" garbage mechanic.
It's not fun, it's not dynamic, it's a gimmick for people who like having a big flashing "I win" button on their screen. When people figure out that the "I win" button either does or does not work consistently, some one (either Romulan players or non-Romulan players) are going to be pissed.
I just love how everyone is "PvP is difficult PvE is soooo easy!!!!" and then the only proposal that ever comes up is "let's just ditch the new system so we can fly our existing ships with new skins!"
Sorry guys, go back to your PvP in your Fed/Klink ships...it doesn't matter what you're flying if you insist that they all behave exactly the same way.
...or MAYBE you could start suggesting things to make PvP not all about pure DPS? No, we gotta "fix" (i.e. remove) anything new that might shake things up instead...
(oh, also, there was absolutely no point in breaking this away from the main ship/singularity thread because it's exactly what people have been whining about from the beginning.)
and they want to be uppity about romulans paying for advantages do you see an advantage in 2000damage+4000dmg dot(dot will be cleared as soon as you put it there
teleporting 5kms forwards leaving behind a less than glorified gravity well sure it does stuff to the enemy while they are within range of it for a second or so before they tear you up with your minimal power levels.
gaining 2k shield per facing and some extra hull that will just like the other 30-50k of your hull go poof in an alpha strike
i have no complaints about the BO knockoff but since its based on your weapon damage(thats going to be lower then normal) its not going to be impressive
and finally the most useless one send out clones of yourself and then sometime after they disappear you get a soft cloak. you will be tractored well before it happens due to them expecting it
these worth losing -10 across the board never mind the cloak.
if anything this will reinforce the decloak alpha tacts as the only viable romulans and you would be far more efficient going klingon as you can put some nasty tricks on that that are worth more to escape such as a jam etc etc...viral etc etc all while having the firepower of a deathstar
again to the point of the thread make them optional they are gimmicks and the other ships gimmicks are optional and hell they didnt nerf the vesta cause it could pop a green heal bubble so why nerf the romulans?
P.S.
if cryptic wanted thigns to be diffrent they would bring science back up to usefulness make tacts do their own thing not buffing that etc they dotn want diffrent they want MONEY
they keep telling us science that oh this is the buff you been asking for blah blah blah these abilities might be sciency but they are not a buff they are not even any better then what we already have.
And this is EXACTLY why I've argued that leech should not be brought over. Because as it is now, Federation Romulans will come up with innovative, creative builds, while Klink Romulans will just run to the leech and rebuild their cookie-cutter prefab ships.
it's really cute the way you think there's going to be "innovation" when the mechanics of how the singularity powers work really hamstrings the ability to use them in any dynamic way.
Can't use them dropping out of cloak as a secondary alpha, can't use them back to back, can't use them without first charging up (and they won't be effective unless they've charged up for quite awhile) and then when you do use them, long dead period where you're at -10 all power levels with no compensating benefit.
It's fine that singularity powers have a cost, or that Romulans play "different" than the rest, but slapping on a very clunky "Win Button" mechanic and then a large penalty to general performance is not really making them more dynamic, if anything it's making them more focused on just surviving long enough to get the "money shot" then back to being under powered.
I just love how everyone is "PvP is difficult PvE is soooo easy!!!!" and then the only proposal that ever comes up is "let's just ditch the new system so we can fly our existing ships with new skins!"
I don't PvP at all, and I still think the Singularity core/powers are really lousy once you get past the initial "Wow!" factor.
However, I do sympathize with those who are going to be affected by it just as much as (or more than) I am.
Regardless of what's done or not done with PvP, it's always going to be more sensitive to imbalance than PvE is.
i will end up not making a romulan i have a klingon it gets more romulan style play from the bop then a romulan warbird does its gimp is a rightly earned one it pays health for turnrate and the ability to cloak.
the abilities in their current form are nothing spectacular and we pay for them with cores that don't do the following
A>W,+5maximum powerlevel,+5powerlevel
isntead we get things that buff these abilities and if we wait 2minuts buff 1 powerlevel
is that not balanced in its own right?
and yes the cloak must have a balancing factor -5power fine thats acceptable
TLDR
warp core diffrences aught to count in the balancing debate fix it by understanding we are already at a dissadvantage and remove half of the power nerf
Ugh alright going to go against my own rules here.
Hyouki, you are dead wrong. Yes the powers bring in a new type of gameplay, but the powers are vastly underpowered. With the exception of quantum absorption they're useless in elite, and pretty much useless in standard pve. They're also useless in PVP because any real person can easily get around them.
Now if they were 2-3 times as powerful, then i would be agreeing with you. but they're not.
Power levels mean EVERYTHING. Not having enough power means enemies will rip through your shields, you won't be able to manuver as much. science captains won't have enough power to use their abilities to their maximum level, and you either sacrifice survivability or DPS.
Now this is why i made this topic, to figure out a solution that had nothing to do with the ships or powers themselves but to take the core mechanic and use it to make them even and also lessen the damage on romulans.
Wanted to say sometihng to Hyouki, but cause bascially everything was already said i deleted it again. I took to long to write it.
But i would supportteh idea that we should get Singularity cores taht give us higher basepower instad of the singularity abilities, so everyone is happy.
Ppl like Hyouki can keep their singularity abilities which tehy think are useful, and the otehrs can take the higher powerlvls instead.
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they could add a toggle option to enable singularity core overcharging to enable the singularity abilities the effect of it being on would drain -5 from all subsytems while maintaining the cloaks systems would take the other 5
I agree that the power penalty is just way too huge to be worthwhile for the singularity powers/battle cloak. How about they just nerf the quantum absorption powers and go back to -5 and we call it a day...
So now maybe can we get back to the original discussion, changing the actual core item to be more on par with the warp core.
I'd really like some thoughts on my concept which i personally do feel is sound, balanced and should be applied ASAP.
The two topics are inextricably linked and can't be discussed independent from one another, as Cryptic/PWE has made it clear the innate -40 power on warbirds is due to singularity powers, the singularity core item is intended to capitalize on the singularity charge mechanic and further offset singularity cores' innate lower power, and warp cores are intended to keep Fed/KDF ships on parity with RRF ships in terms of item count and versatility.
Tweaks to singularity cores, the singularity core items, or warp core items, or their respective mechanics, is going to affect the comparative power of the other(s). This is clear enough in your own posts when you discuss the balance of singularity cores' interaction with singularity charge, compared to warp core default performance.
So, yes, to what you refer as tangential is entirely germane to the conversation.
Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:
Yes the powers bring in a new type of gameplay, but the powers are vastly underpowered. With the exception of quantum absorption they're useless in elite, and pretty much useless in standard pve. They're also useless in PVP because any real person can easily get around them.
Funny thing is, compare them side-by-side with their (roughly) analogous science powers, and the singularity powers win out almost every time. Plasma shockwave combines the best aspects of PSW and CPB, and has almost double the AE. QA's one of the best damn heal/mitigation powers in the game. Warp shadow (at least for PvE where aggro matters) knocks the socks off jam and scramble sensors. Singularity jump has a silly number of tactical applications and synergy with mines, PBAoE, and area-denial AE's. Singularity overcharge...yeah. Too much of a buff to singularity powers, without first buffing science powers, would have science captains like me out with the torches and pitchforks howling for blood.
Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:
The two topics are inextricably linked and can't be discussed independent from one another, as Cryptic/PWE has made it clear the innate -40 power on warbirds is due to singularity powers, the singularity core item is intended to capitalize on the singularity charge mechanic and further offset singularity cores' innate lower power, and warp cores are intended to keep Fed/KDF ships on parity with RRF ships in terms of item count and versatility.
Tweaks to singularity cores, the singularity core items, or warp core items, or their respective mechanics, is going to affect the comparative power of the other(s). This is clear enough in your own posts when you discuss the balance of singularity cores' interaction with singularity charge, compared to warp core default performance.
So, yes, to what you refer as tangential is entirely germane to the conversation.
True, but theres nothing were going to do about the -40 power or the singularity powers. Devs have made that pretty clear. But when you compare the actual core items there is a huge difference between them. Warp gives tons of free power and Singularity pretty much gives nothing unless you have a max charge, but keeping that max charge means not using your singularity abilities, so then whats the point of the abilities if your never going to use them?
Hence why at this point i just tossed out my plan to balance them and not have the core item rely on the charge which means that people just won't use the powers, and make no mistake, that IS whats going to happen.
Funny thing is, compare them side-by-side with their (roughly) analogous science powers, and the singularity powers win out almost every time. Plasma shockwave combines the best aspects of PSW and CPB, and has almost double the AE. QA's one of the best damn heal/mitigation powers in the game. Warp shadow (at least for PvE where aggro matters) knocks the socks off jam and scramble sensors. Singularity jump has a silly number of tactical applications and synergy with mines, PBAoE, and area-denial AE's. Singularity overcharge...yeah. Too much of a buff to singularity powers, without first buffing science powers, would have science captains like me out with the torches and pitchforks howling for blood.
True all around, but still very situational and plasma shockwave's damage and dot is terrible. my elite scorpions do more damage than the shockwave, at least from what i can tell.
No doubt that QA is a great power, it's actually the ONLY power i've used in 2 romulan characters up to 35 and i know it'll save my TRIBBLE in STFS. I don't think it's worth -40 power though.
And same with the rest, don't think any are worth -40, and i don't think they're all worth -40. -20 sure. and maybe -10 to weapons and -10 to aux. but the -40 is just too damn high.
Hence the idea to change the core. flat +10 to one power and +7.5% to another power same as warp cores. That would only bring one system to fed/kdf base, and another system only up about 8 (using 125 weapon to shields on my fed) so you still have -22 power.
theodrim if the huge nerfs last year didnt get you howling this isnt gona make a diffrence you should be howling considering the ha'nom is a useles peace of junk its a tactical based sci with 110wep power capable without gutting your science abilities points to get to that power...not to mention it also guts your aux bonus from the ship to 5...yea good luck being able to setup a dps more then around 2.4k with that ship(even though it has cannons O_o)
again they need to make the singularity abilities optional and allows to avoid the power gutting that comes with it
or buff the engineering power+ consoles a bit(or alot)
After playing a few more hours on tribble last night I am seeing how this power penalty is way to high for abilities with long cooldowns. They are ok, but nothing really gamechanging, a -5 to all powerlevels would be much more reasonable.
guess im just going to hope that more romulans will complain and this gets adressed after launch cause they are in a finalization stage atm by the looks of that last patch...
Yup. I went and played a bit and i noticed that with 48/30 shield power, my shields weren't regenerating. at least they sure didn't seem to be.
But your right. if enough people play and complain they may change it later.
I have a feeling that they're going to go back to -20 power eventually. Or maybe take up my core idea.
*edit*
Also still leaning towards going plasma to get +9.6% damage from the infused console and +7.6% from the 2 piece reputation. i could lower my weapon power a bit and move that power over to shields and engines.
Tetryon also gets a +7.6% boost as well with the nukara item.
yea the systems bad -5 managble that would be 90/30/30/30 instead of 85/25/25/25 btw you cant get them lower than 25 so at best your screwed....at worst your just a sitting duck for drain...yup im goign to do everything i can to target rommy birds with siphoning just to turn them into sitting ducks instead of a proud hawk they should be
they need to at worst make it 180 at best case make it completly optional and make it 180 if oyu have the abilities enabled
A more intelligent fix would be to reduce the cooldown and make each power use X charge from the Core.
The level 1 power recharges at say every 30 seconds and drops the charge level by 1.
The level 2 power recharges every 45 seconds and drops the charge by 2 levels.
The level 3 power recharges every 60 Seconds and drops the charge by 3 levels.
The level 4 power recharges every 75 seconds and drops the charge by 4 levels.
The level 5 power rechages every 90 seconds and drops the charge by 5 levels.
Make the Powers actual effectiveness run off your skills and the Trait.
This makes the powers more useful and makes them even out more with a warp core powered ship. Also gives Romulan Science and Engineer characters a buff with thier new found stronger SC powers...
yea the systems bad -5 managble that would be 90/30/30/30 instead of 85/25/25/25 btw you cant get them lower than 25 so at best your screwed....at worst your just a sitting duck for drain...yup im goign to do everything i can to target rommy birds with siphoning just to turn them into sitting ducks instead of a proud hawk they should be
they need to at worst make it 180 at best case make it completly optional and make it 180 if oyu have the abilities enabled
You actually can get them to go to 15, if you set weapons, shields, or engines at least 2 drop to 15. then you can go into manual settings and lock it there. Thats the only way to do it though. if you try to manually lower it to 15 won't work.
bear in mind that when the warp cores and singularities came out, the Singularity cores were considered overpowered!
All this talk of nerfing warp cores doesn't solve the underlying problem and is detrimental to synergy of fed ship dynamics...
I for one, don't believe the warp cores are op since there are 2 different stats on it that contradict each other. On one hand you have power cap stat raised to 130 which is not bad but its only a slight increase. On the other hand, you have a % bonus power that gets boosted if you have low power in that system. The contradiction is if you want to run 130 power setting then you will not benefit since you won't get a % bonus power since you're running high power... and vice versa (if you want to get % bonus power by running that subsystem at low levels, then you won't benefit having 130 cap) For example, I want to run 130 auxiliary power and since that warp core gives me a % bonus power to aux levels if i run low auxiliary power but cannot since I am running at 130.
To me that's either an design flaw (oversight) or a serious drawback to to balance warp cores to ensure that they don't even begin to marginally be considered overpowered!
Either way, warp cores are fine where they are and do not need a nerf whatsover ...if anything they need a slight buff
I'm not talking about nerfing warp cores, i'm talking about putting the singularity cores on the same level. I haven't mentioned a single change for warp cores. you should reread my first post.
Warp cores are great and perfect as is, they also give +5 to one system, a +5 max and +7.5% to another system which if you use weapons to X will give most people +8. So you get an always on +13 power. Also you can have these go to multiple systems. my warp core on tribble gives me +5 to auxiliary and +7.5% to shields.
Romulans? +5. a max of +15 but only with a full charge, and only to one system. and maintaining that full charge means you can't use your abilties.
So my plan is to give romulans a +10 to one system, not dependent on charge level. and it's +10 instead of +5 because romulans already get -10 power so this simply brings them to fed/kdf levels and fed/kdf gets +5 to that system.
Then add in the 7.5% power to power abilitiy which could bring +8 to another system. So thats a possible +18 max power to two systems, 5 more than federation, but romulans will still have -22 max power.
Stuff that adds power is irrelevant. Sure, it mitigates the lower warbird power, but it also helps non-warbirds. Warbirds still start lower.
The even bigger issue is the change that just went in which made it a new lower base level instead of a penalty. THAT matters, because you can't SET levels below 25.
So now, you cannot get (base) weapon power to 100. Double whammy, since all those [W->x] cores now help you less.
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Comments
what im saying is pve you can do pvp your not even close to being competitive i have been playing science since season 2 i know the combos what works what doesnt the only use for gravity well these days is npcs/fighters/decloaking and most of those there is a better option that's usually much faster(it involved stupid high dps that the devs miraculously gave to tacts)
and a tact rom isnt at as high a useless factor as a sci rom this is the main point even if you can control your enemy your damage won't be enough to do jack diddly to him and the longer time goes the more 1v1s or even 2v2s become impossible eventually i imagine you wont be able to do 5v5s anymore ither due to the power creep cryptic is putting out...
im asking for parity at least for the romulans im not asking for a silver spoon to feed me or a golden parachute the -10 to all subsystems digs way too deep it will lessen the effectiveness of your heals/tank/turning/speed/damage to a point where even a weak player could stomp on you skill be darned
the abilities you say to build around do basically NOTHING its why i also dont build around c-store ship consoles i build from base parts and skills the rest should be nothing more then sprinkles on top well the singularity abilities are spinkles made of dirt and its putting a bitter flavor in my mouth.
( Skill Level / 533.33) * ( 75 - Current Subsystem Power Setting )
This is the latest efficiency equation, as far as I know. Six points in WCE is 84 skill, which at 25 power setting gives +8, nearly completely offsetting the singularity core penalty at low power levels.
Last I checked, alien-gen will be playable and so will be liberated borg. Either get efficient captain.
Keyword, currently. The game's still in beta, you know. Romulans will invariably get their own liberated borg boff, Romulan-Feds will probably be able to have saurians, and Romulan-KDF will probably be able to have letheans, in the near future.
Actually now that I think of it, I think my Romulan-KDF has a lethean boff recruitment assignment on timer. Might be nausicaan, I can't remember offhand.
This would be what I'm discussing. In no way am I discussing whether or not...
Also, in edit, a postscript. Yeah, give it two months after the LoR metagame develops and people realize how ridiculously powerful quantum absorption is. Not many people will be flying around with a full singularity charge just for the sake of power levels.
Spock's Brain.
I can't speak for any one else, but I don't find the singularity powers to be wonderful on any level. The slow build up and long dead period after using them makes them the farthest thing in the world from being dynamic.
Giving up 40 power is an extreme cost that isn't justified by an occasional use of a flashy power. In order for the powers to justify the lack of fun otherwise, they'd have to basically be "I WIN" buttons, which of course is also a bad idea.
If they want to make singularity powers/cores attractive then one or more of the following:
1) Get rid of the "dead" period after using a singularity power. The loss of the accumulated charge should be the penalty for using the power, not the loss of any benefit from the warp core. Any time you're in combat, the core is charging, and you simply decide when it's at a high enough level and/or the situation calls for using it.
If you want to make it a binary on/off thing then instead do this:
2) Singularity powers can be used any time the core is on line. They don't "charge up" they're just available or unavailable. There's no base penalty to the power level of romulan ships, but after they use a singularity power, their power levels drop -40 for 30 second or a minute or however long it takes for the core to recharge. Maybe have power levels come back up gradually, but the singularity powers aren't available until the full -40 penalty has worn off. Maybe even allow things like Siphon Power to speed this recharge up.
One or the other. Either a warp core is a thing that charges up until it can be used for some purpose, or it's a thing that can normally be used, but becomes "exhausted" temporarily. You cannot have this "Start with a penalty, slowly raise yourself out of that penalty, then use a power to put yourself back in queue before you can start raising yourself out of the penalty" garbage mechanic.
It's not fun, it's not dynamic, it's a gimmick for people who like having a big flashing "I win" button on their screen. When people figure out that the "I win" button either does or does not work consistently, some one (either Romulan players or non-Romulan players) are going to be pissed.
If You Want To Talk About The Ships Themselves, Go Back In The Ship/singularity Topic.
Sorry guys, go back to your PvP in your Fed/Klink ships...it doesn't matter what you're flying if you insist that they all behave exactly the same way.
...or MAYBE you could start suggesting things to make PvP not all about pure DPS? No, we gotta "fix" (i.e. remove) anything new that might shake things up instead...
(oh, also, there was absolutely no point in breaking this away from the main ship/singularity thread because it's exactly what people have been whining about from the beginning.)
teleporting 5kms forwards leaving behind a less than glorified gravity well sure it does stuff to the enemy while they are within range of it for a second or so before they tear you up with your minimal power levels.
gaining 2k shield per facing and some extra hull that will just like the other 30-50k of your hull go poof in an alpha strike
i have no complaints about the BO knockoff but since its based on your weapon damage(thats going to be lower then normal) its not going to be impressive
and finally the most useless one send out clones of yourself and then sometime after they disappear you get a soft cloak. you will be tractored well before it happens due to them expecting it
these worth losing -10 across the board never mind the cloak.
if anything this will reinforce the decloak alpha tacts as the only viable romulans and you would be far more efficient going klingon as you can put some nasty tricks on that that are worth more to escape such as a jam etc etc...viral etc etc all while having the firepower of a deathstar
again to the point of the thread make them optional they are gimmicks and the other ships gimmicks are optional and hell they didnt nerf the vesta cause it could pop a green heal bubble so why nerf the romulans?
P.S.
if cryptic wanted thigns to be diffrent they would bring science back up to usefulness make tacts do their own thing not buffing that etc they dotn want diffrent they want MONEY
they keep telling us science that oh this is the buff you been asking for blah blah blah these abilities might be sciency but they are not a buff they are not even any better then what we already have.
it's really cute the way you think there's going to be "innovation" when the mechanics of how the singularity powers work really hamstrings the ability to use them in any dynamic way.
Can't use them dropping out of cloak as a secondary alpha, can't use them back to back, can't use them without first charging up (and they won't be effective unless they've charged up for quite awhile) and then when you do use them, long dead period where you're at -10 all power levels with no compensating benefit.
It's fine that singularity powers have a cost, or that Romulans play "different" than the rest, but slapping on a very clunky "Win Button" mechanic and then a large penalty to general performance is not really making them more dynamic, if anything it's making them more focused on just surviving long enough to get the "money shot" then back to being under powered.
I don't PvP at all, and I still think the Singularity core/powers are really lousy once you get past the initial "Wow!" factor.
However, I do sympathize with those who are going to be affected by it just as much as (or more than) I am.
Regardless of what's done or not done with PvP, it's always going to be more sensitive to imbalance than PvE is.
the abilities in their current form are nothing spectacular and we pay for them with cores that don't do the following
A>W,+5maximum powerlevel,+5powerlevel
isntead we get things that buff these abilities and if we wait 2minuts buff 1 powerlevel
is that not balanced in its own right?
and yes the cloak must have a balancing factor -5power fine thats acceptable
TLDR
warp core diffrences aught to count in the balancing debate fix it by understanding we are already at a dissadvantage and remove half of the power nerf
Hyouki, you are dead wrong. Yes the powers bring in a new type of gameplay, but the powers are vastly underpowered. With the exception of quantum absorption they're useless in elite, and pretty much useless in standard pve. They're also useless in PVP because any real person can easily get around them.
Now if they were 2-3 times as powerful, then i would be agreeing with you. but they're not.
Power levels mean EVERYTHING. Not having enough power means enemies will rip through your shields, you won't be able to manuver as much. science captains won't have enough power to use their abilities to their maximum level, and you either sacrifice survivability or DPS.
Now this is why i made this topic, to figure out a solution that had nothing to do with the ships or powers themselves but to take the core mechanic and use it to make them even and also lessen the damage on romulans.
But i would supportteh idea that we should get Singularity cores taht give us higher basepower instad of the singularity abilities, so everyone is happy.
Ppl like Hyouki can keep their singularity abilities which tehy think are useful, and the otehrs can take the higher powerlvls instead.
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class / R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer
U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit
TheWiseGuys
I'd really like some thoughts on my concept which i personally do feel is sound, balanced and should be applied ASAP.
The two topics are inextricably linked and can't be discussed independent from one another, as Cryptic/PWE has made it clear the innate -40 power on warbirds is due to singularity powers, the singularity core item is intended to capitalize on the singularity charge mechanic and further offset singularity cores' innate lower power, and warp cores are intended to keep Fed/KDF ships on parity with RRF ships in terms of item count and versatility.
Tweaks to singularity cores, the singularity core items, or warp core items, or their respective mechanics, is going to affect the comparative power of the other(s). This is clear enough in your own posts when you discuss the balance of singularity cores' interaction with singularity charge, compared to warp core default performance.
So, yes, to what you refer as tangential is entirely germane to the conversation.
Spock's Brain.
Funny thing is, compare them side-by-side with their (roughly) analogous science powers, and the singularity powers win out almost every time. Plasma shockwave combines the best aspects of PSW and CPB, and has almost double the AE. QA's one of the best damn heal/mitigation powers in the game. Warp shadow (at least for PvE where aggro matters) knocks the socks off jam and scramble sensors. Singularity jump has a silly number of tactical applications and synergy with mines, PBAoE, and area-denial AE's. Singularity overcharge...yeah. Too much of a buff to singularity powers, without first buffing science powers, would have science captains like me out with the torches and pitchforks howling for blood.
Spock's Brain.
True, but theres nothing were going to do about the -40 power or the singularity powers. Devs have made that pretty clear. But when you compare the actual core items there is a huge difference between them. Warp gives tons of free power and Singularity pretty much gives nothing unless you have a max charge, but keeping that max charge means not using your singularity abilities, so then whats the point of the abilities if your never going to use them?
Hence why at this point i just tossed out my plan to balance them and not have the core item rely on the charge which means that people just won't use the powers, and make no mistake, that IS whats going to happen.
True all around, but still very situational and plasma shockwave's damage and dot is terrible. my elite scorpions do more damage than the shockwave, at least from what i can tell.
No doubt that QA is a great power, it's actually the ONLY power i've used in 2 romulan characters up to 35 and i know it'll save my TRIBBLE in STFS. I don't think it's worth -40 power though.
And same with the rest, don't think any are worth -40, and i don't think they're all worth -40. -20 sure. and maybe -10 to weapons and -10 to aux. but the -40 is just too damn high.
Hence the idea to change the core. flat +10 to one power and +7.5% to another power same as warp cores. That would only bring one system to fed/kdf base, and another system only up about 8 (using 125 weapon to shields on my fed) so you still have -22 power.
again they need to make the singularity abilities optional and allows to avoid the power gutting that comes with it
or buff the engineering power+ consoles a bit(or alot)
But your right. if enough people play and complain they may change it later.
I have a feeling that they're going to go back to -20 power eventually. Or maybe take up my core idea.
*edit*
Also still leaning towards going plasma to get +9.6% damage from the infused console and +7.6% from the 2 piece reputation. i could lower my weapon power a bit and move that power over to shields and engines.
Tetryon also gets a +7.6% boost as well with the nukara item.
they need to at worst make it 180 at best case make it completly optional and make it 180 if oyu have the abilities enabled
The level 1 power recharges at say every 30 seconds and drops the charge level by 1.
The level 2 power recharges every 45 seconds and drops the charge by 2 levels.
The level 3 power recharges every 60 Seconds and drops the charge by 3 levels.
The level 4 power recharges every 75 seconds and drops the charge by 4 levels.
The level 5 power rechages every 90 seconds and drops the charge by 5 levels.
Make the Powers actual effectiveness run off your skills and the Trait.
This makes the powers more useful and makes them even out more with a warp core powered ship. Also gives Romulan Science and Engineer characters a buff with thier new found stronger SC powers...
You actually can get them to go to 15, if you set weapons, shields, or engines at least 2 drop to 15. then you can go into manual settings and lock it there. Thats the only way to do it though. if you try to manually lower it to 15 won't work.
I'm not talking about nerfing warp cores, i'm talking about putting the singularity cores on the same level. I haven't mentioned a single change for warp cores. you should reread my first post.
Warp cores are great and perfect as is, they also give +5 to one system, a +5 max and +7.5% to another system which if you use weapons to X will give most people +8. So you get an always on +13 power. Also you can have these go to multiple systems. my warp core on tribble gives me +5 to auxiliary and +7.5% to shields.
Romulans? +5. a max of +15 but only with a full charge, and only to one system. and maintaining that full charge means you can't use your abilties.
So my plan is to give romulans a +10 to one system, not dependent on charge level. and it's +10 instead of +5 because romulans already get -10 power so this simply brings them to fed/kdf levels and fed/kdf gets +5 to that system.
Then add in the 7.5% power to power abilitiy which could bring +8 to another system. So thats a possible +18 max power to two systems, 5 more than federation, but romulans will still have -22 max power.
The even bigger issue is the change that just went in which made it a new lower base level instead of a penalty. THAT matters, because you can't SET levels below 25.
So now, you cannot get (base) weapon power to 100. Double whammy, since all those [W->x] cores now help you less.
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