Also your 'fix' to KB is not a fix at all. Unfortunately you still receive the proc from the KB itself, you just don't get knocked down.. all you really did there is make it so the graphics doesn't show you getting knocked down but there is still a period in which your tray is locked after getting what would normally be a KB.
That.. is terrible news. Devs please look into this.
If dodge needs a fix, then the tactical officer's ability to do a one shot also needs a fix, imo. Ask anyone, in any mmo pvp forum, they will tell you being able to straight out one shot your target is a terrible game mechanic. This is only curtailed by dodge, and I think that is why the devs would probably not touch it as hawk said in his post.
The damage numbers I was referring to were more so raw numbers, not accounting for dodge etc. Pulsewave Rifles are everywhere, and they are easy enough to use, let's not kid ourselves.
The numbers I was listing are base numbers as well. If I added in dodge, it would take 3,053.3 damage to kill my science officer (667 health at 46.4% health resistance and ~50% shield resistance). A sniper rifle isn't going to cut it, a MACO sniper shot will deal 1,586.22 damage fully buffed on a critical hit against a target that is also exposed. If someone isn't paying attention or if they are unbuffed, then yes, they will be oneshotted. However, there is that long sniper trail, giving a player about 2 seconds to break line of sight or activate counters
A fleet antiproton pulsewave assault will deal 1389.6 damage when fully buffed and at point blank range. That is not enough to one hit kill someone without a flanking shot. A Critical hit with that same weapon will deal 1676 damage, which is enough to kill someone in one hit. In both cases though, the player that is about to get hit with this damage has advanced warning. Activating that many buffs takes about 4 seconds, which is plenty of time to react. Engineers can use weapons malfunction, fuse armor, cover shield, mine barrier, or reroute power to shields. Tactical officers can use suppression fire or counter buff. Science officers can use neural neutralizer, dampening field, sonic pulse, tachyon harmonics (knockback), nanite health monitor, vascular regnerator, or triage to survive the strike.
How often do you see players getting oneshotted in Ground PvP anymore? It's become a very rare occurrence. The pulsewave Reign of Terror ended with Legacy of Romulus. The trait revamp, proliferation of the peak health trait, the Nukara Tier I passive, Medical Vanguard, Shield Harmonic Resonance, and Emergency Fix all served to increase our survivability. Just ask some of your fleetmates, how often do they actually get a oneshot anymore? Plasma Grenade + Pulsewave or Sniper Shot doesn't count. That's a 2-3 attack move combo that can be very easily countered with a well timed ability. The only players that die instantly are the people that aren't paying attention to their surroundings, are new to ground, or out of practice.
The two weapons in the game capable of delivering one hit kills, Sniper Rifles and Pulsewaves, both have opportunity costs and over two dozen counters to block. Dodge on the other hand, cannot be countered nor reduced. How bad would Space PvP be if you could have a 100% defense rating? Dodge is less severe, you still deal 50% damage, but it is a poor mechanic if you can have a 100% dodge all the time. I too think dodge plays a vital role in Ground PvP, but I don't think players should be able to maintain a 100% Dodge chance rating.
The hold resistance mechanic may or may not be working as intended, it didn't used to be this way iirc. You couldn't chain stun someone the way you can now. I would just like dev clarification on this is all.
I brought up the Omega Carbine/Cryo Immobilizer issue due to its unintended tray locking effects more so then the chain immobilize issue. Which is bad enough as it is obviously.
Willpower was nerfed in Legacy of Romulus. Before LoR, you could get 99% resistance to control effects. After LoR, 9 points would net you about 50% resistance to control effects. Stun resistance works, you can see this most clearly when you get phaser procced and then Dividian caned. As far as I understand, Cryo will receive changes fairly soon. If it turns out the ability needs total immunity, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm sure Hawk will be open to feedback on the changes once they are live, he has for the past changes anyway.
Was some way I described the distortion field issue wrong? Seems like your dissecting of my post was a little unnecessary there.
Not wrong, no, but it's not just distortion field. The actual ability has nothing to do with the problem. Any stealth ability will remove animations at a far enough range, all I was doing was clarifying.
The Adapted MACO gun issue is a problem whether it is as big as others or not. It can be exceptionally damaging fully buffed as I'm sure you know. It only has 50% shield penetration? Then wait for the target's shields to go down, simple enough. Unless the target is an engineer this will happen quickly anyway. For fun I pulled out that weapon on my tac a while ago to test it. Under the effects of tactical initiative you can fire off a super buffed photon grenade every 5 seconds or so, that is more or less invisible. It is plenty powerful.
It's no more powerful than a archwave shot. An impact circle wouldn't be a bad thing, but I've never found the gun to be a balance issue. The sound effect alone is very distinct and the grenade falling animation clearly indicates the location where the grenade has fallen. I've never had an issue dodging them.
Personally I think distortion field should last 15-20 secs instead of 10. When the player fires a weapon however they blip visible much like enhanced battle cloaking in space. (Imagine the rage if torpedos and mines had ever been rendered invisible by enhanced cloak lol) I think something like that would be far easier to implement then going and looking at every individual animation that is bugged with it. That list is just way too long.
Kudos to Hawk for talking with the community and implementing these fixes. Ground is going to be much improved as a result. Maybe a no bs ground tourney like mimey suggested might even become a reality.
I like that suggestion here, if firing a weapon would temporarily turn the cloak off while the animation runs we wouldn't have the whole issue of red lines not getting rendered and that would also be a concept thats already known to spacers from the enhanced battle cloak and the tech for that exists already too.
I like that suggestion here, if firing a weapon would temporarily turn the cloak off while the animation runs we wouldn't have the whole issue of red lines not getting rendered and that would also be a concept thats already known to spacers from the enhanced battle cloak and the tech for that exists already too.
If Distortion Field functioned like Mask Energy Field or Enhanced Battle Cloak, the ability would become inferior to other ground two piece set bonuses. Right now Distortion Field is both an NPC and player aggro ditching tool. Changing that into an ability that breaks on attack completely changes the usage for the ability. If a player can't attack without wrecking their stealth bonus, distortion field becomes a last ditch ability, rather than a mid combat ability. Fixing the animation bug is ideal, as the problem can be replicated with personal shroud generators + ambush.
I like the idea of having it break on sniper shot or grenades, but standard split beam or similar attacks should not break the stealth bonus.
The numbers I was listing are base numbers as well. If I added in dodge, it would take 3,053.3 damage to kill my science officer (667 health at 46.4% health resistance and ~50% shield resistance). A sniper rifle isn't going to cut it, a MACO sniper shot will deal 1,586.22 damage fully buffed on a critical hit against a target that is also exposed. If someone isn't paying attention or if they are unbuffed, then yes, they will be oneshotted. However, there is that long sniper trail, giving a player about 2 seconds to break line of sight or activate counters
A fleet antiproton pulsewave assault will deal 1389.6 damage when fully buffed and at point blank range. That is not enough to one hit kill someone without a flanking shot. A Critical hit with that same weapon will deal 1676 damage, which is enough to kill someone in one hit. In both cases though, the player that is about to get hit with this damage has advanced warning. Activating that many buffs takes about 4 seconds, which is plenty of time to react. Engineers can use weapons malfunction, fuse armor, cover shield, mine barrier, or reroute power to shields. Tactical officers can use suppression fire or counter buff. Science officers can use neural neutralizer, dampening field, sonic pulse, tachyon harmonics (knockback), nanite health monitor, vascular regnerator, or triage to survive the strike.
How often do you see players getting oneshotted in Ground PvP anymore? It's become a very rare occurrence. The pulsewave Reign of Terror ended with Legacy of Romulus. The trait revamp, proliferation of the peak health trait, the Nukara Tier I passive, Medical Vanguard, Shield Harmonic Resonance, and Emergency Fix all served to increase our survivability. Just ask some of your fleetmates, how often do they actually get a oneshot anymore? Plasma Grenade + Pulsewave or Sniper Shot doesn't count. That's a 2-3 attack move combo that can be very easily countered with a well timed ability. The only players that die instantly are the people that aren't paying attention to their surroundings, are new to ground, or out of practice.
The two weapons in the game capable of delivering one hit kills, Sniper Rifles and Pulsewaves, both have opportunity costs and over two dozen counters to block. Dodge on the other hand, cannot be countered nor reduced. How bad would Space PvP be if you could have a 100% defense rating? Dodge is less severe, you still deal 50% damage, but it is a poor mechanic if you can have a 100% dodge all the time. I too think dodge plays a vital role in Ground PvP, but I don't think players should be able to maintain a 100% Dodge chance rating.
Willpower was nerfed in Legacy of Romulus. Before LoR, you could get 99% resistance to control effects. After LoR, 9 points would net you about 50% resistance to control effects. Stun resistance works, you can see this most clearly when you get phaser procced and then Dividian caned. As far as I understand, Cryo will receive changes fairly soon. If it turns out the ability needs total immunity, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm sure Hawk will be open to feedback on the changes once they are live, he has for the past changes anyway.
Not wrong, no, but it's not just distortion field. The actual ability has nothing to do with the problem. Any stealth ability will remove animations at a far enough range, all I was doing was clarifying.
It's no more powerful than a archwave shot. An impact circle wouldn't be a bad thing, but I've never found the gun to be a balance issue. The sound effect alone is very distinct and the grenade falling animation clearly indicates the location where the grenade has fallen. I've never had an issue dodging them.
The reason people are not seeing many one-hit kills is because of dodge, yes. Working as intended. I just don't see how more one-hit kills "helps" ground pvp. Just the opposite.
Perhaps Willpower works the way it should, idk. The idea of getting chain phaser proc'd seems off to me. As far as cryo immobilizer is concerned, I was just drawing attention to the fact that it and seemingly other immobilize procs seem to cause a "tray lock" phenomenon.
The adapted maco gun might not be the biggest issue at the moment, but it is broken. The dev was in the thread, why not bring it up?
The reason people are not seeing many one-hit kills is because of dodge, yes. Working as intended. I just don't see how more one-hit kills "helps" ground pvp. Just the opposite.
Perhaps Willpower works the way it should, idk. The idea of getting chain phaser proc'd seems off to me. As far as cryo immobilizer is concerned, I was just drawing attention to the fact that it and seemingly other immobilize procs seem to cause a "tray lock" phenomenon.
The adapted maco gun might not be the biggest issue at the moment, but it is broken. The dev was in the thread, why not bring it up?
Well, what we are seeing in ground is actually opportunist. Cloakers are the main problem as far as one hit kills go. They wait until you engage in battle and watch your buffs as they see your resistance power and healing power being stripped they uncloak on you and basically one hit kill you. To decrease dodge on cats would end up making the point of even owning a cat to be pointless. The only thing we caitians would have would be jumping power at that point as the caitians powers have been nerfed by providing all but pounce to pretty much every race. lol. And well, if they decrease dodge overall on all toons then what we are facing is players being killed faster and a huge increase in one shots. From what I understood from the dev, he wants to try to average dodge through limiting the ways it can be stacked so that all toons are on equal playing ground, right? So... again basically the caitian becomes pointless to have as everyone will have pretty much the same amount of dodge. In my honest opinion dodge is just fine the way it is.
And well, actually what we are looking at is either broken willpower or tons of other things broken and just resists willpower. lol. So what tira is actually describing is a resistance to resistance, without even realizing it. lol. This is possible but I would hope incorrect as that means cryptic faces bigger problems. I saw tira mention that there is resistance to the cane. Might i point out that you can accurately resist the same amount to the cane with no more than 4 points into willpower as you can with 9. This leads me to believe that the diminishing returns are completely screwed up. Well, as far as stun is concerned their is no resistance at all and that goes along with immobilize.
As far as the adapted maco gun goes, tira forgot one very important fact.... it deals kinetic damage and not energy damage, so it does more hp damage and resists shields even against someone with medical vanguard. However, for the most part it is easy to dodge the attack unless of course you have someone running an immobilize proc to hold you. I could see where it could be OP if used correctly but, from what i have seen by people running it.. no one has the skills or the above knowledge to run it to that effectiveness and there are better and more efficient OP tactics to use so its not going to gain much attention by the elite ground pvpers. I agree with you when you say, it is not a large problem but, I will say it could escalate in the very far future.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Working as intended"... 1 year later they "fix" it.
Well, what we are seeing in ground is actually opportunist. Cloakers are the main problem as far as one hit kills go. They wait until you engage in battle and watch your buffs as they see your resistance power and healing power being stripped they uncloak on you and basically one hit kill you.
Operatives are equivalent to Klingon Raiders in space, both have the ability to oneshot when timed correctly. When timed incorrectly, they fall fairly quickly.
To decrease dodge on cats would end up making the point of even owning a cat to be pointless. The only thing we caitians would have would be jumping power at that point as the caitians powers have been nerfed by providing all but pounce to pretty much every race. lol. And well, if they decrease dodge overall on all toons then what we are facing is players being killed faster and a huge increase in one shots. From what I understood from the dev, he wants to try to average dodge through limiting the ways it can be stacked so that all toons are on equal playing ground, right? So... again basically the caitian becomes pointless to have as everyone will have pretty much the same amount of dodge. In my honest opinion dodge is just fine the way it is.
That's a rather significant downplay on the cat's jumping trait. Players still play Ferasans on the KDF side, yet Ferasans do not have +10% dodge. Why? Jump Height + Pounce. The Jump Height allows cats to get jump flank shots, something that all other races are incapable of performing, unless their target is crouched. Pounce, which came out long after lunge (there was no cat "nerf"), is a very short cooldown ability with a built in knockback. Both of these things provide a significant advantage to cats.
The +10% dodge was just extra icing on the cake, it wasn't needed at all. Free dodge in the form of a racial stat, tossed in with two other full stats, is overpowered. There is no opportunity cost, unlike other existing items that grant +dodge. Dodge is a very important mechanic in Ground PvP, but if someone has a 100% dodge chance, that's not a mechanic anymore. Every weapon and attack in the game then becomes "half damage vs players" when dodge chance is at 100% full time. Most players have weapons that deal about 125 damage/second on average. A medic can provide about 85-115 healing/second on average. If every attack is now dodged, that 125 DPS player is now a 62.5 DPS player. Then we wonder why some medics or equipment technicians take 3 people to kill without spike damage.
Dodge is out of control at the moment. Hopefully the devs can find some way to bring it back into balance in the future. Yes, it will hurt caitains, making them less powerful, but it needs to happen.
And well, actually what we are looking at is either broken willpower or tons of other things broken and just resists willpower. lol. So what tira is actually describing is a resistance to resistance, without even realizing it. lol. This is possible but I would hope incorrect as that means cryptic faces bigger problems. I saw tira mention that there is resistance to the cane. Might i point out that you can accurately resist the same amount to the cane with no more than 4 points into willpower as you can with 9. This leads me to believe that the diminishing returns are completely screwed up. Well, as far as stun is concerned their is no resistance at all and that goes along with immobilize.
As Nulonu has said, if you don't think Willpower is working, by all means don't spec into it. We won't mind one bit. Resistance to the cane is working, there are times where it's activation doesn't even affect me longer than half a second. +Resistance to a control power isn't the same as immunity to a control power. At least when it comes to stun and slow, they are working as described.
As far as the adapted maco gun goes, tira forgot one very important fact.... it deals kinetic damage and not energy damage, so it does more hp damage and resists shields even against someone with medical vanguard. However, for the most part it is easy to dodge the attack unless of course you have someone running an immobilize proc to hold you. I could see where it could be OP if used correctly but, from what i have seen by people running it.. no one has the skills or the above knowledge to run it to that effectiveness and there are better and more efficient OP tactics to use so its not going to gain much attention by the elite ground pvpers. I agree with you when you say, it is not a large problem but, I will say it could escalate in the very far future.
Yeah, it might become a minor problem in the future, but for people that use it there's always split beam rifles from range to take them down.
Operatives are equivalent to Klingon Raiders in space, both have the ability to oneshot when timed correctly. When timed incorrectly, they fall fairly quickly.
That's a rather significant downplay on the cat's jumping trait. Players still play Ferasans on the KDF side, yet Ferasans do not have +10% dodge. Why? Jump Height + Pounce. The Jump Height allows cats to get jump flank shots, something that all other races are incapable of performing, unless their target is crouched. Pounce, which came out long after lunge (there was no cat "nerf"), is a very short cooldown ability with a built in knockback. Both of these things provide a significant advantage to cats.
The +10% dodge was just extra icing on the cake, it wasn't needed at all. Free dodge in the form of a racial stat, tossed in with two other full stats, is overpowered. There is no opportunity cost, unlike other existing items that grant +dodge. Dodge is a very important mechanic in Ground PvP, but if someone has a 100% dodge chance, that's not a mechanic anymore. Every weapon and attack in the game then becomes "half damage vs players" when dodge chance is at 100% full time. Most players have weapons that deal about 125 damage/second on average. A medic can provide about 85-115 healing/second on average. If every attack is now dodged, that 125 DPS player is now a 62.5 DPS player. Then we wonder why some medics or equipment technicians take 3 people to kill without spike damage.
Dodge is out of control at the moment. Hopefully the devs can find some way to bring it back into balance in the future. Yes, it will hurt caitains, making them less powerful, but it needs to happen.
As Nulonu has said, if you don't think Willpower is working, by all means don't spec into it. We won't mind one bit. Resistance to the cane is working, there are times where it's activation doesn't even affect me longer than half a second. +Resistance to a control power isn't the same as immunity to a control power. At least when it comes to stun and slow, they are working as described.
Yeah, it might become a minor problem in the future, but for people that use it there's always split beam rifles from range to take them down.
I agree, cloakers on ground are the same as cloakers in space. I have said this before, its all opportunistic now.
The nerf i was referring to is the fact that covert, a cat specific trait, is now shared among pretty much all species it seems. Not to mention that covert has gotten a counter now, as i pointed out earlier, through the nukara rep gear. Not that i'm complaining about the counter one bit, I am simply saying that, it was a main point to having the cats. My main point though, is the dodge bonus is a specific bonus to having the c-store species. And your point to klink cats is acknowledged but, they do have a species specific trait as well.. and its not being nerfed. The jump height is useful but, lets be honest it would only be useful by playing in assault as being in arena with that bonus alone isn't going to even matter. Also, you forgot one main thing about your above math... you did not calculate damage resistance debuffs and such. Instead of nerfing everything to dummy it down, so to say, we should teach people how to ground pvp.
Lets be honest here for a second, as you are a ground pvper the same as me. Are you saying that you can not successfully take down other players in a 1v1? I mean because what you just said, is basically that a sci and an engineer can not be solo'd because they can out heal. lol.
We have to calculate everything into the mix and not just a few things. You have debuffs, power buffs, roots, holds, stuns, knockbacks, etc etc etc that you still have to calculate. I haven't found anyone that I couldn't kill at least once in ground. The dodge makes it challenging and everyone is welcome to use it.
As far as willpower goes, well... since you don't mind me running low willpower, I actually do which gives me points that i can spec into something else. Lol. I have been running only 4 points into willpower and I still get the very same resistances you do. And well, the stuns and such don't work as they should. You should have some sort of resistance to stuns and slows however there is none at all. I just got finished testing it.
Like I said, it is most likely a problem with diminishing returns being screwed up on willpower or at least that's how it appears. Feel free to test it yourself.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Working as intended"... 1 year later they "fix" it.
Photon grenade launcher is a funny one. On one hand it's the only grenade that doesn't draw a circle but on the other hand it's the only grenade that doesn't explode on impact. That smoking grenade landing next to me is usually enough to get me to move even if I didn't happen to see it incoming. Far different IMO from the players who only throw plasma grenades with distortion field to take advantage of the bug with the circle. I really don't think adding a circle for photon launcher would make much difference but it certainly wouldn't hurt anything.
As far as dodge, I guess that depends on what kind of game you want. I like tactical battles that take longer, move/counter move etc. If you want a faster paced game then that I could see dodge being an obstacle. With the fix to med vanguard, medic sci durability is going to go down too btw as well as the team members the medic is healing so that may speed the game up some anyway.
I have to agree with emp about cats. They cost zen for a reason. When the knock back from pounce isn't bypassing resists as it is on holo deck they'll be more in line as opposed to always having that knock down disable handy. I'd actually like to see more cstore options for races to play as. Aenar anyone? Or how about a defected Changling. Why not a Salt creature? They may be dumb zombies in the mission but they were intelligent shape shifters in the show iirc. Wouldn't be any more or less implausible then dinos with lazers on their heads. :P
The nerf i was referring to is the fact that covert, a cat specific trait, is now shared among pretty much all species it seems. Not to mention that covert has gotten a counter now, as i pointed out earlier, through the nukara rep gear. Not that i'm complaining about the counter one bit, I am simply saying that, it was a main point to having the cats. My main point though, is the dodge bonus is a specific bonus to having the c-store species.
Corrected Stealth Values to be more realistic: 10%, 20% and 30% for each rank of the Trait.
Players have Rank 2.
Until this point in time, the Covert trait was broken, it did not work at all for ground combat. When the fix came out, I had been playing for three weeks, and I had a MACO Mk XI armor and weapon from STF runs. My character was human with the Techie and Covert traits. So, I'd go around the map, decloaking with a sniper rifle in shooter mode, and sniping players. At that point in time though, I didn't understand the significance of buffs, thus I didn't use them. Over the next two months I slowly picked up on it. Those were good times, the ground queues were a lot more active, and I was the only one with covert for the longest time. There were few premades and the majority of those that queued were just as new as I. Covert was never a cat only trait, Ferasians have a +Stealth bonus as well as the ability to pick up Covert. However, Covert itself has always been a multiracial trait. You may not have noticed it because the majority of players did not have it until the trait revamp with Legacy of Romulus.
And your point to klink cats is acknowledged but, they do have a species specific trait as well.. and its not being nerfed. The jump height is useful but, lets be honest it would only be useful by playing in assault as being in arena with that bonus alone isn't going to even matter. Also, you forgot one main thing about your above math... you did not calculate damage resistance debuffs and such. Instead of nerfing everything to dummy it down, so to say, we should teach people how to ground pvp.
Ferasians have the unique trait, Predatory Instincts: +5% Damage with Melee Attacks,, +75% Jump Height, +5% Stealth, +10% Exploit Damage, +5 Perception. The trait is powerful, but it doesn't excessively increase their survivability. Putting dodge under some form or limitation promotes build diversity. If one mechanic provides far superior surviability to anything else in the game, then it limits build diversity. Dodge should be equal to other surviability options, not superior. Someone with a 100% dodge chance has superior survivability over someone with 75% health damage resistance and 75% shield damage resistance (maximums in respected areas).
Dodge cannot be reduced, damage resistances can be reduced. Someone stacking 100% dodge is completely bypassing part of the damage resistance mechanic. If they only had 50% dodge, they would only be taking advantage of the dodge mechanic half the time. A resistance mechanic with a 100% uptime is not a true mechanic, it's a passive. Dodge was never meant to be a passive. If it were possible to get 100% Critical chance I'm certain you'd agree that such a thing would be too powerful. The reverse is true for dodge, 100% dodge chance is no longer a "chance", it's a passive. Critical chance would no longer be a "chance" if you could critically hit 100% of the time.
Lets be honest here for a second, as you are a ground pvper the same as me. Are you saying that you can not successfully take down other players in a 1v1? I mean because what you just said, is basically that a sci and an engineer can not be solo'd because they can out heal. lol.
We have to calculate everything into the mix and not just a few things. You have debuffs, power buffs, roots, holds, stuns, knockbacks, etc etc etc that you still have to calculate. I haven't found anyone that I couldn't kill at least once in ground. The dodge makes it challenging and everyone is welcome to use it.
Don't get me wrong, Dodge is a vital mechanic in Ground PvP, just as a Critical hit is a vital mechanic for ground. You can't completely eliminate dodge for the same reason you can't eliminate critical hits. Dodge is meant to provide spike damage resistances in the same way that critical hits are meant to provide spikes in damage dealt. Neither mechanic should ever reach a 100% chance, it creates game imbalance. At the moment, everyone can die in a 1v1, it's impossible to stack dodge to 100% chance without multiple team ambush fields. Dodge is still balanced in a 1v1 situation because it's not a 100% chance mechanic.
As far as willpower goes, well... since you don't mind me running low willpower, I actually do which gives me points that i can spec into something else. Lol. I have been running only 4 points into willpower and I still get the very same resistances you do. And well, the stuns and such don't work as they should. You should have some sort of resistance to stuns and slows however there is none at all. I just got finished testing it.
Like I said, it is most likely a problem with diminishing returns being screwed up on willpower or at least that's how it appears. Feel free to test it yourself.
I can tell the difference between a character with a 5 in willpower compared to a character with a 6 in willpower. The difference between a 4 in willpower and a 6 in willpower is 10% more resistance. Not overly significant, but I consider it to be a reasonable advantage. It's a build fork, I consider it to be useful, you don't. If such things didn't exist, there would be very little build variance in ground PvP. Also, if you aren't getting a stun resistance buff on expiration of a given stun, toss it up here with the name of the ability. Hawk may see it and take a closer look.
I'd actually like to see more cstore options for races to play as. Aenar anyone? Or how about a defected Changling. Why not a Salt creature? They may be dumb zombies in the mission but they were intelligent shape shifters in the show iirc. Wouldn't be any more or less implausible then dinos with lazers on their heads. :P
Here's an idea Nulonu, I'd imagine they would be quite popular in the C-store.
Voth Spec Ops Elite Commando - Play as a Voth Spec Ops officer. Note: You are restricted to the Dyson Sphere Ground Battlezone. Level your character by defeating unsuspecting players in the battlezone.
"Level 50" base hit points: 1,800
+25% base run speed
+100% Dodge chance
Weapons:
Antiproton Raptor Blades - 150 physical damage per slash - 25% chance for unresistable knockback per slash
Voth Elite Antiproton Compression Pistol - 5% chance to deal +500% damage to target for a single attack
Abilities:
Phasing Stealth Module IV - Immunity to all damage and debuffs when cloaked
Motion Accelerator III
Lunge IV
Target Optics III
Rally Cry IV
Strike Team III
Tactical Initiative III
Sweeping Strikes III
Traits:
Superior Covert
Superior Peak Health
Superior Aggressive
Superior Soldier
Superior Acute Senses
Superior Lucky
Superior Strike Team Specialist
Superior Physical Strength
Shield:
None
Armor:
Voth Advanced Recoil Compensating Armor
Devices:
Race may not use devices, hypos, or similar items.
Enjoy Disclaimer: This post is intended to be humorous. Please do not take it seriously
Well, what we are seeing in ground is actually opportunist. Cloakers are the main problem as far as one hit kills go. They wait until you engage in battle and watch your buffs as they see your resistance power and healing power being stripped they uncloak on you and basically one hit kill you. To decrease dodge on cats would end up making the point of even owning a cat to be pointless. The only thing we caitians would have would be jumping power at that point as the caitians powers have been nerfed by providing all but pounce to pretty much every race. lol. And well, if they decrease dodge overall on all toons then what we are facing is players being killed faster and a huge increase in one shots. From what I understood from the dev, he wants to try to average dodge through limiting the ways it can be stacked so that all toons are on equal playing ground, right? So... again basically the caitian becomes pointless to have as everyone will have pretty much the same amount of dodge. In my honest opinion dodge is just fine the way it is.
And well, actually what we are looking at is either broken willpower or tons of other things broken and just resists willpower. lol. So what tira is actually describing is a resistance to resistance, without even realizing it. lol. This is possible but I would hope incorrect as that means cryptic faces bigger problems. I saw tira mention that there is resistance to the cane. Might i point out that you can accurately resist the same amount to the cane with no more than 4 points into willpower as you can with 9. This leads me to believe that the diminishing returns are completely screwed up. Well, as far as stun is concerned their is no resistance at all and that goes along with immobilize.
As far as the adapted maco gun goes, tira forgot one very important fact.... it deals kinetic damage and not energy damage, so it does more hp damage and resists shields even against someone with medical vanguard. However, for the most part it is easy to dodge the attack unless of course you have someone running an immobilize proc to hold you. I could see where it could be OP if used correctly but, from what i have seen by people running it.. no one has the skills or the above knowledge to run it to that effectiveness and there are better and more efficient OP tactics to use so its not going to gain much attention by the elite ground pvpers. I agree with you when you say, it is not a large problem but, I will say it could escalate in the very far future.
Indeed a nerf to dodge would have cloakers all excited. The nerf to medical vanguard is enough of a bone for them to chew on for now I think.
Nice testing on the whole resistance/willpower issue. Too bad about it being so.. cryptic lol.
Yup, the adapted maco gun issue isn't that big atm. I brought it up because I kinda like the set, but don't like not knowing if it's working correctly.
Here's an idea Nulonu, I'd imagine they would be quite popular in the C-store.
Voth Spec Ops Elite Commando - Play as a Voth Spec Ops officer. Note: You are restricted to the Dyson Sphere Ground Battlezone. Level your character by defeating unsuspecting players in the battlezone.
"Level 50" base hit points: 1,800
+25% base run speed
+100% Dodge chance
Weapons:
Antiproton Raptor Blades - 150 physical damage per slash - 25% chance for unresistable knockback per slash
Voth Elite Antiproton Compression Pistol - 5% chance to deal +500% damage to target for a single attack
Abilities:
Phasing Stealth Module IV - Immunity to all damage and debuffs when cloaked
Motion Accelerator III
Lunge IV
Target Optics III
Rally Cry IV
Strike Team III
Tactical Initiative III
Sweeping Strikes III
Traits:
Superior Covert
Superior Peak Health
Superior Aggressive
Superior Soldier
Superior Acute Senses
Superior Lucky
Superior Strike Team Specialist
Superior Physical Strength
Shield:
None
Armor:
Voth Advanced Recoil Compensating Armor
Devices:
Race may not use devices, hypos, or similar items.
Enjoy Disclaimer: This post is intended to be humorous. Please do not take it seriously
Only if it came with a Rex Azaria (or w/e that min-boss was called) to ride around on.
Indeed a nerf to dodge would have cloakers all excited. The nerf to medical vanguard is enough of a bone for them to chew on for now I think.
Nice testing on the whole resistance/willpower issue. Too bad about it being so.. cryptic lol.
Yup, the adapted maco gun issue isn't that big atm. I brought it up because I kinda like the set, but don't like not knowing if it's working correctly.
I play science officers more than I play tactical anymore. The vanguard changes won't change much for most players that weren't using elite fleet gear. I personally use the Omega Force set or Adapted MACO + Nukara Cryo Healing Shield. The two piece bonus on those sets won't trigger vanguard anymore, but it was so very minor compared to the elite fleet armor and shield problem. Having been on both sides of the coin, a medic is still going to be the second most difficult target to bring down with an operative (the first being a situationally aware enemy neutralization engineer).
I knew there would be opposition when I posted my first comment on it, but I decided to throw it on the table. Eventually, dodge needs to be brought back into line. It might not be this Season, but I hope it happens sometime in the future.
I haven't played a ground pvp match since they patched away my personal playstyle with the season four 'improvements'.
So how is it handling nowadays? From what I read it is slightly less broken than by the time I left?
And in case you were wondering what exactly my dealbreaker was/is. No longer being able to trigger powers inbetween primary fire cycles but having to wait for the cycle to complete. I might have even took that and adapted but applying that to dodgeroll was just the silly thing that made me leave that particular type of play. ''Oh look a cryo 'nade, *double-tap movement key*, let's just finish this firin.... *frozen*''
I haven't played a ground pvp match since they patched away my personal playstyle with the season four 'improvements'.
So how is it handling nowadays? From what I read it is slightly less broken than by the time I left?
And in case you were wondering what exactly my dealbreaker was/is. No longer being able to trigger powers inbetween primary fire cycles but having to wait for the cycle to complete. I might have even took that and adapted but applying that to dodgeroll was just the silly thing that made me leave that particular type of play. ''Oh look a cryo 'nade, *double-tap movement key*, let's just finish this firin.... *frozen*''
The community is small, but gameplay is relatively balanced compared to space. Right now there are a few problems. 75% of the better known problems are getting fixed with Season 8.
Animation lock still exists, it's why nobody uses Assault Miniguns or Blast Assaults in PvP. Full Auto Rifles, such as the Omega Force Autocarbine, are still used in PvP despite the brief animation lockout. You can still move, but you can't double tap to roll when in a firing animation. For most weapons, the firing animation is 0.5 seconds.
If you do come back, you should know that ground PvP has changed a lot since season five when I joined. If you haven't played since season four, then you have a significant amount of relearning to do. Ground PvP is very enjoyable, but it's also very fast paced, and many of the players that run right now have been in ground PvP for a while.
I play science officers more than I play tactical anymore. The vanguard changes won't change much for most players that weren't using elite fleet gear. I personally use the Omega Force set or Adapted MACO + Nukara Cryo Healing Shield. The two piece bonus on those sets won't trigger vanguard anymore, but it was so very minor compared to the elite fleet armor and shield problem. Having been on both sides of the coin, a medic is still going to be the second most difficult target to bring down with an operative (the first being a situationally aware enemy neutralization engineer).
I knew there would be opposition when I posted my first comment on it, but I decided to throw it on the table. Eventually, dodge needs to be brought back into line. It might not be this Season, but I hope it happens sometime in the future.
Exactly when was dodge ever "in line", if it's not right now? The omega ground set has been around as long as I can remember, along with the ability to crouch. That is a huge chunk of the dodge stat right there.
I have to agree with emp about cats. They cost zen for a reason. When the knock back from pounce isn't bypassing resists as it is on holo deck they'll be more in line as opposed to always having that knock down disable handy. I'd actually like to see more cstore options for races to play as. Aenar anyone? Or how about a defected Changling. Why not a Salt creature? They may be dumb zombies in the mission but they were intelligent shape shifters in the show iirc. Wouldn't be any more or less implausible then dinos with lazers on their heads. :P
If you continue down that line, then just have a C-Store P2W bonus we can buy and put on any race. Let humans pay to get 10% dodge added to their base trait. See how that reasoning, though balanced, will enrage most catians.
Exactly when was dodge ever "in line", if it's not right now? The omega ground set has been around as long as I can remember, along with the ability to crouch. That is a huge chunk of the dodge stat right there.
While i can totally understand why you said "as long as i can remember" there considering your not that long around in ground pvp, the game actually did exist a log longer then omega distortion cloak and i do remember the time before dodge stacking became popular, of course crouch was there.
664 days with just crouch and no omega set.
708 days (from Dec 1 2011 to now) with omega set.
So yea, there actually have been those times tira was refering too, you just weren't around
In my personal opinion ground pvp was much more fun before stf sets, doffs, lobi equipment, dodge stacking, willpower, shotguns, perfect cloak and all the ton of bugs that accidentally made it in with all those later additions.
^^ Unless this game goes straight shooter mode dodge is necessary. It may be odd to point blank shoot and not see any significant damage, but you otherwise don't miss a target in RPG mode. This also why shooter mode players gimp themselves by possibly missing a shot AND having to get through a targets dodge. Player health would need a boost if dodge were reduced or removed otherwise it would be one shot madness.
Exactly when was dodge ever "in line", if it's not right now? The omega ground set has been around as long as I can remember, along with the ability to crouch. That is a huge chunk of the dodge stat right there.
Crouching forces a player to remain stationary while providing dodge and reducing a player's resistance to melee damage. Until Cryptic changed the way mark gear provided stat boosts, dodge was much lower on the Omega set. It was still out of control, but this change made it worse. Yes, the Omega set has been around for almost two years now, but that's not a reason to go back to take another look at the mechanic.
While i can totally understand why you said "as long as i can remember" there considering your not that long around in ground pvp, the game actually did exist a log longer then omega distortion cloak and i do remember the time before dodge stacking became popular, of course crouch was there.
664 days with just crouch and no omega set.
708 days (from Dec 1 2011 to now) with omega set.
So yea, there actually have been those times tira was refering too, you just weren't around
In my personal opinion ground pvp was much more fun before stf sets, doffs, lobi equipment, dodge stacking, willpower, shotguns, perfect cloak and all the ton of bugs that accidentally made it in with all those later additions.
lol fair enough.
I indeed haven't been around as long as a lot of you guys, so I'll leave that part of the discussion for others.
^^ Unless this game goes straight shooter mode dodge is necessary. It may be odd to point blank shoot and not see any significant damage, but you otherwise don't miss a target in RPG mode. This also why shooter mode players gimp themselves by possibly missing a shot AND having to get through a targets dodge. Player health would need a boost if dodge were reduced or removed otherwise it would be one shot madness.
I too agree, if you remove dodge completely, or if you cripple dodge to meaningless levels (say, 5%), you'd need to boost hit points significantly. In such a case, there would be nothing to counter critical hits, which would in turn quickly dispatch a target. Not every team in ground PvP runs maximum dodge, we don't see them getting oneshotted left and right. Reducing the maximum amount of obtainable dodge so that it is below 100% wouldn't be a bad thing.
I too agree, if you remove dodge completely, or if you cripple dodge to meaningless levels (say, 5%), you'd need to boost hit points significantly. In such a case, there would be nothing to counter critical hits, which would in turn quickly dispatch a target. Not every team in ground PvP runs maximum dodge, we don't see them getting oneshotted left and right. Reducing the maximum amount of obtainable dodge so that it is below 100% wouldn't be a bad thing.
Any nerf to dodge and you would have to increase the health pool. Not only if you bomb it to uselessness. :P The issue is the magnitude of incoming damage, compared to the size of our health pool, is already dangerously out of whack. At any given time we are quite possibly being hit by attacks that are 2-3x the size of our heath pool. Imagine in space pvp if beam overloads did 150,000+ damage on a crit? The spacers would be asking for a dodge mechanic too lol.
Any nerf to dodge and you would have to increase the health pool. Not only if you bomb it to uselessness. :P The issue is the magnitude of incoming damage, compared to the size of our health pool, is already dangerously out of whack. At any given time we are quite possibly being hit by attacks that are 2-3x the size of our heath pool. Imagine in space pvp if beam overloads did 150,000+ damage on a crit? The spacers would be asking for a dodge mechanic too lol.
The damage on ground is actually much more balanced than the damage in space. There are two weapons in the game capable of one hit killing someone before factoring in dodge, sniper rifles and pulsewaves (shotguns). Every other weapon cannot kill a full health + full shields player.
The only weapon that comes anywhere close is the compression pistol. On a tactical officer specced for maximum damage, a fleet advanced antiproton compression pistol [Dmg]x3 [CritX] can deal 1,506.3 damage on a target if the tactical officer uses every buff, critically hits, and strikes an exposed target. There is also a very large opportunity cost in even attempting to kill someone with such an attack. Lining up a critical hit on top of an expose with a compression pistol is unpredictable, not to mention it won't even kill the target. Toss in the 25 meter range of the weapon...it's why nobody uses compression pistols as if they were one hit kill weapons. I'm going to the extremes here to demonstrate that there is an extremely limited number of ways to one hit kill a player. Even at extremes, you aren't going to get a one hit kill with a weapon other than a sniper or pulsewave.
Now, to break it down. A pulsewave shot has the potential to one hit kill in the same way a beam overload (20-60k + high yield (25k-80k) has the potential to one hit kill at point blank range. It can be survived, but only if you activate counters to survive the strike. If you survive the strike, the attacker will have used up his buffs, unable to strike you again due to cooldowns. The only time you have a risk is if the player is using tactical initiative waited until right before ambush fell off cooldown before attacking in order to get a second ambush attack a second later.
A lot of the super powered pulsewave strikes from tactical officers are similar to the double tap problem in space that was recently fixed. Ambush stacking is almost idential to the now dead Beam Overload stacking. If Cryptic added a 5 second ambush lockout upon use, similar to what they did with beam overload, we wouldn't have Ambush + Pulsewave followed by Ambush + Lunge a second later while under tactical initiative. Something to consider while we are on the topic of balancing damage. If we took double ambushing out of the equation, I believe that you'd be more comfortable with seeing a change in the way dodge works.
Sniper one hit kills aren't a problem at all. It takes all of a players buffs and debuffs to achieve. If the attack is countered, they have a long period before they can set up to fire again. If you kept line of sight with a sniper long enough for him to buff up, take aim, and charge their sniper rifle, then it's a legitimate kill. Even if you are rooted, there are multiple ways to break that kill shot (Shard of Possibilities, Damper Field, Emergency Shield Capacitor, Reroute Power to Shields, Cover Shield, Distortion Field, etc.)
Space does have an ability similar to dodge, commonly defense. Unlike defense, dodge hits still hit, they just deal half damage before resistances. Defense also has a cap (25% of all attacks will "hit") and can be reduced by slowing the target down with speed debuffs. Dodge does not have a cap, it cannot be reduced, and it is possible to reach a 100% chance to proc. If space had dodge in the current state, it would be superior to the defense mechanic. Players can't even reach the 75% miss ratio for long periods with defense due to the short duration of the +defense buffs. Defense is a balanced mechanic at the moment. Damage on ground is a balanced mechanic at the moment. Dodge chance isn't really a chance anymore on dodge stacking teams anymore, as they can obtain that 100% rating to dodge all attacks.
If you'd like to see my point most clearly, have a team of five stack team ambush field for you while on your medic. Then have one player sit there shooting you with any non-pulsewave or sniper weapon, buffing as needed. Have them drop grenades on you if they desire. Run the test. Have a second tactical officer join in on the attack, again without a pulsewave or a sniper. (No Type 3 Phaser either, the point of the exercise isn't to prove that knockback is a problem) After test 2 is complete, drop down to just two copies of team ambush field in total, 68.1% dodge chance. After that test, drop all copies of team ambush field and the gambling device, switch to the MACO set.
After that, you will see that dodge makes everything that isn't spike damage pretty pointless against a target when someone is stacking maximum dodge. Against a medium amount of dodge, sustained damage is moderately effective, but not overly so. Lastly, you will see that non-spike weapons aren't that powerful, even without any dodge. Heals are more than enough to protect against such sustained attacks. We don't need higher health pools, the damage is perfectly balanced at the moment. Ambush stacking with a pulsewave is an imbalance with spike, but that is easily remedied.
^^ Unless this game goes straight shooter mode dodge is necessary. It may be odd to point blank shoot and not see any significant damage, but you otherwise don't miss a target in RPG mode. This also why shooter mode players gimp themselves by possibly missing a shot AND having to get through a targets dodge. Player health would need a boost if dodge were reduced or removed otherwise it would be one shot madness.
I disagree. The Omega set has pretty much the highest DPS [or spike depending on your 2nd gun] it does not need to tank as well and in my opinion should NOT tank as well.
Dodge being reduced to nothingness would not cause one-shot madness. In fact I use the MACO set, rarely crouch in duels and survive just fine. sprinting's dodge bonus is powerful, but in the end, the main thing is it keeps you at a distance from the pulsewave and that's what saves you.
I do agree dodge is needed to some degree, but I don't agree that it should be left anywhere near the same, it in my opinion should be lowered... if not halved. [100% now, so 50% max then.]
If you don't think I can tank without omega set, cat and crouch dodge bonuses, then feel free to duel me I know at LEAST the first shot will not kill me . [Though I think I should be allowed to sprint, unless the other player agrees not to sprint.]
CABrandt and Carmen, spawn guardians.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Tip of the Spear
>
The damage on ground is actually much more balanced than the damage in space. There are two weapons in the game capable of one hit killing someone before factoring in dodge, sniper rifles and pulsewaves (shotguns). Every other weapon cannot kill a full health + full shields player.
The only weapon that comes anywhere close is the compression pistol. On a tactical officer specced for maximum damage, a fleet advanced antiproton compression pistol [Dmg]x3 [CritX] can deal 1,506.3 damage on a target if the tactical officer uses every buff, critically hits, and strikes an exposed target. There is also a very large opportunity cost in even attempting to kill someone with such an attack. Lining up a critical hit on top of an expose with a compression pistol is unpredictable, not to mention it won't even kill the target. Toss in the 25 meter range of the weapon...it's why nobody uses compression pistols as if they were one hit kill weapons. I'm going to the extremes here to demonstrate that there is an extremely limited number of ways to one hit kill a player. Even at extremes, you aren't going to get a one hit kill with a weapon other than a sniper or pulsewave.
Now, to break it down. A pulsewave shot has the potential to one hit kill in the same way a beam overload (20-60k + high yield (25k-80k) has the potential to one hit kill at point blank range. It can be survived, but only if you activate counters to survive the strike. If you survive the strike, the attacker will have used up his buffs, unable to strike you again due to cooldowns. The only time you have a risk is if the player is using tactical initiative waited until right before ambush fell off cooldown before attacking in order to get a second ambush attack a second later.
A lot of the super powered pulsewave strikes from tactical officers are similar to the double tap problem in space that was recently fixed. Ambush stacking is almost idential to the now dead Beam Overload stacking. If Cryptic added a 5 second ambush lockout upon use, similar to what they did with beam overload, we wouldn't have Ambush + Pulsewave followed by Ambush + Lunge a second later while under tactical initiative. Something to consider while we are on the topic of balancing damage. If we took double ambushing out of the equation, I believe that you'd be more comfortable with seeing a change in the way dodge works.
Sniper one hit kills aren't a problem at all. It takes all of a players buffs and debuffs to achieve. If the attack is countered, they have a long period before they can set up to fire again. If you kept line of sight with a sniper long enough for him to buff up, take aim, and charge their sniper rifle, then it's a legitimate kill. Even if you are rooted, there are multiple ways to break that kill shot (Shard of Possibilities, Damper Field, Emergency Shield Capacitor, Reroute Power to Shields, Cover Shield, Distortion Field, etc.)
Space does have an ability similar to dodge, commonly defense. Unlike defense, dodge hits still hit, they just deal half damage before resistances. Defense also has a cap (25% of all attacks will "hit") and can be reduced by slowing the target down with speed debuffs. Dodge does not have a cap, it cannot be reduced, and it is possible to reach a 100% chance to proc. If space had dodge in the current state, it would be superior to the defense mechanic. Players can't even reach the 75% miss ratio for long periods with defense due to the short duration of the +defense buffs. Defense is a balanced mechanic at the moment. Damage on ground is a balanced mechanic at the moment. Dodge chance isn't really a chance anymore on dodge stacking teams anymore, as they can obtain that 100% rating to dodge all attacks.
If you'd like to see my point most clearly, have a team of five stack team ambush field for you while on your medic. Then have one player sit there shooting you with any non-pulsewave or sniper weapon, buffing as needed. Have them drop grenades on you if they desire. Run the test. Have a second tactical officer join in on the attack, again without a pulsewave or a sniper. (No Type 3 Phaser either, the point of the exercise isn't to prove that knockback is a problem) After test 2 is complete, drop down to just two copies of team ambush field in total, 68.1% dodge chance. After that test, drop all copies of team ambush field and the gambling device, switch to the MACO set.
After that, you will see that dodge makes everything that isn't spike damage pretty pointless against a target when someone is stacking maximum dodge. Against a medium amount of dodge, sustained damage is moderately effective, but not overly so. Lastly, you will see that non-spike weapons aren't that powerful, even without any dodge. Heals are more than enough to protect against such sustained attacks. We don't need higher health pools, the damage is perfectly balanced at the moment. Ambush stacking with a pulsewave is an imbalance with spike, but that is easily remedied.
I still haven't heard why ground pvp would be "improved" by increasing the ability to one-shot another player. Is that a fun game mechanic? No. Do people enjoy getting ganked by opportunistic operative cloakers? It would be news to me.
If there is too much defense in ground pvp, then approach it from a more balanced angle that will result in more deaths by "many paper cuts". Or as nulonu said, "move/counter move". This method of defeat can still result in having an enjoyable experience.
If Distortion Field functioned like Mask Energy Field or Enhanced Battle Cloak, the ability would become inferior to other ground two piece set bonuses. Right now Distortion Field is both an NPC and player aggro ditching tool. Changing that into an ability that breaks on attack completely changes the usage for the ability. If a player can't attack without wrecking their stealth bonus, distortion field becomes a last ditch ability, rather than a mid combat ability. Fixing the animation bug is ideal, as the problem can be replicated with personal shroud generators + ambush.
So people abusing Distortion field the way is seen in the queues now is preferable? NPCs don't break target lock even when under operative cloak. If it functioned similar to Enhanced battle cloak with a longer duration, a player would still be able to use it to drop aggro from players, receive a longer energy resistance buff, and still be able to pick when to attack. That doesn't sound inferior to me. :P Dropping cloak while the shot animation plays is a small price to pay for everything distortion field does and like an enhanced battle cloak, the field would shroud the player once again after the animation plays.
I like the idea of having it break on sniper shot or grenades, but standard split beam or similar attacks should not break the stealth bonus.
I don't get this part. The first section you say it shouldn't break at all and here you say for some things it should. If it's broke for a grenade or a sniper shot, it's broke for all of them. According to Hawk, nothing is supposed to be hidden by it and a lot of things besides snipers and grenades are.
I disagree. The Omega set has pretty much the highest DPS [or spike depending on your 2nd gun] it does not need to tank as well and in my opinion should NOT tank as well.
Dodge being reduced to nothingness would not cause one-shot madness. In fact I use the MACO set, rarely crouch in duels and survive just fine. sprinting's dodge bonus is powerful, but in the end, the main thing is it keeps you at a distance from the pulsewave and that's what saves you.
I do agree dodge is needed to some degree, but I don't agree that it should be left anywhere near the same, it in my opinion should be lowered... if not halved. [100% now, so 50% max then.]
If you don't think I can tank without omega set, cat and crouch dodge bonuses, then feel free to duel me I know at LEAST the first shot will not kill me . [Though I think I should be allowed to sprint, unless the other player agrees not to sprint.]
Lest you forget, caB, I'm usually an eng myself so I'm well aware of the tank an eng can have and I have to disagree if you are saying a tac on omega can tank as well as that. I don't often run tac anymore (and it shows when I play as one! :P) but my physicist sci uses omega and while I definitely notice the extra tank from team ambush field, I still have to play carefully with the limited heals on that set up.
Comments
That.. is terrible news. Devs please look into this.
A fleet antiproton pulsewave assault will deal 1389.6 damage when fully buffed and at point blank range. That is not enough to one hit kill someone without a flanking shot. A Critical hit with that same weapon will deal 1676 damage, which is enough to kill someone in one hit. In both cases though, the player that is about to get hit with this damage has advanced warning. Activating that many buffs takes about 4 seconds, which is plenty of time to react. Engineers can use weapons malfunction, fuse armor, cover shield, mine barrier, or reroute power to shields. Tactical officers can use suppression fire or counter buff. Science officers can use neural neutralizer, dampening field, sonic pulse, tachyon harmonics (knockback), nanite health monitor, vascular regnerator, or triage to survive the strike.
How often do you see players getting oneshotted in Ground PvP anymore? It's become a very rare occurrence. The pulsewave Reign of Terror ended with Legacy of Romulus. The trait revamp, proliferation of the peak health trait, the Nukara Tier I passive, Medical Vanguard, Shield Harmonic Resonance, and Emergency Fix all served to increase our survivability. Just ask some of your fleetmates, how often do they actually get a oneshot anymore? Plasma Grenade + Pulsewave or Sniper Shot doesn't count. That's a 2-3 attack move combo that can be very easily countered with a well timed ability. The only players that die instantly are the people that aren't paying attention to their surroundings, are new to ground, or out of practice.
The two weapons in the game capable of delivering one hit kills, Sniper Rifles and Pulsewaves, both have opportunity costs and over two dozen counters to block. Dodge on the other hand, cannot be countered nor reduced. How bad would Space PvP be if you could have a 100% defense rating? Dodge is less severe, you still deal 50% damage, but it is a poor mechanic if you can have a 100% dodge all the time. I too think dodge plays a vital role in Ground PvP, but I don't think players should be able to maintain a 100% Dodge chance rating.
Willpower was nerfed in Legacy of Romulus. Before LoR, you could get 99% resistance to control effects. After LoR, 9 points would net you about 50% resistance to control effects. Stun resistance works, you can see this most clearly when you get phaser procced and then Dividian caned. As far as I understand, Cryo will receive changes fairly soon. If it turns out the ability needs total immunity, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm sure Hawk will be open to feedback on the changes once they are live, he has for the past changes anyway.
Not wrong, no, but it's not just distortion field. The actual ability has nothing to do with the problem. Any stealth ability will remove animations at a far enough range, all I was doing was clarifying.
It's no more powerful than a archwave shot. An impact circle wouldn't be a bad thing, but I've never found the gun to be a balance issue. The sound effect alone is very distinct and the grenade falling animation clearly indicates the location where the grenade has fallen. I've never had an issue dodging them.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
I like that suggestion here, if firing a weapon would temporarily turn the cloak off while the animation runs we wouldn't have the whole issue of red lines not getting rendered and that would also be a concept thats already known to spacers from the enhanced battle cloak and the tech for that exists already too.
If Distortion Field functioned like Mask Energy Field or Enhanced Battle Cloak, the ability would become inferior to other ground two piece set bonuses. Right now Distortion Field is both an NPC and player aggro ditching tool. Changing that into an ability that breaks on attack completely changes the usage for the ability. If a player can't attack without wrecking their stealth bonus, distortion field becomes a last ditch ability, rather than a mid combat ability. Fixing the animation bug is ideal, as the problem can be replicated with personal shroud generators + ambush.
I like the idea of having it break on sniper shot or grenades, but standard split beam or similar attacks should not break the stealth bonus.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
The reason people are not seeing many one-hit kills is because of dodge, yes. Working as intended. I just don't see how more one-hit kills "helps" ground pvp. Just the opposite.
Perhaps Willpower works the way it should, idk. The idea of getting chain phaser proc'd seems off to me. As far as cryo immobilizer is concerned, I was just drawing attention to the fact that it and seemingly other immobilize procs seem to cause a "tray lock" phenomenon.
The adapted maco gun might not be the biggest issue at the moment, but it is broken. The dev was in the thread, why not bring it up?
And well, actually what we are looking at is either broken willpower or tons of other things broken and just resists willpower. lol. So what tira is actually describing is a resistance to resistance, without even realizing it. lol. This is possible but I would hope incorrect as that means cryptic faces bigger problems. I saw tira mention that there is resistance to the cane. Might i point out that you can accurately resist the same amount to the cane with no more than 4 points into willpower as you can with 9. This leads me to believe that the diminishing returns are completely screwed up. Well, as far as stun is concerned their is no resistance at all and that goes along with immobilize.
As far as the adapted maco gun goes, tira forgot one very important fact.... it deals kinetic damage and not energy damage, so it does more hp damage and resists shields even against someone with medical vanguard. However, for the most part it is easy to dodge the attack unless of course you have someone running an immobilize proc to hold you. I could see where it could be OP if used correctly but, from what i have seen by people running it.. no one has the skills or the above knowledge to run it to that effectiveness and there are better and more efficient OP tactics to use so its not going to gain much attention by the elite ground pvpers. I agree with you when you say, it is not a large problem but, I will say it could escalate in the very far future.
"Working as intended"... 1 year later they "fix" it.
That's a rather significant downplay on the cat's jumping trait. Players still play Ferasans on the KDF side, yet Ferasans do not have +10% dodge. Why? Jump Height + Pounce. The Jump Height allows cats to get jump flank shots, something that all other races are incapable of performing, unless their target is crouched. Pounce, which came out long after lunge (there was no cat "nerf"), is a very short cooldown ability with a built in knockback. Both of these things provide a significant advantage to cats.
The +10% dodge was just extra icing on the cake, it wasn't needed at all. Free dodge in the form of a racial stat, tossed in with two other full stats, is overpowered. There is no opportunity cost, unlike other existing items that grant +dodge. Dodge is a very important mechanic in Ground PvP, but if someone has a 100% dodge chance, that's not a mechanic anymore. Every weapon and attack in the game then becomes "half damage vs players" when dodge chance is at 100% full time. Most players have weapons that deal about 125 damage/second on average. A medic can provide about 85-115 healing/second on average. If every attack is now dodged, that 125 DPS player is now a 62.5 DPS player. Then we wonder why some medics or equipment technicians take 3 people to kill without spike damage.
Dodge is out of control at the moment. Hopefully the devs can find some way to bring it back into balance in the future. Yes, it will hurt caitains, making them less powerful, but it needs to happen.
As Nulonu has said, if you don't think Willpower is working, by all means don't spec into it. We won't mind one bit. Resistance to the cane is working, there are times where it's activation doesn't even affect me longer than half a second. +Resistance to a control power isn't the same as immunity to a control power. At least when it comes to stun and slow, they are working as described.
Yeah, it might become a minor problem in the future, but for people that use it there's always split beam rifles from range to take them down.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
I agree, cloakers on ground are the same as cloakers in space. I have said this before, its all opportunistic now.
The nerf i was referring to is the fact that covert, a cat specific trait, is now shared among pretty much all species it seems.
Lets be honest here for a second, as you are a ground pvper the same as me. Are you saying that you can not successfully take down other players in a 1v1? I mean because what you just said, is basically that a sci and an engineer can not be solo'd because they can out heal. lol.
We have to calculate everything into the mix and not just a few things. You have debuffs, power buffs, roots, holds, stuns, knockbacks, etc etc etc that you still have to calculate. I haven't found anyone that I couldn't kill at least once in ground. The dodge makes it challenging and everyone is welcome to use it.
As far as willpower goes, well... since you don't mind me running low willpower, I actually do which gives me points that i can spec into something else. Lol. I have been running only 4 points into willpower and I still get the very same resistances you do. And well, the stuns and such don't work as they should. You should have some sort of resistance to stuns and slows however there is none at all. I just got finished testing it.
Like I said, it is most likely a problem with diminishing returns being screwed up on willpower or at least that's how it appears. Feel free to test it yourself.
"Working as intended"... 1 year later they "fix" it.
As far as dodge, I guess that depends on what kind of game you want. I like tactical battles that take longer, move/counter move etc. If you want a faster paced game then that I could see dodge being an obstacle. With the fix to med vanguard, medic sci durability is going to go down too btw as well as the team members the medic is healing so that may speed the game up some anyway.
I have to agree with emp about cats. They cost zen for a reason. When the knock back from pounce isn't bypassing resists as it is on holo deck they'll be more in line as opposed to always having that knock down disable handy. I'd actually like to see more cstore options for races to play as. Aenar anyone? Or how about a defected Changling. Why not a Salt creature? They may be dumb zombies in the mission but they were intelligent shape shifters in the show iirc. Wouldn't be any more or less implausible then dinos with lazers on their heads. :P
Vanilla Ground PvP information
Ferasians have the unique trait, Predatory Instincts: +5% Damage with Melee Attacks,, +75% Jump Height, +5% Stealth, +10% Exploit Damage, +5 Perception. The trait is powerful, but it doesn't excessively increase their survivability. Putting dodge under some form or limitation promotes build diversity. If one mechanic provides far superior surviability to anything else in the game, then it limits build diversity. Dodge should be equal to other surviability options, not superior. Someone with a 100% dodge chance has superior survivability over someone with 75% health damage resistance and 75% shield damage resistance (maximums in respected areas).
Dodge cannot be reduced, damage resistances can be reduced. Someone stacking 100% dodge is completely bypassing part of the damage resistance mechanic. If they only had 50% dodge, they would only be taking advantage of the dodge mechanic half the time. A resistance mechanic with a 100% uptime is not a true mechanic, it's a passive. Dodge was never meant to be a passive. If it were possible to get 100% Critical chance I'm certain you'd agree that such a thing would be too powerful. The reverse is true for dodge, 100% dodge chance is no longer a "chance", it's a passive. Critical chance would no longer be a "chance" if you could critically hit 100% of the time.
Don't get me wrong, Dodge is a vital mechanic in Ground PvP, just as a Critical hit is a vital mechanic for ground. You can't completely eliminate dodge for the same reason you can't eliminate critical hits. Dodge is meant to provide spike damage resistances in the same way that critical hits are meant to provide spikes in damage dealt. Neither mechanic should ever reach a 100% chance, it creates game imbalance. At the moment, everyone can die in a 1v1, it's impossible to stack dodge to 100% chance without multiple team ambush fields. Dodge is still balanced in a 1v1 situation because it's not a 100% chance mechanic.
I can tell the difference between a character with a 5 in willpower compared to a character with a 6 in willpower. The difference between a 4 in willpower and a 6 in willpower is 10% more resistance. Not overly significant, but I consider it to be a reasonable advantage. It's a build fork, I consider it to be useful, you don't. If such things didn't exist, there would be very little build variance in ground PvP. Also, if you aren't getting a stun resistance buff on expiration of a given stun, toss it up here with the name of the ability. Hawk may see it and take a closer look.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Voth Spec Ops Elite Commando - Play as a Voth Spec Ops officer. Note: You are restricted to the Dyson Sphere Ground Battlezone. Level your character by defeating unsuspecting players in the battlezone.
"Level 50" base hit points: 1,800
+25% base run speed
+100% Dodge chance
Weapons:
Antiproton Raptor Blades - 150 physical damage per slash - 25% chance for unresistable knockback per slash
Voth Elite Antiproton Compression Pistol - 5% chance to deal +500% damage to target for a single attack
Abilities:
Phasing Stealth Module IV - Immunity to all damage and debuffs when cloaked
Motion Accelerator III
Lunge IV
Target Optics III
Rally Cry IV
Strike Team III
Tactical Initiative III
Sweeping Strikes III
Traits:
Superior Covert
Superior Peak Health
Superior Aggressive
Superior Soldier
Superior Acute Senses
Superior Lucky
Superior Strike Team Specialist
Superior Physical Strength
Shield:
None
Armor:
Voth Advanced Recoil Compensating Armor
Devices:
Race may not use devices, hypos, or similar items.
Enjoy
Disclaimer: This post is intended to be humorous. Please do not take it seriously
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Indeed a nerf to dodge would have cloakers all excited. The nerf to medical vanguard is enough of a bone for them to chew on for now I think.
Nice testing on the whole resistance/willpower issue. Too bad about it being so.. cryptic lol.
Yup, the adapted maco gun issue isn't that big atm. I brought it up because I kinda like the set, but don't like not knowing if it's working correctly.
Only if it came with a Rex Azaria (or w/e that min-boss was called) to ride around on.
Vanilla Ground PvP information
I play science officers more than I play tactical anymore. The vanguard changes won't change much for most players that weren't using elite fleet gear. I personally use the Omega Force set or Adapted MACO + Nukara Cryo Healing Shield. The two piece bonus on those sets won't trigger vanguard anymore, but it was so very minor compared to the elite fleet armor and shield problem. Having been on both sides of the coin, a medic is still going to be the second most difficult target to bring down with an operative (the first being a situationally aware enemy neutralization engineer).
I knew there would be opposition when I posted my first comment on it, but I decided to throw it on the table. Eventually, dodge needs to be brought back into line. It might not be this Season, but I hope it happens sometime in the future.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
So how is it handling nowadays? From what I read it is slightly less broken than by the time I left?
And in case you were wondering what exactly my dealbreaker was/is. No longer being able to trigger powers inbetween primary fire cycles but having to wait for the cycle to complete. I might have even took that and adapted but applying that to dodgeroll was just the silly thing that made me leave that particular type of play. ''Oh look a cryo 'nade, *double-tap movement key*, let's just finish this firin.... *frozen*''
The community is small, but gameplay is relatively balanced compared to space. Right now there are a few problems. 75% of the better known problems are getting fixed with Season 8.
Animation lock still exists, it's why nobody uses Assault Miniguns or Blast Assaults in PvP. Full Auto Rifles, such as the Omega Force Autocarbine, are still used in PvP despite the brief animation lockout. You can still move, but you can't double tap to roll when in a firing animation. For most weapons, the firing animation is 0.5 seconds.
If you do come back, you should know that ground PvP has changed a lot since season five when I joined. If you haven't played since season four, then you have a significant amount of relearning to do. Ground PvP is very enjoyable, but it's also very fast paced, and many of the players that run right now have been in ground PvP for a while.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Exactly when was dodge ever "in line", if it's not right now? The omega ground set has been around as long as I can remember, along with the ability to crouch. That is a huge chunk of the dodge stat right there.
If you continue down that line, then just have a C-Store P2W bonus we can buy and put on any race. Let humans pay to get 10% dodge added to their base trait. See how that reasoning, though balanced, will enrage most catians.
While i can totally understand why you said "as long as i can remember" there considering your not that long around in ground pvp, the game actually did exist a log longer then omega distortion cloak and i do remember the time before dodge stacking became popular, of course crouch was there.
Game release: February 5, 2010
Omega set came with Season 5: December 1, 2011 (http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?name=sto-node-2699)
664 days with just crouch and no omega set.
708 days (from Dec 1 2011 to now) with omega set.
So yea, there actually have been those times tira was refering too, you just weren't around
In my personal opinion ground pvp was much more fun before stf sets, doffs, lobi equipment, dodge stacking, willpower, shotguns, perfect cloak and all the ton of bugs that accidentally made it in with all those later additions.
Vanilla Ground PvP information
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
lol fair enough.
I indeed haven't been around as long as a lot of you guys, so I'll leave that part of the discussion for others.
Agreed, especially with that last part.
I too agree, if you remove dodge completely, or if you cripple dodge to meaningless levels (say, 5%), you'd need to boost hit points significantly. In such a case, there would be nothing to counter critical hits, which would in turn quickly dispatch a target. Not every team in ground PvP runs maximum dodge, we don't see them getting oneshotted left and right. Reducing the maximum amount of obtainable dodge so that it is below 100% wouldn't be a bad thing.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Any nerf to dodge and you would have to increase the health pool. Not only if you bomb it to uselessness. :P The issue is the magnitude of incoming damage, compared to the size of our health pool, is already dangerously out of whack. At any given time we are quite possibly being hit by attacks that are 2-3x the size of our heath pool. Imagine in space pvp if beam overloads did 150,000+ damage on a crit? The spacers would be asking for a dodge mechanic too lol.
The damage on ground is actually much more balanced than the damage in space. There are two weapons in the game capable of one hit killing someone before factoring in dodge, sniper rifles and pulsewaves (shotguns). Every other weapon cannot kill a full health + full shields player.
The only weapon that comes anywhere close is the compression pistol. On a tactical officer specced for maximum damage, a fleet advanced antiproton compression pistol [Dmg]x3 [CritX] can deal 1,506.3 damage on a target if the tactical officer uses every buff, critically hits, and strikes an exposed target. There is also a very large opportunity cost in even attempting to kill someone with such an attack. Lining up a critical hit on top of an expose with a compression pistol is unpredictable, not to mention it won't even kill the target. Toss in the 25 meter range of the weapon...it's why nobody uses compression pistols as if they were one hit kill weapons. I'm going to the extremes here to demonstrate that there is an extremely limited number of ways to one hit kill a player. Even at extremes, you aren't going to get a one hit kill with a weapon other than a sniper or pulsewave.
Now, to break it down. A pulsewave shot has the potential to one hit kill in the same way a beam overload (20-60k + high yield (25k-80k) has the potential to one hit kill at point blank range. It can be survived, but only if you activate counters to survive the strike. If you survive the strike, the attacker will have used up his buffs, unable to strike you again due to cooldowns. The only time you have a risk is if the player is using tactical initiative waited until right before ambush fell off cooldown before attacking in order to get a second ambush attack a second later.
A lot of the super powered pulsewave strikes from tactical officers are similar to the double tap problem in space that was recently fixed. Ambush stacking is almost idential to the now dead Beam Overload stacking. If Cryptic added a 5 second ambush lockout upon use, similar to what they did with beam overload, we wouldn't have Ambush + Pulsewave followed by Ambush + Lunge a second later while under tactical initiative. Something to consider while we are on the topic of balancing damage. If we took double ambushing out of the equation, I believe that you'd be more comfortable with seeing a change in the way dodge works.
Sniper one hit kills aren't a problem at all. It takes all of a players buffs and debuffs to achieve. If the attack is countered, they have a long period before they can set up to fire again. If you kept line of sight with a sniper long enough for him to buff up, take aim, and charge their sniper rifle, then it's a legitimate kill. Even if you are rooted, there are multiple ways to break that kill shot (Shard of Possibilities, Damper Field, Emergency Shield Capacitor, Reroute Power to Shields, Cover Shield, Distortion Field, etc.)
Space does have an ability similar to dodge, commonly defense. Unlike defense, dodge hits still hit, they just deal half damage before resistances. Defense also has a cap (25% of all attacks will "hit") and can be reduced by slowing the target down with speed debuffs. Dodge does not have a cap, it cannot be reduced, and it is possible to reach a 100% chance to proc. If space had dodge in the current state, it would be superior to the defense mechanic. Players can't even reach the 75% miss ratio for long periods with defense due to the short duration of the +defense buffs. Defense is a balanced mechanic at the moment. Damage on ground is a balanced mechanic at the moment. Dodge chance isn't really a chance anymore on dodge stacking teams anymore, as they can obtain that 100% rating to dodge all attacks.
If you'd like to see my point most clearly, have a team of five stack team ambush field for you while on your medic. Then have one player sit there shooting you with any non-pulsewave or sniper weapon, buffing as needed. Have them drop grenades on you if they desire. Run the test. Have a second tactical officer join in on the attack, again without a pulsewave or a sniper. (No Type 3 Phaser either, the point of the exercise isn't to prove that knockback is a problem) After test 2 is complete, drop down to just two copies of team ambush field in total, 68.1% dodge chance. After that test, drop all copies of team ambush field and the gambling device, switch to the MACO set.
After that, you will see that dodge makes everything that isn't spike damage pretty pointless against a target when someone is stacking maximum dodge. Against a medium amount of dodge, sustained damage is moderately effective, but not overly so. Lastly, you will see that non-spike weapons aren't that powerful, even without any dodge. Heals are more than enough to protect against such sustained attacks. We don't need higher health pools, the damage is perfectly balanced at the moment. Ambush stacking with a pulsewave is an imbalance with spike, but that is easily remedied.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
I disagree. The Omega set has pretty much the highest DPS [or spike depending on your 2nd gun] it does not need to tank as well and in my opinion should NOT tank as well.
Dodge being reduced to nothingness would not cause one-shot madness. In fact I use the MACO set, rarely crouch in duels and survive just fine. sprinting's dodge bonus is powerful, but in the end, the main thing is it keeps you at a distance from the pulsewave and that's what saves you.
I do agree dodge is needed to some degree, but I don't agree that it should be left anywhere near the same, it in my opinion should be lowered... if not halved. [100% now, so 50% max then.]
If you don't think I can tank without omega set, cat and crouch dodge bonuses, then feel free to duel me I know at LEAST the first shot will not kill me
CABrandt and Carmen, spawn guardians.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Tip of the Spear
>
I still haven't heard why ground pvp would be "improved" by increasing the ability to one-shot another player. Is that a fun game mechanic? No. Do people enjoy getting ganked by opportunistic operative cloakers? It would be news to me.
If there is too much defense in ground pvp, then approach it from a more balanced angle that will result in more deaths by "many paper cuts". Or as nulonu said, "move/counter move". This method of defeat can still result in having an enjoyable experience.
I don't get this part. The first section you say it shouldn't break at all and here you say for some things it should. If it's broke for a grenade or a sniper shot, it's broke for all of them. According to Hawk, nothing is supposed to be hidden by it and a lot of things besides snipers and grenades are.
Vanilla Ground PvP information
Lest you forget, caB, I'm usually an eng myself so I'm well aware of the tank an eng can have and I have to disagree if you are saying a tac on omega can tank as well as that. I don't often run tac anymore (and it shows when I play as one! :P) but my physicist sci uses omega and while I definitely notice the extra tank from team ambush field, I still have to play carefully with the limited heals on that set up.
Vanilla Ground PvP information