The proposed change doesn't just make beam overload to be used at minimal of 5 seconds in between, it will be too hard to pull of and time properly on. You would have to activate first BO, wait 28 seconds then fire it, pop the next one and wait 5 seconds.
1st problem would be to time something like that properly in the first place.
That's pretty much the point of my first paragraph. As an 'out in the open' escort, I keep both copies running. I don't wait until both are up to use one and I don't necessarily fire both at just any target or the same target for that matter. If there's a target with any combination of TT, APD, APO, Evasive Aux to Damp, Aux to SIF, Scattering Field, Hazards, Transfer Shield Strength, Polarize Hull, Vesta Immunity, FBP, etc. up, I very well may not fire and move to the next target. If I really want to drop that target I'll hold my DBB until some of the target's buffs wear off. I might also fire them even if APO and Evasive are up because my buffs are about to expire and I'd at least like to try to do some shield damage (even though with those two buffs alone my chance of missing with an ACCx3 DBB is still quite large). I also don't have the advantage of watching my target's buffs from cloak and decloak and pop the target at will. Besides fighting my opponent's ships, I'm also fighting their 'pets' which now have commander level abilities, all the clicky console spam, watching my healers for tac teams, trying to watch the other team's buffs, coordinating with the cloaker, and calling targets. So yeah, with the opportunity cost and added skill of effectively firing an overload should come a bit of an advantage if you can pull it off. Removing the ability to stack them pretty much borks that advantage. Why not just change the firing cycle to 1 overload every 2 seconds? That way, you fire one and it discharges and you have the opportunity to fire another one 2 seconds later if the situation calls for it. That's more than sufficient time to respond with a tac team, or RSP, or APO, or A2D, or A2Sif, or Evasive, or ... for the healers to bring the target from 1% health to 50% in one second flat.
So there's a bit of insight into how it's done and why it may go by way of the dodo for stay in the fight escorts.
The issue here affects PVP mainly and should'nt affect PVE. However I will say this, if you spec into PVP you will ROFLSTOMP any PVE mission... Period.
Oh really? I like to see how you solo Hive Onslaught Elite. Better still, I shall enjoying seeing the Queen adding you to her Collective, LOL!
Have to say you basically asked for it in my Double/Triple Tap thread as feedback for the Devs. In that thread, you "QQ" about if the BO is nerfed, there is still a way around it via double/triple stacking torpedo skills.
Naturally, the Devs listented, and we have you to thank for yet another nerf on Torpedos. Say bye bye to William the Rat & its T'Varo and the simultaneous drop of multiple beachballs!
My cloaked Test T'Varo is able to generate such a tremendous amount of spike that people think I am doing the double tap. If they looked at my buffs they would notice it's not the case. I like these upcoming changes already
As one of the more vocal proponents for the elimination of this long-time exploit, including a dedicated thread for it in the Builds forum, I say kudos to you if you run such build without using this known exploit.
So there's a bit of insight into how it's done and why it may go by way of the dodo for stay in the fight escorts.
Hi fook, I agree with a lot of what you wrote especially about stay in the fight, visible escorts who are at a severe disadvantage in the current cloaking metagame.
However, I have a concept.
BO & other powers, mechanically, are designed to have cooldowns and they were, in A.Hawk's judgement, working outside of the boundary of that mechanic.
Fair enough.
On the otherhand, what if part of the problem is that a single, base, beam overload in and of itself is an inferior mechanic?
Does 1 beam overload generate sufficient damage to justify its 1/15th maximum uptime?
How does that output, spike, compare to the 10s burst tool of CRF that has 66% uptime and can be funneled through up to 7 or even 8 weapons on some ships vs. Beam Overload which forces you into a DBB or Beam Array?
Does the -weapon power drain mechanic really make sense with the new cooldown lockouts and 5s hardcap on recast?
Is the -50 weapon power even working correctly? If you fire, and you have 125 weapons power, you are dropped to 50 weapons power.
That's not -50, that's -75.
Is it fair that a power on a 1/15th (6.67% uptime) can fail, and literally do 0 damage and then go back on cooldown?
Vs. Rapid Fire volleys with roughly 10x the uptime? Rapid fire absorbs losses or targets moving out of arc, much better than Beam Overload - which is either pass or fail mechanic, no gradient to reduces the extremes of hits vs. failure to hit.
It's OK to have a gamble mechanic, high risk vs. high reward, power type - but I believe the question now is the potential reward still worth the risk and cost?
So maybe part of the problem is that Beam Overload in and of itself needs a full balance pass to be designed better.
Some food for thought, hopefully A.hawk is still reading.
its likely if not guaranteed not a signle person in that game used any torpedoes let alone stack hy. why was high yield included in this nerf, is the real question
Mini, you are funny. Of all people, you should know the T'Varos like to stack multiple BO along with multiple HY for the lolz exploit.
As one of the more vocal proponents for the elimination of this long-time exploit, including a dedicated thread for it in the Builds forum, I say kudos to you if you run such build without using this known exploit.
I'm going to say this, and I'm not going to go into too many details.
Before you, and anyone else, gets so high and mighty on your moral high ground - here is a tidbit for you.
I've specifically asked for feedback on this mechanic several months ago to a different member on the development team.
The response was that the mechanic seemed fine. Specifically that different tiers can stack and be fired consequentially (i.e. BO 1 & 2) vs. same tiers not being able to be stacked at all (i.e. BO 2 x 2).
Cryptic allows its employees quite a bit of creative freedom.
A.Hawk seems to have taken an interest in PvP, and I applaud the small snippets of his inner thoughts as a developer as part of the design process.
I detect a glimmer of hope from that, because the glimpse he's given us is enough for me to speculate that he has a lot of good ideas but he is probably constrained by other time pressures and the realities of balancing the entire game, PvE & PvP, for everyone's enjoyment.
So there you go. I never actually touched the double tap until a conversation had me feeling that it was a "safe" mechanic, i.e. Working as Intended or within reasonable usage.
That's changed. Things change. We adapt.
But this is a mechanic that has been in the game since BETA.
So yes, it's perfectly reasonable for some players to think the mechanic is working "fine" - until one day it suddenly isn't.
Trying to claim the moral high ground in this, is a tenuous and silly prospect.
Is this change also going to affect "stacking" 2x HY, 2x TS, HY/TS...the ability to "doubletap" and even "tripletap" with those as well? I know that it's kind of off-tipic, this being a BO thread...but...you mentioned HY in your post and the same mechanic is possible with HY/TS.
Torp Ability #1, wait 15s, Torp Ability #2, wait until Torp Ability #1 has almost worn off - leaving yourself time for the Torp activation times...fire the Torps, then use Torp Ability #1 again.
Just running one, did not realize 2 were needed. I thought the fuss was being able to with two BO's in quick succession. Thanks for the response and will take a peak at that tonight and see how that works.
The issue that people are complaining about with this combo, is that you can fire 2 BOs with 2 dual beam banks one right after another, and your weapons are only drained by 50 (instead of 100).
Essentially, you get to fire two BOs at full power. First one rips through shields, second one rips through hull.
It's a very powerful alpha strike....assuming you don't miss with one of your BOs and you get a critical hit.
FYI, this is not the same as stacking HYx2 or TS+HY with one torpedo.
Have to say you basically asked for it in my Double/Triple Tap thread as feedback for the Devs. In that thread, you "QQ" about if the BO is nerfed, there is still a way around it via double/triple stacking torpedo skills.
Naturally, the Devs listented, and we have you to thank for yet another nerf on Torpedos. Say bye bye to William the Rat & its T'Varo and the simultaneous drop of multiple beachballs!
Uh, say what?
I never "QQ'd" about BO being nerfed. This is my post from that thread:
While BO is often the headline act for the process, it's not the only such ability that can be stacked in that fashion.
You can HY#1...wait the 15s, HY#2...wait until the buff from HY#1 is almost gone (leave yourself room for the activations)...fire off the HY#1 and HY#2...following it with HY#1 again. You can do the same with TS. You can mix HY and TS.
You could mix BO and TS..doing a double stack of BO and TS...and wheeeeee!
If you want to remove stacking, then remove stacking. Applying a second buff of the same type would overwrite the first buff. Apply the CD from the use of the ability with the use of the ability, not the pre-use of the ability.
And I stand by that. If they want to remove stacking, they need to remove stacking. Thing is, they didn't just remove stacking. They also added a 5s gap to it. That's above and beyond removing stacking.
Remove stacking, you remove the following:
Ability#1, wait 15s, Ability#2, fire
Remove stacking, you still allow the following:
Ability#1, wait 28-29s, fire, Ability#1/2
They didn't just go with that though, they went with:
Say bye bye to William the Rat & its T'Varo and the simultaneous drop of multiple beachballs!
...um, complaining about Willard makes you look bad when most folks think of him as Willard the Gnat.
Lol...just saying.
edit: But yep, it's possible to drop a second Beach Ball - if the first one flies around without hitting anything, it's TTL is long enough for the CD on the Plasma Destabilizer for a second one to drop. That first one doesn't last long after that. I think I've dropped a second one perhaps twice? Usually the first one hits something...usually that something is me.
Mini, you are funny. Of all people, you should know the T'Varos like to stack multiple BO along with multiple HY for the lolz exploit.
you mean u died to my attacks? u must honestly admit u did not die every time, in fact true spikers sacrifice alot. the problem is all u need post snb or vs noobs is double tap. not 3 tap and 3 tap torp spread that doesnt miss.
Double-tap is bad gameplay - period, end of story. It's a workaround for a shared cooldown that was always supposed to prevent exactly what's happening. It fixes a lot of things about this small problem - but the point that many are making (and that I agree with) is that this fix is just a drop in the moderately large bucket in the grand scheme of unwinding and overhauling combat math to make things feel fair for both aggressors and defenders, and make combat between evenly matched adversaries take a more reasonable amount of time. The trick to any of these changes is that our PvE combat is in a pretty good place - people can have a lot of fun flying just about any ship, and can contribute meaningfully to queued events and basically have a blast. Therefore, any change to combat math that also affects PvE is extremely high risk - so the TRIBBLE we have to balance and tweak PvP pacing are limited to those that don't have unintended side effects.
It's not an impossible job - it just requires a lot of care and time investment. If things are broken or things are really bad gameplay, it's easy to justify stepping in and fixing something immediately. If things aren't either of the above but are still less fun or less engaging than they could be, we obviously want to fix them - it just takes more work and more time to get the fix right and minimize any external side effects of that fix.
That's a bit of a ramble, but I know you guys like insight into why we change things we choose to change and how we make the game, so hopefully it interests you/makes sense to you. Please try to stay positive and constructive in responses - I'm happy to entertain discussions and talk about things openly, but if you start flaming or posting off-topic things, it's really hard to justify responding to something like that.
Jeff,
I want to take the time to thank you openly for all your hard work and for listening to our collective feedback here and in the Builds forum. The Double Tap is an exploit, period. Some people tried to justify it by the length of time it has existed, it still doesn't change that it's an overly abused bug, thus exploit. Many bugs exist in this game for years, some are simply too inconsequential to demand dedicated resources to be allocated for them. The difference between the Double tap exploit and other long-existing bugs is the extent the former has been exploited frequently to affect a significant portion of the game.
The fact you shared the reasoning behind the change including how such change interact between PvP and PvE is very helpful. Given how many of the NPCs are super powerful in elite STF, it would seem logical that no nerf of the healing power would make sense at this time. This gives us an idea the direction of where the game is heading, so this is very helpful to know.
I hope you can continue to participate in various discussions here and there, know that most of us welcome your inputs and insights.
you mean u died to my attacks? u must honestly admit u did not die every time, in fact true spikers sacrifice alot. the problem is all u need post snb or vs noobs is double tap. not 3 tap and 3 tap torp spread that doesnt miss.
ur
butthurt.
More like, almost never anymore even though I only started playing STO since January and by all accounts, just a newbie compared to a master like you. That's because you have become so predictable to me, I could evade your attack in my sleep. Can't say the same about others though. I mean, have you sit down and considered reviewing your strategy for a change? You fire a VM1 at a Fed ship who told you in zone chat, he has 170 in subsystem repair and 72 in Inertial Dampeners? What do you expect? Then you started using Jam Sensors. Heck, when someone got hit by JS for no good reason (i.e. out of combat) and knowing Mini is around, geez, what do I think is happening?
Can you recall the last time you actually survive your own ambush against me? I can't. Since you started using the T'Varo, I don't recall a time you ever managed to escape or lived through your own attacks. Honestly, there are many others who have done far better than you in the Double Tap technique that you started. It's time for you to consider some changes and innovations or you will be left behind, like really behind.
Can you recall the last time you actually survive your own ambush against me? I can't. Since you started using the T'Varo, I don't recall a time you ever managed to escape or lived through your own attacks. Honestly, there are many others who have done far better than you in the Double Tap technique that you started. It's time for you to consider some changes and innovations or you will be left behind, like really behind.
So what you're saying is that the double tap mechanic was not enough to defeat your own ships healing reserves, and that you often killed the decloaker in a counter strike?
Well, that sure sounds to me like healing exploits should be next on the nerf-hammer list.
Seeing as the double tap is getting nerfed, and the Alpha strikes will be even weaker vs. your ship.
idk, I stay far away from Tac when it comes to actual premade matches. But I guess my point is that concentrated and high Burst is the only way to land a kill - give someone 2 seconds of breathing room and they're already back up to like 50%.
Part of that is player skill (healers jumping on with TSS/HE/A2SIF/xTeam quickly), part of that is all of the passive healing and mega high resists that are granted.
This is completely and totally false. The hyperbole here is beyond reasonable.
The trick to any of these changes is that our PvE combat is in a pretty good place - people can have a lot of fun flying just about any ship, and can contribute meaningfully to queued events and basically have a blast.
I'm going to join the people saying the PVE combat is not actually in a good place.
The difficulty scaling doesnt work, because (1) the ships dont get more hard-points so even if they hit harder they are sitll limited to fewer weapons, and (2) NPC equipment stays junky even though the player may have obtained all the uber gear from the rep systems. Not coincidentally, the wide diversity in equipment and power is also what keeps open PVP from working here.
The heart of the problem is that the game is designed around single-player mission campaign with progressive difficulty--low-level ships have fewer hard-points and BOFF stations, players are restricted to low-Mk equipment, high-level players have access to reputation and fleet gear that is markedly better on purpose and are also encouraged to buy c-store items for even more power. You will never have balanced gameplay until everybody and everything is using gear that operates within the same range. STO needs to be rebooted as a game that is focused on multi-player combat, where different ships and gear all operate within the same range, and then the single-player content is mapped to the resulting difficulty band. Since this means taking the game and turning it upside down, shaking out all the pieces and rearranging everything, there is zero chance that this will ever happen, but that is what is actually needed to make PVE and PVP enjoyable and challenging on a long-term basis.
I'm going to say this, and I'm not going to go into too many details.
Before you, and anyone else, gets so high and mighty on your moral high ground - here is a tidbit for you.
I've specifically asked for feedback on this mechanic several months ago to a different member on the development team.
The response was that the mechanic seemed fine. Specifically that different tiers can stack and be fired consequentially (i.e. BO 1 & 2) vs. same tiers not being able to be stacked at all (i.e. BO 2 x 2).
Cryptic allows its employees quite a bit of creative freedom.
Then perhaps you need to post the conversation in its entirety so we can see the whole context as opposed to just relying on your paraphrasing.
The issue here affects PVP mainly and should'nt affect PVE. However I will say this, if you spec into PVP you will ROFLSTOMP any PVE mission... Period.
In regards to HoT mentioned, well the heals, resists has come to a point that pressure damaging takes alot longer than it used to.
If you think tanking in STF'S makes you a GOD, think again. I can tank a gate in my Scimitar or fleet Ha feh if I want as a tac.
But you should try head banging on my Recluse, please do. It will be a few days before I even notice scratch on the paint job.
see i don't think this ROFLSTOMP thing is accurate. Sure tac builds do, some sci do but certainly not the whole range of pvp builds.
Bringing my eng healers (or even sci healers)into any stf and i want' to pull my teeth out. I'm still chipping at some stupid target before the friggin optional timer has started, at the same point in time when my tac is usually ready to queue for the next one.
Sure i have more healing then god and all the borg npc combined, producing numbers higher then most pugs do damage. But whats the point, where is the fun in that? Where are my well timed snb needed? Who do i keep alive when even tac escorts can tank the biggest NPC mobs? why is my fully specced and specialized sci attack subject to special immunities, that no other player of npc has? What good is giving EPS to a teammate that has 3x125 in their subsystems. I don't even get to touch my MW. Not a single cloaking NPC can be decloaked by TDG, and whatever sci snoop build you want to throw on top of it. The only thing that works is large mobs going boom fast with dhc fire, in appropriately agile ships.
This problem has a long part, remember when sci magic ruled hard in pvp, and still cryptic had to introduce SA because they just took to damn long to finish anything in pve?
So what you're saying is that the double tap mechanic was not enough to defeat your own ships healing reserves, and that you often killed the decloaker in a counter strike?
Well, that sure sounds to me like healing exploits should be next on the nerf-hammer list.
Seeing as the double tap is getting nerfed, and the Alpha strikes will be even weaker vs. your ship.
Funny how you read so many "heals" into my post when the word didn't appear even once or for that matter, any synonym to heals.
The so called "exploit" is in fact <<Evasive Maneuver>>, a skill that all Captains regardless of careers have access to.
Any form of double tap is used in combination with some form of hold, let it be tractor beam, PSW or your 50 seconds Graviton Pulse exploit that you proudly attached under your signature. EM remains the most effective anti-hold ability out there, and therefore, the primary counter to double tap. Plus, EM can't be subnuked. However, it isn't some kind of fail proof mechanism against the double tap exploit.
On the contrary, heals tend to be useless in a situation when you get double tapped. The speed at which it is fired was so quick such that even TT didn't have the time to react, Mini confirmed that long time ago. There is really no defense against it once the first BO hits due to the 1 second time of execution. As for any claims of delays between the two BOs, there was literaly none to speak off. The reason why some will survive is due to imperfect execution on the part of the attacker. Other than that, no amount of heals will do any good.
Enough is enough. The nasty replies need to stop. Please do not push things to the point where we need to close this thread down.
Better plan... Somebody's violating the rules, DON'T reply. PM me or another Mod with the link to the post and let us handle it.
If everyone would cooperate with that, we could settle things down and keep this nice thread going and keep the useful feedback flowing to a Dev who's listening.
~ Bluegeek
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
In other words, it was a private / off-the-record conversation. Then if so, your faith was based on a casual, private and vague comment, hardly what I would call official seal of approval. Note the word "seems" in your paraphrasing.
Perhaps you should post how you so successfully take out those evil, nasty cloakers you hate so much.
Each experience is different, there is not a cookbook for this.
Wouldn't have anything to do with double stacking your torp spreads that have 100% accuracy do it? I hear that's popular.
Haven't used TS on my Fed build for quite some time. In fact, I don't use any Tactical Stations at all. Call me crazy but it works really well.
Funny, that Torp Spread with 100% acc.
I wonder if that's working as intended.
What I heard was that the TS mechanism is more inherently entrenched into the game mechanics such that it will not be easy to fix it, similar to how Tact Captain skills buff Sci powers such as Feedback Pulse and Gravity Well. It's recognized as an issue but no easy fix.
Can we please return to discussing what this thread is about?
These thumb-wrestling exercises about who said what and who's builds suck/rule are not providing useful feedback.
Again... Dev is listening? Distraction bad?
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Imma leave this here for you Hawk, perhaps you already read it in the past but it sums up the only good long term solution that would be relatively easy to test and implement.
Do we know if there's going to be a corresponding heal nerf to go along with this, or is that still in debate?
Based on what hawk said, the "double-tap" change hasn't even hit Tribble yet.
My guess is that it will be tested, it will likely go live, and then they can start looking at heal/survivability changes.
No other official statement has been made in regard to this and heals, so bottom line it would seem that there is no related balance change for heals in the pipe at present.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Comments
Coolio - Wel'll work out details of when we pew pew later on
That's pretty much the point of my first paragraph. As an 'out in the open' escort, I keep both copies running. I don't wait until both are up to use one and I don't necessarily fire both at just any target or the same target for that matter. If there's a target with any combination of TT, APD, APO, Evasive Aux to Damp, Aux to SIF, Scattering Field, Hazards, Transfer Shield Strength, Polarize Hull, Vesta Immunity, FBP, etc. up, I very well may not fire and move to the next target. If I really want to drop that target I'll hold my DBB until some of the target's buffs wear off. I might also fire them even if APO and Evasive are up because my buffs are about to expire and I'd at least like to try to do some shield damage (even though with those two buffs alone my chance of missing with an ACCx3 DBB is still quite large). I also don't have the advantage of watching my target's buffs from cloak and decloak and pop the target at will. Besides fighting my opponent's ships, I'm also fighting their 'pets' which now have commander level abilities, all the clicky console spam, watching my healers for tac teams, trying to watch the other team's buffs, coordinating with the cloaker, and calling targets. So yeah, with the opportunity cost and added skill of effectively firing an overload should come a bit of an advantage if you can pull it off. Removing the ability to stack them pretty much borks that advantage. Why not just change the firing cycle to 1 overload every 2 seconds? That way, you fire one and it discharges and you have the opportunity to fire another one 2 seconds later if the situation calls for it. That's more than sufficient time to respond with a tac team, or RSP, or APO, or A2D, or A2Sif, or Evasive, or ... for the healers to bring the target from 1% health to 50% in one second flat.
So there's a bit of insight into how it's done and why it may go by way of the dodo for stay in the fight escorts.
Oh really? I like to see how you solo Hive Onslaught Elite. Better still, I shall enjoying seeing the Queen adding you to her Collective, LOL!
Have to say you basically asked for it in my Double/Triple Tap thread as feedback for the Devs. In that thread, you "QQ" about if the BO is nerfed, there is still a way around it via double/triple stacking torpedo skills.
Naturally, the Devs listented, and we have you to thank for yet another nerf on Torpedos. Say bye bye to William the Rat & its T'Varo and the simultaneous drop of multiple beachballs!
As one of the more vocal proponents for the elimination of this long-time exploit, including a dedicated thread for it in the Builds forum, I say kudos to you if you run such build without using this known exploit.
Hi fook, I agree with a lot of what you wrote especially about stay in the fight, visible escorts who are at a severe disadvantage in the current cloaking metagame.
However, I have a concept.
BO & other powers, mechanically, are designed to have cooldowns and they were, in A.Hawk's judgement, working outside of the boundary of that mechanic.
Fair enough.
On the otherhand, what if part of the problem is that a single, base, beam overload in and of itself is an inferior mechanic?
Does 1 beam overload generate sufficient damage to justify its 1/15th maximum uptime?
How does that output, spike, compare to the 10s burst tool of CRF that has 66% uptime and can be funneled through up to 7 or even 8 weapons on some ships vs. Beam Overload which forces you into a DBB or Beam Array?
Does the -weapon power drain mechanic really make sense with the new cooldown lockouts and 5s hardcap on recast?
Is the -50 weapon power even working correctly? If you fire, and you have 125 weapons power, you are dropped to 50 weapons power.
That's not -50, that's -75.
Is it fair that a power on a 1/15th (6.67% uptime) can fail, and literally do 0 damage and then go back on cooldown?
Vs. Rapid Fire volleys with roughly 10x the uptime? Rapid fire absorbs losses or targets moving out of arc, much better than Beam Overload - which is either pass or fail mechanic, no gradient to reduces the extremes of hits vs. failure to hit.
It's OK to have a gamble mechanic, high risk vs. high reward, power type - but I believe the question now is the potential reward still worth the risk and cost?
So maybe part of the problem is that Beam Overload in and of itself needs a full balance pass to be designed better.
Some food for thought, hopefully A.hawk is still reading.
Mini, you are funny. Of all people, you should know the T'Varos like to stack multiple BO along with multiple HY for the lolz exploit.
I'm going to say this, and I'm not going to go into too many details.
Before you, and anyone else, gets so high and mighty on your moral high ground - here is a tidbit for you.
I've specifically asked for feedback on this mechanic several months ago to a different member on the development team.
The response was that the mechanic seemed fine. Specifically that different tiers can stack and be fired consequentially (i.e. BO 1 & 2) vs. same tiers not being able to be stacked at all (i.e. BO 2 x 2).
Cryptic allows its employees quite a bit of creative freedom.
A.Hawk seems to have taken an interest in PvP, and I applaud the small snippets of his inner thoughts as a developer as part of the design process.
I detect a glimmer of hope from that, because the glimpse he's given us is enough for me to speculate that he has a lot of good ideas but he is probably constrained by other time pressures and the realities of balancing the entire game, PvE & PvP, for everyone's enjoyment.
So there you go. I never actually touched the double tap until a conversation had me feeling that it was a "safe" mechanic, i.e. Working as Intended or within reasonable usage.
That's changed. Things change. We adapt.
But this is a mechanic that has been in the game since BETA.
So yes, it's perfectly reasonable for some players to think the mechanic is working "fine" - until one day it suddenly isn't.
Trying to claim the moral high ground in this, is a tenuous and silly prospect.
...this was the reply...
...where the only discussion related to stacked Torp Abilities was...
...where the only mention of stacked Torp Abilities is there in red and there was no Dev commentary at all in regard to what I asked...
...so I replied with:
Which...given your response to that...leave's me colored confused with a second coat.
Uh, say what?
I never "QQ'd" about BO being nerfed. This is my post from that thread:
And I stand by that. If they want to remove stacking, they need to remove stacking. Thing is, they didn't just remove stacking. They also added a 5s gap to it. That's above and beyond removing stacking.
Remove stacking, you remove the following:
Ability#1, wait 15s, Ability#2, fire
Remove stacking, you still allow the following:
Ability#1, wait 28-29s, fire, Ability#1/2
They didn't just go with that though, they went with:
Ability#1, wait 10s, fire, wait 5s, Ability#2
Ability#1, wait 28-29s, fire...wait 5s, Ability#1/2
As for this part...
...um, complaining about Willard makes you look bad when most folks think of him as Willard the Gnat.
Lol...just saying.
edit: But yep, it's possible to drop a second Beach Ball - if the first one flies around without hitting anything, it's TTL is long enough for the CD on the Plasma Destabilizer for a second one to drop. That first one doesn't last long after that. I think I've dropped a second one perhaps twice? Usually the first one hits something...usually that something is me.
you mean u died to my attacks? u must honestly admit u did not die every time, in fact true spikers sacrifice alot. the problem is all u need post snb or vs noobs is double tap. not 3 tap and 3 tap torp spread that doesnt miss.
ur
butthurt.
Jeff,
I want to take the time to thank you openly for all your hard work and for listening to our collective feedback here and in the Builds forum. The Double Tap is an exploit, period. Some people tried to justify it by the length of time it has existed, it still doesn't change that it's an overly abused bug, thus exploit. Many bugs exist in this game for years, some are simply too inconsequential to demand dedicated resources to be allocated for them. The difference between the Double tap exploit and other long-existing bugs is the extent the former has been exploited frequently to affect a significant portion of the game.
The fact you shared the reasoning behind the change including how such change interact between PvP and PvE is very helpful. Given how many of the NPCs are super powerful in elite STF, it would seem logical that no nerf of the healing power would make sense at this time. This gives us an idea the direction of where the game is heading, so this is very helpful to know.
I hope you can continue to participate in various discussions here and there, know that most of us welcome your inputs and insights.
More like, almost never anymore even though I only started playing STO since January and by all accounts, just a newbie compared to a master like you. That's because you have become so predictable to me, I could evade your attack in my sleep. Can't say the same about others though. I mean, have you sit down and considered reviewing your strategy for a change? You fire a VM1 at a Fed ship who told you in zone chat, he has 170 in subsystem repair and 72 in Inertial Dampeners? What do you expect? Then you started using Jam Sensors. Heck, when someone got hit by JS for no good reason (i.e. out of combat) and knowing Mini is around, geez, what do I think is happening?
Can you recall the last time you actually survive your own ambush against me? I can't. Since you started using the T'Varo, I don't recall a time you ever managed to escape or lived through your own attacks. Honestly, there are many others who have done far better than you in the Double Tap technique that you started. It's time for you to consider some changes and innovations or you will be left behind, like really behind.
So what you're saying is that the double tap mechanic was not enough to defeat your own ships healing reserves, and that you often killed the decloaker in a counter strike?
Well, that sure sounds to me like healing exploits should be next on the nerf-hammer list.
Seeing as the double tap is getting nerfed, and the Alpha strikes will be even weaker vs. your ship.
This is completely and totally false. The hyperbole here is beyond reasonable.
The difficulty scaling doesnt work, because (1) the ships dont get more hard-points so even if they hit harder they are sitll limited to fewer weapons, and (2) NPC equipment stays junky even though the player may have obtained all the uber gear from the rep systems. Not coincidentally, the wide diversity in equipment and power is also what keeps open PVP from working here.
The heart of the problem is that the game is designed around single-player mission campaign with progressive difficulty--low-level ships have fewer hard-points and BOFF stations, players are restricted to low-Mk equipment, high-level players have access to reputation and fleet gear that is markedly better on purpose and are also encouraged to buy c-store items for even more power. You will never have balanced gameplay until everybody and everything is using gear that operates within the same range. STO needs to be rebooted as a game that is focused on multi-player combat, where different ships and gear all operate within the same range, and then the single-player content is mapped to the resulting difficulty band. Since this means taking the game and turning it upside down, shaking out all the pieces and rearranging everything, there is zero chance that this will ever happen, but that is what is actually needed to make PVE and PVP enjoyable and challenging on a long-term basis.
Then perhaps you need to post the conversation in its entirety so we can see the whole context as opposed to just relying on your paraphrasing.
see i don't think this ROFLSTOMP thing is accurate. Sure tac builds do, some sci do but certainly not the whole range of pvp builds.
Bringing my eng healers (or even sci healers)into any stf and i want' to pull my teeth out. I'm still chipping at some stupid target before the friggin optional timer has started, at the same point in time when my tac is usually ready to queue for the next one.
Sure i have more healing then god and all the borg npc combined, producing numbers higher then most pugs do damage. But whats the point, where is the fun in that? Where are my well timed snb needed? Who do i keep alive when even tac escorts can tank the biggest NPC mobs? why is my fully specced and specialized sci attack subject to special immunities, that no other player of npc has? What good is giving EPS to a teammate that has 3x125 in their subsystems. I don't even get to touch my MW. Not a single cloaking NPC can be decloaked by TDG, and whatever sci snoop build you want to throw on top of it. The only thing that works is large mobs going boom fast with dhc fire, in appropriately agile ships.
This problem has a long part, remember when sci magic ruled hard in pvp, and still cryptic had to introduce SA because they just took to damn long to finish anything in pve?
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
Funny how you read so many "heals" into my post when the word didn't appear even once or for that matter, any synonym to heals.
The so called "exploit" is in fact <<Evasive Maneuver>>, a skill that all Captains regardless of careers have access to.
Any form of double tap is used in combination with some form of hold, let it be tractor beam, PSW or your 50 seconds Graviton Pulse exploit that you proudly attached under your signature. EM remains the most effective anti-hold ability out there, and therefore, the primary counter to double tap. Plus, EM can't be subnuked. However, it isn't some kind of fail proof mechanism against the double tap exploit.
On the contrary, heals tend to be useless in a situation when you get double tapped. The speed at which it is fired was so quick such that even TT didn't have the time to react, Mini confirmed that long time ago. There is really no defense against it once the first BO hits due to the 1 second time of execution. As for any claims of delays between the two BOs, there was literaly none to speak off. The reason why some will survive is due to imperfect execution on the part of the attacker. Other than that, no amount of heals will do any good.
I don't break trust.
Perhaps you should post how you so successfully take out those evil, nasty cloakers you hate so much.
Wouldn't have anything to do with double stacking your torp spreads that have 100% accuracy do it? I hear that's popular.
Funny, that Torp Spread with 100% acc.
I wonder if that's working as intended.
Enough is enough. The nasty replies need to stop. Please do not push things to the point where we need to close this thread down.
Better plan... Somebody's violating the rules, DON'T reply. PM me or another Mod with the link to the post and let us handle it.
If everyone would cooperate with that, we could settle things down and keep this nice thread going and keep the useful feedback flowing to a Dev who's listening.
~ Bluegeek
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
In other words, it was a private / off-the-record conversation. Then if so, your faith was based on a casual, private and vague comment, hardly what I would call official seal of approval. Note the word "seems" in your paraphrasing.
Each experience is different, there is not a cookbook for this.
Haven't used TS on my Fed build for quite some time. In fact, I don't use any Tactical Stations at all. Call me crazy but it works really well.
What I heard was that the TS mechanism is more inherently entrenched into the game mechanics such that it will not be easy to fix it, similar to how Tact Captain skills buff Sci powers such as Feedback Pulse and Gravity Well. It's recognized as an issue but no easy fix.
Off-topic.
Can we please return to discussing what this thread is about?
These thumb-wrestling exercises about who said what and who's builds suck/rule are not providing useful feedback.
Again... Dev is listening? Distraction bad?
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Do we know if there's going to be a corresponding heal nerf to go along with this, or is that still in debate?
For you Blue, I'll do my best to be on my bestest.
Just remember, this is PvP. Someone has to die.
I hope something like that gets through and I hope it comes in the form of new boff powers.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=835591&highlight=resource
Based on what hawk said, the "double-tap" change hasn't even hit Tribble yet.
My guess is that it will be tested, it will likely go live, and then they can start looking at heal/survivability changes.
No other official statement has been made in regard to this and heals, so bottom line it would seem that there is no related balance change for heals in the pipe at present.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek