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PVP Wonderings about defensive balances
webdeath
Member Posts: 1,570 Arc User
With all these threads roaming around, one thing started to make me wonder. Are the ways to avoid damage in PVP balanced?
And, are there any that probably need work, in space at least?
People complain that healing is overpowered, or damage is over powered, but is the basics that heals and damage try to get past underpowered so bad that heals and damage has to be "overpowered"?
What I mean is, when you look at the following below, which of these do you even feel works in PVP, and what doesn't?
Shield Resists vs incoming damage
Hull Resists vs incoming damage and bleed through
Innate regeneration via Crew vs damage
Speed Tanking/Defense
Some times I wonder why our heals have to be so high. Currently, Shield heals and resist powers work fine. Emergency Power to Shields can keep your shields tough, so can Transfer shield strength. And Science Fleet II can help give your shields a resistance to damage they might sorely need. But could this be too high? Maybe it should be built into each type of shield to make each type of shield valuable in their own way?
For example, Covariant shields, perhaps should have a higher shield damage resistance since their recharge is lower then other shields, with Regeneration shields having a lower resistance because of their ability to recharge faster, leaving regular shields as the neutral point. Hmm..
Hull heals also have their areas where they are so high and yet damage never seems to be reduced as much as I would expect it to. I mean don't get me wrong, it does work. But I wonder if perhaps it should work better so that we could tone down healing and damage to more manageable levels? Now I'm not saying that everyone should be tank gods, and no one should die. Because this is PVP. And we should be able to kill each other! But I do wonder if perhaps another problem with PVP is that the hull resists don't work as well as they should in order to help tone down healing.
Then I look at innate recovery via Crew... And that is one of the most confusing and often never seeming to work ability where PVP is concerned. Is there even a way to make this work better? Is it even possible to make a ship able to use this effect and not bring a heal with them with out combining hull resists? And how often do we, in pvp, see the crew number above the all dead/injured area? I always wondered when this mechanic would get some love.. Because while Hull heals, Hull Resists, Shield Heals, and Shield Resists seem to work fine but could possibly need tweaking one way or another.. Innate Regen is the one defensive effect that almost seems 100% completely broken.
And then we come to the one defense that escorts love, and some times makes me wonder if it is working TOO well: Speed Tanking. And it doesn't help that Escorts can not only bring this defense out to it's best, they can almost also Shield heal, Shield Resist, Hull Heal, and Hull resist to points that, if you are doing it right (Which a majority of the "Bug" ship pilots seem to do) you can become a god that makes me wonder if there isn't something broken.
Perhaps in the current scheme of things, each ship class should be only able to focus exclusively on one specific defense as being able to excel in it?
Currently of course most of the time this is true. Science ships are great at shield healing thanks to Transfer Shield Strength. But this can get stepped on by a Cruiser with Extend Shields. Especially a science orientated Odyssey that has TSS 3 + Extend 3.
Then you have ships like the Jem'Hadar bug that can speed tank, and bring enough Shield heals, and hull heals to make it next to impossible for a single individual to bring them down with out a long and drawn out fight.
Finally, we have Gear and Reputation effects that further blur the line of how well a ship should be able to do it's role on a defensive end of the spectrum.
So, that brings me to something I wonder.. Should ships ability's and effects be toned and based on the ship they are attached to?
Where the following would be true:
Escort/Raider based ships: Any thing that increases Defense, makes it higher, but Shield and hull Heals as well as resistances are much lower. (25% less effective)
Cruiser/battle Cruiser based ships: Hull Resistance and Hull heals are increased, but Shield Heals and Defense based effects are lower (25% Less effective)
Science Ship/Carrier based ships: Shield healing and resistance based effects are increased, but Hull heals, Resistances, and Defense effects are lower (25% less effective)
Warbirds would be in the catagory they best fit in.. Such as the D'D being in the Cruiser department, the Ha'nom in the Science ship Department. Any ship with a Hanger would be in the Carrier department unless classified as such (Escort Carrier for example, is an Escort).
What about the PVP Community as a whole? Do you feel the game mechanics surrounding Shield Heals and Resists, Hull Heals and Resists, Innate Regeneration, and Defense are all working as intended? Or is there something you feel should be changed?
What about the Idea of ship classes determining how powerful a Boff skill effect can be?
You've heard my thoughts.. so discuss!
And, are there any that probably need work, in space at least?
People complain that healing is overpowered, or damage is over powered, but is the basics that heals and damage try to get past underpowered so bad that heals and damage has to be "overpowered"?
What I mean is, when you look at the following below, which of these do you even feel works in PVP, and what doesn't?
Shield Resists vs incoming damage
Hull Resists vs incoming damage and bleed through
Innate regeneration via Crew vs damage
Speed Tanking/Defense
Some times I wonder why our heals have to be so high. Currently, Shield heals and resist powers work fine. Emergency Power to Shields can keep your shields tough, so can Transfer shield strength. And Science Fleet II can help give your shields a resistance to damage they might sorely need. But could this be too high? Maybe it should be built into each type of shield to make each type of shield valuable in their own way?
For example, Covariant shields, perhaps should have a higher shield damage resistance since their recharge is lower then other shields, with Regeneration shields having a lower resistance because of their ability to recharge faster, leaving regular shields as the neutral point. Hmm..
Hull heals also have their areas where they are so high and yet damage never seems to be reduced as much as I would expect it to. I mean don't get me wrong, it does work. But I wonder if perhaps it should work better so that we could tone down healing and damage to more manageable levels? Now I'm not saying that everyone should be tank gods, and no one should die. Because this is PVP. And we should be able to kill each other! But I do wonder if perhaps another problem with PVP is that the hull resists don't work as well as they should in order to help tone down healing.
Then I look at innate recovery via Crew... And that is one of the most confusing and often never seeming to work ability where PVP is concerned. Is there even a way to make this work better? Is it even possible to make a ship able to use this effect and not bring a heal with them with out combining hull resists? And how often do we, in pvp, see the crew number above the all dead/injured area? I always wondered when this mechanic would get some love.. Because while Hull heals, Hull Resists, Shield Heals, and Shield Resists seem to work fine but could possibly need tweaking one way or another.. Innate Regen is the one defensive effect that almost seems 100% completely broken.
And then we come to the one defense that escorts love, and some times makes me wonder if it is working TOO well: Speed Tanking. And it doesn't help that Escorts can not only bring this defense out to it's best, they can almost also Shield heal, Shield Resist, Hull Heal, and Hull resist to points that, if you are doing it right (Which a majority of the "Bug" ship pilots seem to do) you can become a god that makes me wonder if there isn't something broken.
Perhaps in the current scheme of things, each ship class should be only able to focus exclusively on one specific defense as being able to excel in it?
Currently of course most of the time this is true. Science ships are great at shield healing thanks to Transfer Shield Strength. But this can get stepped on by a Cruiser with Extend Shields. Especially a science orientated Odyssey that has TSS 3 + Extend 3.
Then you have ships like the Jem'Hadar bug that can speed tank, and bring enough Shield heals, and hull heals to make it next to impossible for a single individual to bring them down with out a long and drawn out fight.
Finally, we have Gear and Reputation effects that further blur the line of how well a ship should be able to do it's role on a defensive end of the spectrum.
So, that brings me to something I wonder.. Should ships ability's and effects be toned and based on the ship they are attached to?
Where the following would be true:
Escort/Raider based ships: Any thing that increases Defense, makes it higher, but Shield and hull Heals as well as resistances are much lower. (25% less effective)
Cruiser/battle Cruiser based ships: Hull Resistance and Hull heals are increased, but Shield Heals and Defense based effects are lower (25% Less effective)
Science Ship/Carrier based ships: Shield healing and resistance based effects are increased, but Hull heals, Resistances, and Defense effects are lower (25% less effective)
Warbirds would be in the catagory they best fit in.. Such as the D'D being in the Cruiser department, the Ha'nom in the Science ship Department. Any ship with a Hanger would be in the Carrier department unless classified as such (Escort Carrier for example, is an Escort).
What about the PVP Community as a whole? Do you feel the game mechanics surrounding Shield Heals and Resists, Hull Heals and Resists, Innate Regeneration, and Defense are all working as intended? Or is there something you feel should be changed?
What about the Idea of ship classes determining how powerful a Boff skill effect can be?
You've heard my thoughts.. so discuss!
You think that your beta test was bad?
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by webdeath on
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Comments
There is pretty much a single person making most of the those threads and he is delusional, does not know how to play correctly, refuses to learn, and wants the game to take a long time to kill a single ship. he also wants to get rid of skill. the actual mechanics are pretty much fine, the problem with PVP IMO are all the annoying consoles and gear you can get.
Yes, but I am not delusional, nor do I want to get rid of skills.
I just do often wonder if maybe some mechanics do need to be glanced at more closely.
I mean when was the last time you saw some one able to make a pure hull tank for PVP out side of when there were exploits? (This is space kids, so the bad kind!)
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
then start over.
Do you even Science Bro?
But if we did that we would still be where we are now.. things would just look lower and still complained about....
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
I noticed that each change I made, in turn required at least one or two other changes. Sometimes, those changes would require additional changes. It did not take long for things to spiral out of control and realize that it was more a case of creating STO2 than trying to do anything in STO.
STO is never going to be balanced. Could it be more balanced? Not really, not even that. Cryptic has a very complex game on their hands - there are just so many variables involved...that it's as balanced as it is - is kind of a minor MMO miracle in of itself. Yes, even as bad as it is to many of us...if we step back and look at everything that's actually there, we'll it would be a wee while until you heard back from us again...lol.
We have fun or we do not.
DHCs do 1.74x DPV of a Beam Array. That ratio is consistent regardless of skills, consoles, mark, rarity, weapon power, buffs, debuffs, etc, etc, etc.
DHCs fire at a rate of 2/3.
Beam Arrays fire at a rate of 4/5.
This results in a ratio of 1.45:1 for the DHCs over the Beam Arrays.
Over a period of 15s, the DHC fire 10 times. The Beam Array fires 12 times.
The Array is firing +2 times to do ~69% of the damage over a 15s firing cycle. It does 57.5% of the DHC's damage with each shot.
15s of DHC fire (base) = 1740
15s of Array fire (base) = 1200
Changing Arrays to a 2/3 cycle...
...would change the DPV ratio to 1.45:1 (each shot).
...would keep the DPS ratio at 1.45:1 (shots over a period of time).
Basically, it would be changing the Array's base damage per volley/shot from 100 to 120. At the end of 15s, it would not have done any more damage than before...but each shot would do 20% more damage than prior to the change. The Array would do ~69% the damage of the DHC for each shot.
For others...
Currently
DHCs have a ~1.34:1 DPV ratio and ~1.12:1 DPS ratio to DBBs.
DHCs have a 2:1 DPV ratio and 1:1 DPS ratio to DCs.
DHCs have a ~2.6:1 DPV ratio and 1.3:1 DPS ratio to SCs.
DHCs have a ~3.87:1 DPV ratio and ~1.93 DPS ratio to Turrets.
Everybody 2/3ing it!
Basically the DPV ratios would be the DPS ratios above while the DPS ratios would remain the same.
DBBs would be +20% DPV.
DCs would be +100% DPV...they'd basically be DHCs without the +CrtD - perhaps give them innate +CrtH or something to differentiate them?
SCs and Turrets would be +100% DPV as well. The SC would still be 77% the DPV of a DHC and the Turret would still be 51.7% the DPV of a DHC.
So er...
DHCs: 100% DHC damage @45 arc
DCs: 100% DHC damage @45 arc (no +CrtD)
DBB: 89.7% DHC damage @90 arc
SCs: 77% DHC damage @180 arc
BA: 69% DHC damage @250 arc
Turrets: 51.7% DHC damage @360 arc
figured I should add the current DPV numbers for comparison to the above
DHCs: 100% DHC damage @45 arc
DCs: 50% DHC damage @45 arc (no +CrtD)
DBB: 74.7% DHC damage @90 arc
SCs: 38.5% DHC damage @180 arc
BA: 57.5% DHC damage @250 arc
Turrets: 25.9% DHC damage @360 arc
DPV and DPS ratios would be the same...no weapon would have an actual increase in DPS - just DPV. They'd hit faster and harder...but not harder over a period of time.
Note: There are other factors that I did not cover in the above which could actually affect a weapon's DPS as well...this was just a relatively quick post.
edit: arranged weapons in that last little list by arc...
edit2: Wanted to give credit to bareel for his help with the base damage and a better understanding of the math behind how the magic works.
Still looks as if it might be a good thing to go that route.. but I am kinda wondering if that would make things better in the long run if we have a lack of balance to the point, like Virus had said before, where we'd almost need a new STO just to fix it, concerning the Defensive abilities involved..
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Before that change in the laning phase harrasment was borderline pointless. You poked the enemy, the enemy poked you, and in ten seconds everyone was fine. Then a gank would come down and within a matter of moments a few players died, at least until people got good at warding to even remove that threat. It led to a very boring early game that was very stale and forced specific setups even at the lower elo or player skill level. Sound familiar?
Then they gutted sustain. Atleast in mid and bot lane. Suddenly poke supports (Gankplank I loved thee) became viable and even effective. The meta shifted from an intense focus on last hitting to a high amount of harassment to weaken the opponent and force them out of the lane or to be vulnerable to a gank. An extremely stale meta opened up to all kinds of crazy team compositions from extremely high mobility teams, to the standard and now I'm rambling.
TLDR: Sustain is too high right now (heals, passive regeneration, etc) as is damage output (spike primarily but others as well) when compared to total Health. This eliminates the natural 'flow' of combat that one tends to get in an RPG/MMO game and can be seen in both PvE (one shots or damage so low you can effectively ignore it) to PvP as well (Spike or why bother). Its all about the ratios...
Calculate the effective total health of your ship with no abilities active just taking into consideration a single shield facing, it's resistance, your total hull and it's resistance. You can ignore the bonus defense effect.
Then calculate how long it would take you to restore that much effective damage passively with just EPtS 1 active along with shield redistribution so all four facings are regenerating. The result may surprise you.
*Edit
Did the math for my fleet defiant the least tanky ship in my arsenal. It would take 34 seconds for passive shield regeneration with EPtS 1 active to restore my total EHP with no buffs (72,837 for the record) not counting the heal it provides. When counting the heal that total time goes down to 22 seconds. That is not taking into account any TSS, console procs, passive t4 omega trait, etc etc etc.
*2nd Edit: Forgot to take into account the extra 5% reduction from maco shield type so you can lower those numbers to about 32 seconds and 20 seconds respectively I would thinks.
12/15 miss 1: 8.3%
10/15 miss 1: 10% (-1.7% more)
12/15 miss 2: 16.7%
10/15 miss 2: 20% (-3.3% more)
12/15 miss 3: 25%
10/15 miss 3: 30% (-5% more)
12/15 miss 4: 33.3%
10/15 miss 4: 40% (-6.7% more)
12/15 miss 5: 41.7%
10/15 miss 5: 50% (-8.3% more)
12/15 miss 6: 50%
10/15 miss 6: 60% (-10% more)
12/15 miss 7: 58.3%
10/15 miss 7: 70% (-11.7% more)
12/15 miss 8: 66.7%
10/15 miss 8: 80% (-13.3% more)
12/15 miss 9: 75%
10/15 miss 9: 90% (-15% more)
12/15 miss 10: 83.3%
10/15 miss 10: 100% (-100% more)
12/15 miss 11: 91.7%
10/15 miss 11: 100% - n/a (-100% more)
12/15 miss 12: 100%
10/15 miss 12: 100% - n/a (-0% more)
Although some would say it would be marginal, it would still be a "buff" to Defense over a period of time...folks would do less of their damage, even though they were hitting harder and faster - they would lose out over time.
What about resists/reductions? There really wouldn't be any difference. The same amount of damage is being done - it's just being done faster. Likewise, buffer (total hull/shields) wouldn't matter - the same damage is still being done. There's a major caveat that contradicts this though...mind you. I'll mention that soon.
Healing on the other hand...
Okay, some real rough math. Really rough...meh, I apologize for how rough this math will be. I don't mean hard - lol, I mean bad. Not taking into account so many things...bleedthrough stands out, meh - oh well. Comparing a DHC vs. BA.
Current System
DHC doing 2175 DPS/3265.5 DPV.
BA doing 1500 DPS/1875 DPV.
Say we've got a target with 10k shields and 50k hull.
DHC will take the shields out in around 4 shots...taking ~6s.
DHC will take the hull out in around 16 shots...taking ~24s.
BA will take the shields out in around 6 shots...taking ~7s.
BA will take the hull out in around 27 shots...taking ~33s.
2/3 System
DHC doing 2175 DPS/3265.5 DPV.
BA doing 1500 DPS/2250 DPV.
Again, say we've got a target with 10k shields and 50k hull.
DHC will take the shields out in around 4 shots...taking ~6s.
DHC will take the hull out in around 16 shots...taking ~24s.
BA will take the shields out in around 5 shots...taking ~6s.
BA will take the hull out in around 23 shots...taking ~28s.
Those times might look off to some. They'll see the 2/3 firing cycle for the DHCs, and think that it is a 1.5s cycle. But look at the info for the DHC. There's a 1s recharge. So it's 2 shots (1s ea) and a 1s recharge. The same with the BA...4 shots (1s ea) and a 1s recharge. (As aside here, the MACO 2pc reduces that to a 0.95s recharge...woot, woot - you save 0.05s every cycle!)
So with the change, that single BA would get through the shields ~1s faster and the hull ~5s faster.
That was one weapon. Still with rough math (no drain), what would it look like for 8x BA? Let's tone the DPS down though, eh? 12k DPS? Nah, that was our special weapons for the example above. Let's go with 9k DPS. Pretend it was 9001 so you can say it was over 9000!
Still with the 10k shields and 50k hull...
Current System
8x BA doing 9000 DPS/11250 DPV.
10k shields? Gone with the first volley and 1250 applied to hull (yeah, it's rough math - meh).
48750 hull? Less than 4.3 volleys...
...ship would pop somewhere in the 6-7s range.
2/3 System
8x BA doing 9000 DPS/13500 DPV.
10k shields? Again, gone with the first volley and 3500 applied to the hull (please forgive me this rough math).
46500 hull? ~3.4 volleys...
...ship would pop in the 5s range.
So very rough/bad math not really showing much...but I hope the gist is there. Along the lines of what Drunk was saying. Even though the overall damage doesn't change, the manner in which it is applied will increase the difficulty in healing. Folks will have to be more on their toes - have to heal faster - might not have that heal handy, etc, etc, etc.
So about that caveat, eh? That rough example...didn't really take into account resistances/reductions...both active and passive. The buffers - shield/hull totals?
Well, when you combine the heals with the resistances - because of the change of speed to the heals, those resistances will become more valuable. For the folks already capping shield damage reduction or at the sweet spot for hull damage resistance...they're not really going to notice much outside of the need to heal faster.
Other folks? They're going to have issues.
It will end up creating a larger gap between those that are geared and those working on getting geared than already exists.
Sure, for the geared folks - they're going to need to heal faster - have larger gaps - etc, etc, etc.
The working on geared folks - they're going to die more...they're probably going to be more frustrated...they're likely to give up on PvP faster.
Cause, you know - they'll probably try to go more defensive, giving up some of their offensive - leaving them with even worse offense and defense that's not going to cut it. I'd expect to see more broken builds.
That's not a truth - I do not have a crystal ball... it's just speculation.
On the other hand, the PvE folks would love it...lol.
It's just a complicated thing...that's all. That's just looking at that stuff, eh?
That's nothing about the possibility of doing hull modifiers that determine hull rather than the process they use currently - hull modifiers that affect regen and healing. Nothing about making the shield modifier also affect shield heals. What those two things would mean for Escorts and how would they be compensated for being more glass...more cannon?
It's also not looking at all the various things - BOFFs, DOFFs, BOFF abilities, universal consoles, console bonuses, cores, D/I/S bonuses, and...yeah - Cryptic's got a very complex game for such a generally casual game.
Increase Shields and Hull.
Lower Resistances and Healing.
That sort of thing, eh?
Resistances do not matter as they factor into the effective shield/hull totals although the wisdom of having most of them attached to things that heal may be questionable. But yes increase total HP and reduce effectiveness of ALL healing including passive shield regen.
R.I.P
It's a case of the source of such things...
Hull comes from the ship, Starship Structural Integrity, gear that affects SSI, and even the new Nukara passive, etc, etc, etc.
Shield comes from the ship, Starship Shield Systems, gear that affects SSS, things like Field Gens, etc, etc, etc.
Resistances and Reductions...come from pretty much everything but the ship, lol.
So if you were set X as your Base Hull and Y as your Base Shields - based on the things that could affect them; once you start getting into their effective strengths - you could end up all over the place.
Yes, a lot of folks are at the sweet spot or near it for hull damage resistance and many are near the cap for shield damage reduction...many are not though.
So it was a case of separating out what all folks are going to have...the ship...as much as possible to all of the things that might vary. As well as putting more caps/diminishing return sorts of effects into place for them.
Agreed, and thats why i have done revisions to shielding.
Shielding hp is just to low for this damage rate, and its current crit values for pvp.
Skill spam nerfed, pvp would be better?
Doubt it? do 1v1 challenge with no skills, and see how good the content is!
Hrmmm, not sure how that's a simple math problem...lol.
Hull: 49,665
Base Hull Resist (Energy): 27.0%
Base Hull Resist (Kinetic): 24.6%
Shield Facing: 10,332
Resilient Shield: 5% Absorption/5% Bleedthrough
Shield Damage Reduction (Energy): 10%
Shield Damage Reduction (Plasma): 20%
Base Shield Damage Reduction - 87/65 Power: 24.36%
Thing is, as soon as the shields have been hit 5 times - that's 97/65 Shield Power for 27.16% Shield Damage Reduction from Shield Power.
As for the EPtS1 as the only ability being used...
It's a 1424.4 one shot regen.
Provides 18% shield damage reduction.
Boosts shield power by +35 (25 from EPtS1 + 10 from EPS Manifold).
No idea what my passive shield regen rate is.
In combat passive hull regen is 28.4%.
Under "normal" operating circumstances, my power levels look like:
125(171)/100
122/65
78/20
46/15
That's not taking into account the 16s of bugged EPS every other use (first use, you get the +10...second use you get a second +10 for +20...third is just +10 again, etc, etc, etc).
I run EPtW1/EPtS1...DCE'd. No WCE DOFF for additional power. Just that somewhat buggy boost from the EPS trait.
The 24.6/27 HDR are from skills/single rare Neut Mk XI. So even though you say not to take abilities into account, that's going to be ignoring the liberal use of AtS1, BFI, and even the HE2. Heck, even the SFM. Likewise for shields, there's going to be the RSF3 and TSS3 along with the EPtS1 being used.
Also, you said not to take into account Defense...hrmm, tough for me.
Base is +85%.
w/ EM: +110%.
w/ APO1: +99.5% (bugged, should 111.3%)
w/ APO3: +109.1% (bugged, should be 133.3%)
w/ SFM: +100%
Meh, I'm kind of ticked. I just noticed the APO thing. I had figured everybody had just boosted their accuracy...meh, I'm going to smoke.
That's like saying if you're in a Sci Vessel and move to an Escort, you've nerfed your healing. Then if you move from the Escort to a Cruiser, you've nerfed your healing again.
Sure, the heal may be a smaller percentage of the overall hull of the vessel - but the heal itself has not gotten smaller. The heal hasn't been nerfed.
By increasing hull and reducing damage resistance, you place more emphasis on the ship and less on the gear on the ship.
Say we have the following Fleet vessels with no skill/gear involved:
Intrepid 29,700 hull
Defiant 33,000 hull
Galaxy 44,000 hull
Say we give each 35% hull damage resistance.
Intrepid 45,692 effective hull
Defiant 50,769 effective hull
Galaxy 67,692 effective hull
Let's compare the before and after differences:
Intrepid -> Defiant: +3,300
Defiant -> Galaxy: +11,000
Intrepid -> Galaxy: +14,300
Intrepid -> Defiant: +5,077
Defiant -> Galaxy: +16,923
Intrepid -> Galaxy: +22,000
That's without any skill - let's give them 9 Structural Integrity for +30% hull.
Intrepid 38,610 hull
Defiant 42,900 hull
Galaxy 57,200 hull
Give them the +35% resistance...
Intrepid 59,400 effective hull
Defiant 66,000 effective hull
Galaxy 88,000 effective hull
...and look at the before/after differences again:
Intrepid -> Defiant: +4,290
Defiant -> Galaxy: +14,300
Intrepid -> Galaxy: +18,590
Intrepid -> Defiant: +6,600
Defiant -> Galaxy: +22,000
Intrepid -> Galaxy: +28,600
(First thing to stand out should be that % bonuses are bad...mmmmkay.)
So that Galaxy has +28,600 more effective hull than the Intrepid. That's only 1,100 less hull than the base Intrepid had (29,700).
If the base hull was increased and the resistance was changed to a flat reduction (would have to change the increase to hull from SSI to a flat increase as well) - then two things would happen:
1) the base hull of the ship would matter more
2) the differences between the hulls would be more consistent
In a similar fashion, here's something to consider about damage resistance being a % instead of a flat number....
Tom hits the 35% guy with 1000 damage. He does 650. 350 is resisted.
Jerry hits the 35% guy with 2000 damage. He does 1300. 700 is resisted.
It's illogical. The armor that gives 35% should have either reduced both by 350 or both by 700. At worst, it should be variable based on the amount of damage rather than a flat percentage.
In discussing the change to the Rom BOFFs and +Defense, they acknowledged that % bonuses are bad...and...they really, really, really are.
Well, imho...
Essentially you don't need any Boff stations above Lt to build a solid rotation of resistance/heal based abilities. Tac heavy ships will have the bonus of having Omega and a low cost Delta. Other ships may pass on Delta, although they shouldn't, to gain some Tactical damage abilities while it is unlikely that an escort would bother to pass up an Engineering/Science heal/Resist for Boarding Party or TB. But they could, and they would STILL come out ahead unless the Cruiser or Science ship spends LtCmdr slots on heals and resists to the detriment of their offensive/debuffing abiliies.
Resistance based mechanics are VERY easy to balance around. They are VERY predictable. Avoidance Stats could be predictable, but the way they are tied into critical hits, and hit rate in general, in this game makes them wonky.
Most games don't work like STO. In most games you get hit just about all the time anyway. And you get critically hit at a pretty predictable rate also. And there are tools to manage that. Avoidance stats are minimized. Some attacks can't even BE avoided. They just plain always hit.
STO isn't like that. In STO there is a HUGE potential variance on Hit/Crit rate. To manage that with resistances (the only way non escorts do it) required a HUGE dialing up on all the associated TRIBBLE. Since escorts happen to have those TRIBBLE as well...see where this goes?
Oh and one of the problems with avoidance stats is you never really know what damage you are avoiding before it happens. It is one of the things that makes it exciting to humans.
Yes over many iterations you would be able to predict the actual value with great accuracy, but that isn't how we experience it. So don't bother pulling out any stats. This is why in STO measuring a weapons output isn't really very valuable in and of itself.
The difference between TSS3/HE3 and the others used to be more pronounced when power wasn't handed out like candy and there weren't passive regen/repair and resist boosts from Rep/Gear.
The cooldown reduction doffs offering optimal uptime on high level APO is a significant difference to both the ability to apply damage and the ability to avoid damage not by stats, but by piloting (not to mention epte changes). Finally, add in singularity console survivability boosts for the Rommy ships and it's easy to see how much speed kills and survives in this game now.
It's little wonder some are fielding teams focused on the AoE movement reduction including using things like TIF and Tholian Web mines.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Take a standard cruiser. Then take a standard escort. In a 1v1 with equal skilled pilots, equal gear and build quality, neither of them will die. Am I the only person who finds that to be absolutely silly?
Let me break down how it goes in the end. Everyone has their standard sustain/defense that can ignore all the standard damage/offense. The only game changers that exist are to remove the targets standard sustain/defense either with stripping/hard CC and/or immobilization then to overwhelm the target while in it's vulnerable state with offense faster than it's allies can bolster it's defenses.
Every single thing that is considered cheese or broken or whatever over the duration of time I've been on these forums are those that do just that via a console or a doff.
There is no ebb or flow it simply comes down to who throws the most TRIBBLE at the other person or exploits a gap in the targets defensive abilities. The rhythm that most pvp matches contain in other games does not exist because of the binary nature of this game's mechanics. It is simply CC vs cleanse over and over and over again.
This is by design it is sad to say. While a massive revamp to change it to a more normal attrition style system may be appealing to some players it will not happen because of the amount of work it would take.
Shield resistance is too high and hull resists against energy is much too low, it should be weighted more towards hull to make hull tanking viable again. Hull resists against energy given from armor consoles, threat control skill, and hull plating skill should be boosted making it possible to hit hull resist cap against energy if you are willing to spec into it and use enough consoles and hull resist abilities. This will hopefully bring torps back onto standard DHC escorts which hardly use them now since S6 or S7 and they won't just be a weapon only DBB alpha strikers and pure torp boats can use.
I haven't had much luck in bringing that up in the past, lol. The folks that just outright scream no (I know they're just typing, but I like to picture them ranting and raving at their keyboards)...and the folks that will bash the idea when I point out how that increased bleed with decreased shield strength worked in the shows/movies.
Yes. And we are talking about the time AFTER the disaster that was the acc changes. So it isn't limited to or focused on the difference between ranks 3 and 2 (it could be fairly large and it wouldn't matter here) because one group gets some of everything and another group just plain doesn't.
Depends. If you want good group play you need a healer who can easily outheal one dd and does not do much dmg at the same time. So if your cruiser is a healer thats as it should be.
If one dd can outdmg a healer there is no real point in healing in the first place. Tactics are no longer needed. That might be a bit exaggerated but a true healer should always be able to outheal the dmg of one dd. That forces you to assist, debuff, cc,...
The problem in my opinion is too much spike dmg and too little pressure dmg. Also escorts are too tanky. Either you should limit the speed/movment advantage of escorts or give them a resist penalty (or simply lower hull/shield).
Further reduce the possible spike. The 25% dmg bonus of romulan cloak combined with maybe 5 tac consoles and the rom boffs... that hurts a lot.
Also the main problem with healing is gear/passives I would say. Elite fleet shields are a nightmare for pressure dmg. At the moment ships have already insane resists before the healing begins. What could also help are shield resist debuffs. You could add them to some science powers.
Thats my opinion.
Edit: I thought a bit more about the elite fleet shields. What we need would be kind of the opposite. High initial resists that are lowered over time. Maybe something like a passive eng trait that lowers the resists of the target over time when using beam weapons? Buffs the engi, beams and pressure dmg at the same time.
My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!