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Returning Balance to the Game
edekarsaicker
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Returning Balance to the Game
I have loved and played this game for a year and a half. I most of all, I loved the variety of playing styles that Sci and Eng captains brought to the game.
I have found over the last few months, that I have to spec Sci and Eng captains for DPS so they can stand a chance of getting the best rewards or just to keep up with Tac captains in PvE.
As to PvP - lol. Engineer's haven't stood a chance in PvP for over a year and now even my Temporal Science Vessel can barely put up a reasonable fight (and its the most expensive and powerful sci ship in the game!)
Before I am accused of wanting to nerf Escorts. I do not want to suggest that.
I have 2 Tac captains and I love being able to kill any ship (or group of ships) with one barrage!
It is great fun. Even most players die in seconds of me decloaking.
Even though this shows how imbalanced the game is - I would rather see Sci and Eng improved, than see Tac's being nerfed.
This is my first post on the forum because I believe Cryptic gets around to fixing most problems without me having to complain to them.
But the greatest thing about this game was the variety in playing styles between Tac, Sci and Eng. I've seen no comments on the forum about this problem.
I wish to propose a few possible solutions to get ideas started, all additional suggestions welcome.
A few ideas to return balance to the game:
1) Make cooldown of Sci and Eng abilities equal to cooldown of Tac abilities.
o As a Tac officer, I can spam my DPS abilities every 15 seconds without using tactical advantage.
o Many Sci/Eng abilities for Boff and Captains take 30 seconds to a minute to cooldown (even stacking cooldown Doffs and abilities does not even this out).
2) Adjust Ship Power Levels to have the same effect on Sci/Eng abilities that increasing weapons power has on damage.
o Weapons Power at 120 means roughly a 70% increase in damage.
o Auxiliary Power at 120 means roughly a 12% increase in the damage from gravity well (with a captain/ship with specs to max out damage from gravity well)
3) This one may cause some controversy. Make Eng consoles stack at a similar rate to tac consoles.
o A Tac officer can increase damage by 20% through stacking an additional tac console
o An Eng/Sci captain can only increase resistance by roughly 10% by additional engineering consoles
o I understand we do not want a player immune to any particular type of damage, but damage resistance is not the equal of DPS at the moment (especially since Tacs have a few abilities to reduce damage resistance).
I want to make the greatest part of this game great again. I want to make Sci and Eng viable and unique - instead of having to spec Sci/Eng captains for DPS - which is not meant to be their role.
Any comments, feedback or ideas are welcome.
I have loved and played this game for a year and a half. I most of all, I loved the variety of playing styles that Sci and Eng captains brought to the game.
I have found over the last few months, that I have to spec Sci and Eng captains for DPS so they can stand a chance of getting the best rewards or just to keep up with Tac captains in PvE.
As to PvP - lol. Engineer's haven't stood a chance in PvP for over a year and now even my Temporal Science Vessel can barely put up a reasonable fight (and its the most expensive and powerful sci ship in the game!)
Before I am accused of wanting to nerf Escorts. I do not want to suggest that.
I have 2 Tac captains and I love being able to kill any ship (or group of ships) with one barrage!
It is great fun. Even most players die in seconds of me decloaking.
Even though this shows how imbalanced the game is - I would rather see Sci and Eng improved, than see Tac's being nerfed.
This is my first post on the forum because I believe Cryptic gets around to fixing most problems without me having to complain to them.
But the greatest thing about this game was the variety in playing styles between Tac, Sci and Eng. I've seen no comments on the forum about this problem.
I wish to propose a few possible solutions to get ideas started, all additional suggestions welcome.
A few ideas to return balance to the game:
1) Make cooldown of Sci and Eng abilities equal to cooldown of Tac abilities.
o As a Tac officer, I can spam my DPS abilities every 15 seconds without using tactical advantage.
o Many Sci/Eng abilities for Boff and Captains take 30 seconds to a minute to cooldown (even stacking cooldown Doffs and abilities does not even this out).
2) Adjust Ship Power Levels to have the same effect on Sci/Eng abilities that increasing weapons power has on damage.
o Weapons Power at 120 means roughly a 70% increase in damage.
o Auxiliary Power at 120 means roughly a 12% increase in the damage from gravity well (with a captain/ship with specs to max out damage from gravity well)
3) This one may cause some controversy. Make Eng consoles stack at a similar rate to tac consoles.
o A Tac officer can increase damage by 20% through stacking an additional tac console
o An Eng/Sci captain can only increase resistance by roughly 10% by additional engineering consoles
o I understand we do not want a player immune to any particular type of damage, but damage resistance is not the equal of DPS at the moment (especially since Tacs have a few abilities to reduce damage resistance).
I want to make the greatest part of this game great again. I want to make Sci and Eng viable and unique - instead of having to spec Sci/Eng captains for DPS - which is not meant to be their role.
Any comments, feedback or ideas are welcome.
Post edited by edekarsaicker on
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Eng consoles already work the same way as tac consoles from a mathematical standpoint.
Adding +100% resistance from a base of 0% will give you twice the total survivability.
Adding another +100% resistance from a base of 100% will give you 50% more total survivability.
Adding +100% damage from a base of 0% will give you twice the total damage.
Adding another +100% damage from a base of 100% will give you 50% more total damage.
And yet armor consoles are so ineffective in practice that they are not even worth putting on a ship.
Irreverent of the theory or the number crunching, the practical impact of adding an additional engineering consoles is negligible compared to the very noticeable change of adding a tac console.
Sadly with every successful online game that I have ever played, and that's been quite a few over the past fifteen years, the game companies cater to the power gamers and never to the actual roleplayers. Now from a business standpoint this is smart business since power gamers are your bread and butter of paying customers. This can be verified by going into nearly any STF in this game or and style of raid in any other game and just wait for the control freaks to start barking orders. Yes there will always be somebody new to a game that needs to be told what is the best way for STFs and raids to be run but I'm willing to bet that most people have been in one that has had at least one member of the STF trying to be a control freak and complain about everything everyone else is doing and pointing out everyone else's flaws.
Sorry for the tangent on the whys of catering to power gamers. This can be seen in the power creep that happens in every game. However as a side effect of that same power creep if you properly set up a sci ship you can take on aspects of a role either the Tacs or Engs. The same is more difficult to be said about Engs however as I have proven time and again Engs can indeed take top billing from both Scis and Tacs and I do it on a fairly regular basis with a torpedo boat of all things.
This is not to say that a Tac can't be a force to be reckoned with. Merely to say that most Tacs are simply a one trick pony. If you can survive their initial barrage which is massive then you have a chance to kill them since their preferred boat of choice are the escorts for obvious reasons. Escorts have a much lower hull than most ships flown by Engs, regardless of what they are. I realize that this is a bit of a odd statement when you have entire thread out there bout the best skill build how to get the absolute best battle monger character in the game. It is possible to take away from the Tacs you just have to think outside of the box.
If you want to be a one trick pony and try to beat a Tac at a Tac's game then you will loose nearly every time. Yet if you take a step back and look at the long term fight vs the 15 seconds of raining death that most Tacs can dish out you can start to see what I'm talking about. Yes I know I have a round about way of making any points and I apologize for that. For instance for a very long time I ran with a fleet patrol escort with my Eng. I was also running rainbow damage which you will hear is a major no no for top end dps. Yet on nearly STF that I would run I would get first or second place consistently. All because I don't follow the mold of typical ship building.
I have a roommate that will have nearly a second ships worth of equipment in his inventory at all times to be able to meet any challenge with the best set up he can. This same roommate runs nearly all sci carriers and never uses subsystem targeting. He can tank with the best of them on any given day.
My brother on the other hand is using a Tac and running with the Fleet Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit and can take top billing nearly all the time and he rarely uses cannons on any of his ships.
Some of the big advantages come in the form of sets. Take the Adapted MACO set for instance. When I equipped it on my torpedo boat I received a 25% damage bonus to all torpedo damage and an already powerful support boat took a lead role on nearly ever mission I partake in. This is based on the Armitage platform with Danube class fighters. I can't wait to get the Yellowstone fighters to improve the overall performance. Keep in mind when you take the movement away from the escorts they die really fast. The Danube class and the Yellowstone class have the tractor beams to slow down and stop most foes that are this side of a Cube with the wolf pack tactics that fighters use.
I will admit that it took me a long time to tweak the torpedo boat to be an effective ship to fly but it is a beast that keeps coming back for more.
Also if you have access to the advanced engineering consoles you can get the neutronium + turn and stack that in a four engineering slot cruiser and have a quick turning cruiser that can bring a lot of firepower to bear on whatever target you want. This mixed with a hull that is 25% better than most escorts you will be able to take whatever they throw at you.
If you take this same line of thinking while using a Tal Shiar Adapted Battle Cruiser you can have a Sci ship (with the Lt Comdr station) and cruiser while running a Tac and get the best of all three. With this build you can get the nice hull rating along with an upgraded shield modifier and the equalizing power of the Gravity Well along with the de-cloaking damage bonus and damage bonuses from the Tac officers. What you dont have to worry about is the need to keep moving at breakneck speeds and constantly readjusting your heading.
These are just a few examples of ways to think outside of the box within the restricted confines of the game. Just keep in mind that the game will always cater to their largest audience which will always be the powergamers
Ships are not tied down to captain type, so anything directly related to a ship doesn't really fit with trying to balance the three captain types.
A fair point, these were just ideas to get discussion started.
The key to being able to play a Sci Captain is to have strong sci ships, sci consoles and sci abilities. Same for Eng Captains.
Otherwise, you end up with Sci and Eng Captains who have DPS builds (which is what Tac Captains are meant to be).
This is the true problem I mentioned at the start, no variety in the gameplay.
It is still a good point, actual Eng and Sci captain space abilities should be more balanced. Would reduced cooldowns or increasing the amount of effect they have make it more balanced?
Here's the thing: Cryptic devs only play tacscorts. They don't even know the other ship types exist. Until PWE fires every single Cryptic dev and replaces them with experienced game devs, the mechanics in STO will not change.
I agree completely first sentence.
I can't comment on the second point, I don't know any of the developers and how they play.
Please help this thread by commenting and meantioning it with other players, as I don't want to give up playing this game I love because this massive imbalance.
Most STO devs in interviews over the last few years of the games life have admitted openly they mainly play escorts. I can attest to this being true as I've heard them say it time and time again. Why do you think all the sci consoles originally got nerfed all to hell? All of them were cut in stat boosts by half. HALF!!!!! Didn't do that to tac consoles though. No, lordy no that would make all the stupid L33T pvp'ers cry and go back to playing eve or wow or something.
And let's not forget the newly added spire tactical consoles that give EPIC boosts to crit!!! Good god its no longer power creep its viking style power pillage!!!
I happen to love my science vessel, thank you very much. And arguably the Intrepid is indeed a long range science vessel that had quite an adventure for a few years under a certain lady captain.
I might actually agree that trinity mechanics are too rigid, but what you propose would make the game even MORE rigid. That's ridiculous.
The only class that needs help in pve is sci, though in pvp one can rarely kill someone without a sci around and forget killing someone if they have a sci on their side, I've yet to try a damage build on a Vesta, then again, I've yet to get a Vesta :P
As it stands though I'd say that aside from science pve balance is fine and dandy, pvp? Not so much but when you balance around pve pvp is screwed anyway... I've seen previous ideas about having no classes and the player choosing captain skills as per rep passives but then every pvp captain would carry SNB and APA (though everyone would have APA) and then it would be a straight kill-fest...
-although there is a lot of ground combat in sto itsnot the tac captains that are the best on ground its engs
-balancing a game means finding the smallest changes as possible to achieve your balancing goal and not to completely change the game
-having different classes is fine because it mixes things up only maybe some captains powers need a small check
I do believe some broad sweeping changes do need to be made to the game to balance things between captain and ship types especially in pvp and I have my own ideas on some changes I think would do just that while still for the most part keeing the ship classes and captain classes as they are, but posting my proposed changes would be 3 times longer post than any of the posts in this thread already hehe. If only there was a suggestions section in the forums for posting suggestions to cryptic. Of course I don't think cryptic would and possible doesn't have the time/resources to really make the necessary sweeping changes I feel would bring balance to the classes.
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