3) What problem in the game does "longer but more impactful" cooldowns solve? Usually when I'm playing, combat is so fast and enemies so frequent that it feels like I can't activate my powers enough.
Powers that are on long cooldowns start to push into "too good to be used for this fight against mooks".
Players end up saving them even longer than the 1 minute cooldown to "use them when they really need them".
Fair question and point - when I say "Long Cooldowns" here, I mean 45-60 second range. There are a lot of Kit Powers that have 15-30 second cooldowns with 2-3 second activate times and close to 100% uptime, but low magnitude effects. I feel like each career could have two, maybe three 10-15 second recharge Kit Powers, but the rest could safely be 45-60 seconds, allowing you to say "This is the fight I'm using Stun Grenade!" *throw grenade* *use minigun* instead of "This fight, like each fight before it, I will spend 12 seconds animating for 4 seconds of weapon fire's overall 'effect budget'" as some kits currently do.
I'm not looking to make Kit Powers take more than 2 minutes at most to recharge. What I am looking to do is make sure each time you activate a Kit Power, it's worth spending the animation time to cast - and that all Kit Powers are conceivably worth equipping for some kind of build/situation.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
allowing you to say "This is the fight I'm using Stun Grenade!" *throw grenade* *use minigun* instead of "This fight, like each fight before it, I will spend 12 seconds animating for 4 seconds of weapon fire's overall 'effect budget'" as some kits currently do.
That does come off sounding...pretty neat...more involved.
Some low level powers, like Weapons Malfunction, I LIKE having the short CD on. It means I get to use it a lot, and since I'm usually facing a group of enemies I can maybe get an extra use out of during the mini engagement. Moreover, my boffs being so stupid with their powers, giving them low-CD stuff means that even if they're just spamming it constantly they'll do SOMETHING useful with it. Conversely the longer CD stuff is wasted when used on less-significant targets and so I tend not to get as much general-purpose use out of (making it less a part of my 'regular' tactics), and my boffs tend to flush them and then are useless for the next 60 seconds because they alpha-striked a Voth Specialist and have nothing left for the SpecOps behind him.
If I were to compare it to space powers, I've got lots of good Subnucs and APAs and Gravity Wells and Spread 3s. What I'd like more of is the boringly-utilitarian stuff like TT or EPTS.
The problem with getting rid of kits and making the player able to slot the power of the choice is that players will choose the "best" power combination. Debuffing fire sci that can vascular/med trico itself too anyone?
Thinking about this some more I wonder if implementing a standard 15 second cool down on all kit powers and then rebalancing them based around that frequency of use might be interesting and give players who feel they can't use their powers enough a more active feel for the kit. Something like this would naturally mean tactical initiative would have to be drastically changed again.
Fair question and point - when I say "Long Cooldowns" here, I mean 45-60 second range. There are a lot of Kit Powers that have 15-30 second cooldowns with 2-3 second activate times and close to 100% uptime, but low magnitude effects.
Please, don't make everything into a 45-60 cooldown, it would ruin the fast pace of the ground game. One thing I like about ground is the fact that it's three times faster than space. What you are proposing would essentially revert ground combat into a pre-Season 4 state.
I feel like each career could have two, maybe three 10-15 second recharge Kit Powers, but the rest could safely be 45-60 seconds, allowing you to say "This is the fight I'm using Stun Grenade!" *throw grenade* *use minigun* instead of "This fight, like each fight before it, I will spend 12 seconds animating for 4 seconds of weapon fire's overall 'effect budget'" as some kits currently do.
I'm not looking to make Kit Powers take more than 2 minutes at most to recharge. What I am looking to do is make sure each time you activate a Kit Power, it's worth spending the animation time to cast - and that all Kit Powers are conceivably worth equipping for some kind of build/situation.
This is already true now, most abilities take 0.5 seconds to activate and they have a decent uptime. Outside of the 10 abilities I listed before, which just need modifications to be made more effective, buffs are worth using in their current state. The ground combat missions are so fast paced that having 1 minute cooldowns would essentially neuter the usefulness of kit abilities. Weapon Malfunction on a 1 minute cooldown would essentially mean 15 uses at most for ground STF missions. Compared to right now where the debuff lasts long enough to kill the target and recharges in time for reuse when needed again. The same is true for the rest of the abilities ingame right now.
1.) The effectiveness of a kit power is tied to a particular skill. Skill points are limited. Respeccing costs real money. Thus, the system you've created inherently dissuades the average user from playing around with different kits. Theres a similar effect with ship equipment.
I agree, the skill system is complex, hard to understand at a glance, and disincentivizes learning aspects of the game you haven't put skills into. Power levels in space also share a bit of this.
2.) Targettable powers with long cooldowns(a 60 second weapon malfunction, for example) does not play well with the PvE content you create. We spend the majority of the time mowing down waves and waves of enemies in PvE. Targettable powers with long cooldowns are made for PvP and only PvP. Theres a similar effect in space <cough>science boff powers <cough>.
Fair point - our systems do tend to handle "tons of small critters" much better than "One big imposing guy". Fights like the Devidian Captain in the Devidian series or the Mech Captains in the battlezone are few and far between. Maybe Weapons Malfunction isn't well-suited to being a boss-disabling power, but is better as a damage mitigation strategy against Lieutenants or Commanders, and therefore needs a shorter 24-36 second cooldown. Still though, with only a 4-6 second disable at that recharge, is it worth using instead of just firing your weapon?
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
To be honest I agree with adjudicatorhawks initial post, some abilities are poor and never used but they're also paired with other underused/poor abilities too.
Personally from a kit revamp I would prefer more customization in what abilities I get to use on a kit (even if it is slightly restricted) but also for them to include a big, powerful useful ability with a longer cooldown and maybe 2 others that are quick on the fly abilities that are used for mobs with the final 1 or 2 abilities being medium cooldown/powerful abilities.
Perhaps you could even change some abilities into just a plain buff that is kept on you so long as you keep the kit equipped. I mean if it's meant to be spammed so as to have nearly 100% uptime why not just make it 100% uptime and have it animate only once when you equip it or enter combat?
Personally I also dislike how much buffing I do for taking down a boss and how I spend half of it in buff animations rather than having them apply straight away and hitting armek with my own personal nerf sledgehammer.
Fair question and point - when I say "Long Cooldowns" here, I mean 45-60 second range. There are a lot of Kit Powers that have 15-30 second cooldowns with 2-3 second activate times and close to 100% uptime, but low magnitude effects. I feel like each career could have two, maybe three 10-15 second recharge Kit Powers, but the rest could safely be 45-60 seconds, allowing you to say "This is the fight I'm using Stun Grenade!" *throw grenade* *use minigun* instead of "This fight, like each fight before it, I will spend 12 seconds animating for 4 seconds of weapon fire's overall 'effect budget'" as some kits currently do.
I'm not looking to make Kit Powers take more than 2 minutes at most to recharge. What I am looking to do is make sure each time you activate a Kit Power, it's worth spending the animation time to cast - and that all Kit Powers are conceivably worth equipping for some kind of build/situation.
Maybe the first question should be if those animation times to cast are really necessary. At least for me they are a huge deterrent in ground combat: Stopping dead in the middle of a fight to activate a power feels wrong and interrupts the flow. Throwing a grenade? Would / should realistically be done it a fraction of the time. Fabricating generators and turrets? My boffs win the fight before the last one is placed.
Longer cooldowns are not a solution to this: They just reduce the overall power usage, promoting 'shoot till dead'.
Why not instead reduce the animation time drastically, crating a more fluid combat experience, with regular power usage without endless animation loops?
These kits would have empty slots in them same # of possible powers as Fleet MK XII and would be profession specific?
Would get all the available abilities... as "tokens" to put in slots. Could only change what's slotted at "work station" for 50 Dill (work station located in all major hubs and engineering section of ship and fleet base)
Combat supply my suggestion. change it or get a Doff to change it to spawn a heavy Mech thing like the Voth have but Faction specific... or just copy paste of the Voth Mini boss mechs?
Be able to use it? Player controlled or AI?
Oh and my favorite new ability target anywhere on map and transport there...
hehe what it is Star Trek! At least I didn't suggest trans warp beaming, from Earth to Q'nos, ability and having great Jolly time.
Upgrade to Orbital strike. Projectile Duty officer. Fire salvo of Torpedoes at target. (is lore approved it was in Voyager.) oh and I guess DS9 when Sisko made couple planets uninhabitable.
Something new?
something blue?
oh and lets not forget who's getting paid... not me... so take these with many grains of salt, don't need to get fired over this?
There are a lot of Kit Powers that have 15-30 second cooldowns with 2-3 second activate times and close to 100% uptime, but low magnitude effects. I feel like each career could have two, maybe three 10-15 second recharge Kit Powers, but the rest could safely be 45-60 seconds, allowing you to say "This is the fight I'm using Stun Grenade!" *throw grenade* *use minigun* instead of "This fight, like each fight before it, I will spend 12 seconds animating for 4 seconds of weapon fire's overall 'effect budget'" as some kits currently do.
Isn't this frequently the case now? (Honest question, I tend to stick to one kit on my Tacs and 1 or 2 kits on my Sci/Eng, so I don't have in depth knowledge of all CDs).
Here's a look at Fire Team, probably the single best and most used kit for Tacs:
Fire Team
Ambush: 15s Buff (one shot), 60s CD
Battle Strategies: 15s buff, 60s CD
Plasma Grenade: 30s CD
Suppressing Fire: 16s Buff, 8s Debuff, 24s CD *Motion Accelerator: 14s Buff, 180s CD
This seems to already fall directly into what you're suggesting, and the only thing I would change on this kit is:
1) Motion Accelerator's cooldown is too long.
2) Some of the activations are too long.
Fair point - our systems do tend to handle "tons of small critters" much better than "One big imposing guy". Fights like the Devidian Captain in the Devidian series or the Mech Captains in the battlezone are few and far between. Maybe Weapons Malfunction isn't well-suited to being a boss-disabling power, but is better as a damage mitigation strategy against Lieutenants or Commanders, and therefore needs a shorter 24-36 second cooldown. Still though, with only a 4-6 second disable at that recharge, is it worth using instead of just firing your weapon?
Yes, Weapon Malfunction only takes 0.5 seconds to activate. When I am playing an engineer, I hit the Weapon Malfunciton keybind and I go back to firing my weapon as if nothing even happened. The activation times on abilities isn't the problem at all.
I think the reason so many casual ground players don't use kit abilities is because they were never taught how to use them anywhere in the game. I started the game as a Tactical officer and I used the Operative kit. I used Security Escort, Lunge, and Stealth Module. Their effects were obvious and helpful. However, I didn't start using damage buffs until three weeks in when I saw other players using damage buffs in PvP. I think players don't use ground abilities because they don't realize what a massive impact they have on game performance.
My current idea for Combat Supply is to have it periodically spew out rollover buffs, similar to the buffs in the Battlezone or from defeating the Yeti in the Winter Invasion event. Increased ranks of the abilities would have a chance to spit out 2/3 buffs per tick. This way, as the power's user, you just have to drop it down and then occasionally run over the "supplies", rather than channeling an interact, equipping the device, and then using it.
That would be useful, too. Anything other than the "stop to summon a box of hypos, stop to pick up said hypos, spend ten seconds in your inventory and power bar trying to use said hypos" power that is Combat Supply... which is easily beaten by a couple thousand EC for a few stacks of said devices and then slotting any other power in the game.
All plans subject to change, of course, but since a number of you were commenting on my joke about its usefulness, just thought I'd expound a bit.
...Joke? The power as it is is the joke. Combat Supply is the weakest kit power in the game... there's nothing that really even compares. (No, not even the extremely long delay on Transphasic Bomb, or the futility of ground-based Shield tanking...)
I'm not looking to make Kit Powers take more than 2 minutes at most to recharge. What I am looking to do is make sure each time you activate a Kit Power, it's worth spending the animation time to cast - and that all Kit Powers are conceivably worth equipping for some kind of build/situation.
Transphasic Bomb. It's slow, you have to be next to the target to pull it off, and most NPCs have way more HP than they do shields, so 50% shield penetration is generally worthless. It's almost useless against anything other than Borg, and even then it's mostly a companion to the faster-activating Chroniton mines.
Shield heals (and the shield generator fabrication) are also a bit of trouble... against high-DPS enemies, they're weak compared to medical heals, but against low-DPS enemies, they're not needed. They're also beaten out by reputation and set powers.
why not just remove the stupid animations. another problem is alot of bosses and some minions are immune to some of the holds and debuffs so it makes some kits worthless.
sci and engi only have 2 useful kits tacs have alot more. a module set up would be nice.
Operative
Ambush: 15s Buff (one shot), 60s CD
Battle Strategies: 15s buff, 60s CD
Stealth Module: Variable Invis, 5s damage Buff, 20s CD
Lunge: Instant, 12s CD
Close Combat Stun Grenade: Instant, 60s CD
Sweeping Strikes: Instant, 0s CD
Lunge: Instant, 12s CD
Motion Accelerator: 14s, 180s CD
Squad Leader Rally Cry: 15s Buff, 120s CD
Overwatch: 30s Buff, 90s CD
Smoke Grenade: Instant, 30s CD
Photon Grenade: Instant, 20s CD
Security Draw Fire: 16s, 45s
Overwatch: 30s Buff, 90s CD
Stun Grenade: Instant, 60s CD
Suppressing Fire: 16s Buff, 8s Debuff, 24s CD
So far it seems like Tac is already actually functioning the way you are suggesting, with the exception of the melee abilities - although these seem reasonable at their low CDs due to actually being melee and requiring closing to melee range.
I'll list out some Eng kits and Sci kits in a bit if someone doesn't get to it before me.
Just looking at Engineering, personally, there are a few things I'd like to change about it
Combat supply as a buff dispenser makes sense, but I have a different idea: have Combat Supply beam down and specifically apply a buff to friendlies within range, but also debuff enemies that enter range.
Transphasic Bomb should work entirely differently, more like the Subspace mines that Jem'Hadar NPCs use. Transphasic Bomb would be more of a high damage single target attack, the bomb would drift toward its target and then detonate, but would be destructible in transit. Or, get rid of something bad and give one of the classes Subspace Mines.
If Chroniton mines are going to have a duration, make them self-replenish. So, a couple seconds after one target runs in, the mines they detonated are replaced by new ones, maybe tie it to a small ground device that if destroyed would take out the minefield. Otherwise, Chroniton mines should last until they explode of their owner dies/changes zone.
I'd like to be able to shoot through Cover Shield, as right now the only point is using it to keep someone from shooting your Mortar.
Generally, more customization would be nice. Let us choose the weapon types of our turrets and mortars, mines and bombs, too. More variety in turret types would be especially welcome, such as a heavy Burst assault turret that could knock down and expose, but fires slowly. Or an arcwave turret that deals heavy damage but only at close range. Long range turrets with sniper beams, or wide angle beams. Mini gun turrets that would fire in cone sprays. These things greatly interest me.
As to generators, I could think of one to add, a repair generator. Something that would passively repair other fabrications. Perhaps as some future Medical Generator IV.
Ambush: 10s Buff, 60s CD
Stealth Module: 5s Buff, 20s CD
Ambush is 15 seconds, not 10. It's also a one off buff (think beam overload). Stealth Module is also like battle cloak, it's a toggle with a damage buff on breaking stealth.
Ambush is 15 seconds, not 10. It's also a one off buff (think beam overload). Stealth Module is also like battle cloak, it's a toggle with a damage buff on breaking stealth.
Exothermic Induction Field: Low Damage, long CD. Needs a rebalancing to compensate for the higher health pools and resists. Also classified as "Radiation" when it should be "Fire".
Hyperonic Radiation: the AoE range needs to be increased.
Electro-Gravitic Field: willpower resists make this useless in PvP.
Sonic Pulse: cut damage by 30%. In return, make it an un-resistable knockdown.
Tricorder, Vascular, Science Team: increase the base heals, Voth Spec Ops out-damage all medic heals.
Hi, thanks for the reply (although you have orangeitis in the quote, it's actually me )
Yeah, I thought it was weird. Good thing I'm not saying things I don't remember like I thought I was when I read that quote! :P
Okay, here's a proposal. Instead of a longer cooldown timer to make way for more potent skills, how about an item being consumed instead? For instance a Large Power Cell consumed for a strong tactical buff.
Kits and BOff abilites still seem like some piece of unfinished business dating back to the STO alpha :-| I know that you guys at Cryptic already plan to get rid of the whole "Kit" philosophy and make the individual powers selectable on their own, but this should really go hand in hand with a revamp of the BOff system and BOff abilites. It would probably be helpful, to associate such a revamp with a crafting revamp...
Anyways, I play my Bunker Fabrication Engineer with a passion and what I really miss is ONE ability which allows me to place all my turrets and generators in ONE go (like totem skills for shamans in WoW). Put a higher CD on that ability or to tie it to an Engineering skill... but, please, make it more convenient to set up all your turrets/generators.
I would like to see the kits have slots where I pick a power like when I train my Boff in a skill.
Also, we need a one click deploy all turrets and generator button for each Boff when on ground missions. Just sayin. :-)
So far it seems like Tac is already actually functioning the way you are suggesting.
I'll list out some Eng kits and Sci kits in a bit if someone doesn't get to it before me.
Tac is in fact pretty close to what I have in mind for combat pacing. Science is pretty close, too - Engineering has more trouble in terms of having some powers with really long cooldowns and some powers with close to 100% uptime from just one copy of the power. Specific things I was looking at:
Eng:
-Combat Supply bring to 33% uptime, make it actually useful. 60 sec CD or so.
-Transphasic Bomb - Closer to 45-60 sec CD, but really impactful on use and much easier to use.
-Quantum Mortar Fabrication - Bring to 33% uptime, but really good while it's out. Make it better at actually hitting NPCs, make hits deal more damage.
-Medical Generator - Again, reduce the uptime but make it really significant when it's there
Things that should stay spammable/very low CD:
-Shield Recharge
-Quick Fix
That's the general type of idea.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Exothermic Induction Field: Low Damage, long CD. Needs a rebalancing to compensate for the higher health pools and resists. Also classified as "Radiation" when it should be "Fire".
Hyperonic Radiation: the AoE range needs to be increased.
Electro-Gravitic Field: willpower resists make this useless in PvP.
Sonic Pulse: cut damage by 30%. In return, make it an un-resistable knockdown.
Tricorder, Vascular, Science Team: increase the base heals, Voth Spec Ops out-damage all medic heals.
Exothermic Induction Field + Hyperonic Radiation is the most powerful science attack combinations in the game. Toss on 3x Geologist duty officers, the cooldown is more than acceptable. Electro-Gravitic Field is a disrupt and root, it's more harmful than you might think. Sonic Pulse is perfect in it's current state.
Now healing, increasing the base heals are a very bad idea. There's a delicate balance between damage vs healing on the ground right now. It's stable for the moment, but any form of boost or alteration could disrupt that balance. Ground PvP doesn't need tanks that can only be killed by 3+ people or insane spike damage, that's something Space PvPers can keep.
Maybe Weapons Malfunction isn't well-suited to being a boss-disabling power, but is better as a damage mitigation strategy against Lieutenants or Commanders, and therefore needs a shorter 24-36 second cooldown. Still though, with only a 4-6 second disable at that recharge, is it worth using instead of just firing your weapon?
A 4-6 second disable in an AoE with a short cooldown can be worth it. If you make the AoE large enough to blanket an entire area, you can give yourself, and whoever else is near you, enough time to fully recharge personal shields.
The problem is that the AoE requires a DOFF, and the DOFF itself only gives an unreliable 35% chance to jump to additional nearby targets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ussultimatum
Some more Tac kits (all skill ranks at 6)
So far it seems like Tac is already actually functioning the way you are suggesting.
I'll list out some Eng kits and Sci kits in a bit if someone doesn't get to it before me.
Tac is in fact pretty close to what I have in mind for combat pacing. Science is pretty close, too - Engineering has more trouble in terms of having some powers with really long cooldowns and some powers with close to 100% uptime from just one copy of the power. Specific things I was looking at:
Eng:
-Combat Supply bring to 33% uptime, make it actually useful. 60 sec CD or so.
-Transphasic Bomb - Closer to 45-60 sec CD, but really impactful on use and much easier to use.
-Quantum Mortar Fabrication - Bring to 33% uptime, but really good while it's out. Make it better at actually hitting NPCs, make hits deal more damage.
-Medical Generator - Again, reduce the uptime but make it really significant when it's there
Things that should stay spammable/very low CD:
-Shield Recharge
-Quick Fix
That's the general type of idea.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Not in PvP, but they are a bit lackluster in PvE due to being kind of bad at actually hitting things. More damage is not the solution - you can ignore that part of the previous post, I'm just spitballing here, some mistakes will likely be made in this thinking-out-loud. Keep in mind, I also don't really want them to be out all the time - I'm thinking of them as the "DPS Cooldown" of the Fabrication-type Kit player, where their turrets are their bread-and-butter, and they bring out the Mortar for the big bad.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
oh sorry. Lol mortars are so spammed right now it just makes for a not fun experience in pvp and the thought of them being made stronger is just meh. I don't know if I agree about pve either tho. So many ways to hold and slow. The dampening field ball of black poo may not do anything to npc perception but the slow run speed is noticeable.
Not in PvP, but they are a bit lackluster in PvE due to being kind of bad at actually hitting things. More damage is not the solution - you can ignore that part of the previous post, I'm just spitballing here, some mistakes will likely be made in this thinking-out-loud. Keep in mind, I also don't really want them to be out all the time - I'm thinking of them as the "DPS Cooldown" of the Fabrication-type Kit player, where their turrets are their bread-and-butter, and they bring out the Mortar for the big bad.
Here's some crazy spit-balling, what if the mortars and turrets (or perhaps a variant to keep current functionality untouched) were actually part of the Engineers combat suit - but reduced their speed?
The Engineer would turn into a heavy unit (like the big voth suits), but they would be mobile and could bring those powers with them - perhaps at a range, or damage loss compared to stationary pets.
Not in PvP, but they are a bit lackluster in PvE due to being kind of bad at actually hitting things. More damage is not the solution - you can ignore that part of the previous post, I'm just spitballing here, some mistakes will likely be made in this thinking-out-loud. Keep in mind, I also don't really want them to be out all the time - I'm thinking of them as the "DPS Cooldown" of the Fabrication-type Kit player, where their turrets are their bread-and-butter, and they bring out the Mortar for the big bad.
That is kinda what happens, except that currently the "Big Bad" has to be something super-slow or immobile for it to actually do anything. The V-Rex is a good example, except that its own mortars hit faster than ours and blow ours up, so it rarely ever really feels the wrath of a slowly falling quantum explosive.
Tac is in fact pretty close to what I have in mind for combat pacing. Science is pretty close, too - Engineering has more trouble in terms of having some powers with really long cooldowns and some powers with close to 100% uptime from just one copy of the power. Specific things I was looking at:
Eng:
-Combat Supply bring to 33% uptime, make it actually useful. 60 sec CD or so.
-Transphasic Bomb - Closer to 45-60 sec CD, but really impactful on use and much easier to use.
-Quantum Mortar Fabrication - Bring to 33% uptime, but really good while it's out. Make it better at actually hitting NPCs, make hits deal more damage.
-Medical Generator - Again, reduce the uptime but make it really significant when it's there
Things that should stay spammable/very low CD:
-Shield Recharge
-Quick Fix
That's the general type of idea.
Changing the way turrets and generators work could be interesting. However, I don't think the redeploy cooldown should be longer than the ability's duration. There are so many maps where the players are in constant motion. The Voth Battlezone, Infected Ground, Khitomer Ground, and Cure Ground would all make the long cooldown fabrications useless. By the time the engineer had deployed them, the team would have already moved out of range. In order to be viable, the deployment would need to be rapid and the abilities would need to be significant. Right now, it's possible to kill a turret or generator with two rifle shots. A turret with a long cooldown would also need a large number of hit points/shield points to take damage. The same goes for generators
Quantum Mortars are another story, they are worthless when alone, but they become a deadly spam ability when used in groups of three or more. You've also mentioned a fix for combat supply which sounds fantastic. The only other engineering ability that truly suffers is Equipment Diagnostics, which should probably have a 15 second uptime and a 45 second cooldown instead of a 30 second uptime and a 1 minute 30 second cooldown.
With all of that said, please don't revert us to a pre-Season 4 state, the fast pace of ground combat is one of it's defining features. I understand the desire to make engineers more versatile with their fabrications and I think it's a great idea. At the same time, I love how fast pace of ground combat and I would hate to lose something like that with long ability cooldowns.
Here's some crazy spit-balling, what if the mortars and turrets (or perhaps a variant to keep current functionality untouched) were actually part of the Engineers combat suit - but reduced their speed?
The Engineer would turn into a heavy unit (like the big voth suits), but they would be mobile and could bring those powers with them - perhaps at a range, or damage loss compared to stationary pets.
Just some left field stuff.
That's brilliant actually. Deploying a portable shoulder mounted auto-turret or mortar. The generators could be turned into healing auras, similar to cruiser commands in space, but with limited durations. That would make for some interesting gameplay. Forcefield dome could receive similar changes, allowing the dome to move with the Engineer.
Comments
Fair question and point - when I say "Long Cooldowns" here, I mean 45-60 second range. There are a lot of Kit Powers that have 15-30 second cooldowns with 2-3 second activate times and close to 100% uptime, but low magnitude effects. I feel like each career could have two, maybe three 10-15 second recharge Kit Powers, but the rest could safely be 45-60 seconds, allowing you to say "This is the fight I'm using Stun Grenade!" *throw grenade* *use minigun* instead of "This fight, like each fight before it, I will spend 12 seconds animating for 4 seconds of weapon fire's overall 'effect budget'" as some kits currently do.
I'm not looking to make Kit Powers take more than 2 minutes at most to recharge. What I am looking to do is make sure each time you activate a Kit Power, it's worth spending the animation time to cast - and that all Kit Powers are conceivably worth equipping for some kind of build/situation.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
That does come off sounding...pretty neat...more involved.
If I were to compare it to space powers, I've got lots of good Subnucs and APAs and Gravity Wells and Spread 3s. What I'd like more of is the boringly-utilitarian stuff like TT or EPTS.
Thinking about this some more I wonder if implementing a standard 15 second cool down on all kit powers and then rebalancing them based around that frequency of use might be interesting and give players who feel they can't use their powers enough a more active feel for the kit. Something like this would naturally mean tactical initiative would have to be drastically changed again.
Vanilla Ground PvP information
Let's make it harder :P Think of it as a challenge
This is already true now, most abilities take 0.5 seconds to activate and they have a decent uptime. Outside of the 10 abilities I listed before, which just need modifications to be made more effective, buffs are worth using in their current state. The ground combat missions are so fast paced that having 1 minute cooldowns would essentially neuter the usefulness of kit abilities. Weapon Malfunction on a 1 minute cooldown would essentially mean 15 uses at most for ground STF missions. Compared to right now where the debuff lasts long enough to kill the target and recharges in time for reuse when needed again. The same is true for the rest of the abilities ingame right now.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
I agree, the skill system is complex, hard to understand at a glance, and disincentivizes learning aspects of the game you haven't put skills into. Power levels in space also share a bit of this.
Fair point - our systems do tend to handle "tons of small critters" much better than "One big imposing guy". Fights like the Devidian Captain in the Devidian series or the Mech Captains in the battlezone are few and far between. Maybe Weapons Malfunction isn't well-suited to being a boss-disabling power, but is better as a damage mitigation strategy against Lieutenants or Commanders, and therefore needs a shorter 24-36 second cooldown. Still though, with only a 4-6 second disable at that recharge, is it worth using instead of just firing your weapon?
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Personally from a kit revamp I would prefer more customization in what abilities I get to use on a kit (even if it is slightly restricted) but also for them to include a big, powerful useful ability with a longer cooldown and maybe 2 others that are quick on the fly abilities that are used for mobs with the final 1 or 2 abilities being medium cooldown/powerful abilities.
Perhaps you could even change some abilities into just a plain buff that is kept on you so long as you keep the kit equipped. I mean if it's meant to be spammed so as to have nearly 100% uptime why not just make it 100% uptime and have it animate only once when you equip it or enter combat?
Personally I also dislike how much buffing I do for taking down a boss and how I spend half of it in buff animations rather than having them apply straight away and hitting armek with my own personal nerf sledgehammer.
I might post about the abilities I like or don't in the morning, it's late and that man who isn't there is still here.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
Longer cooldowns are not a solution to this: They just reduce the overall power usage, promoting 'shoot till dead'.
Why not instead reduce the animation time drastically, crating a more fluid combat experience, with regular power usage without endless animation loops?
Highest MK rating whatever that is XII current.
These kits would have empty slots in them same # of possible powers as Fleet MK XII and would be profession specific?
Would get all the available abilities... as "tokens" to put in slots. Could only change what's slotted at "work station" for 50 Dill (work station located in all major hubs and engineering section of ship and fleet base)
Combat supply my suggestion. change it or get a Doff to change it to spawn a heavy Mech thing like the Voth have but Faction specific... or just copy paste of the Voth Mini boss mechs?
Be able to use it? Player controlled or AI?
Oh and my favorite new ability target anywhere on map and transport there...
hehe what it is Star Trek! At least I didn't suggest trans warp beaming, from Earth to Q'nos, ability and having great Jolly time.
Upgrade to Orbital strike. Projectile Duty officer. Fire salvo of Torpedoes at target. (is lore approved it was in Voyager.) oh and I guess DS9 when Sisko made couple planets uninhabitable.
Something new?
something blue?
oh and lets not forget who's getting paid... not me... so take these with many grains of salt, don't need to get fired over this?
Hi, thanks for the reply (although you have orangeitis in the quote, it's actually me
Isn't this frequently the case now? (Honest question, I tend to stick to one kit on my Tacs and 1 or 2 kits on my Sci/Eng, so I don't have in depth knowledge of all CDs).
Here's a look at Fire Team, probably the single best and most used kit for Tacs:
Fire Team
Ambush: 15s Buff (one shot), 60s CD
Battle Strategies: 15s buff, 60s CD
Plasma Grenade: 30s CD
Suppressing Fire: 16s Buff, 8s Debuff, 24s CD
*Motion Accelerator: 14s Buff, 180s CD
This seems to already fall directly into what you're suggesting, and the only thing I would change on this kit is:
1) Motion Accelerator's cooldown is too long.
2) Some of the activations are too long.
Yes, Weapon Malfunction only takes 0.5 seconds to activate. When I am playing an engineer, I hit the Weapon Malfunciton keybind and I go back to firing my weapon as if nothing even happened. The activation times on abilities isn't the problem at all.
I think the reason so many casual ground players don't use kit abilities is because they were never taught how to use them anywhere in the game. I started the game as a Tactical officer and I used the Operative kit. I used Security Escort, Lunge, and Stealth Module. Their effects were obvious and helpful. However, I didn't start using damage buffs until three weeks in when I saw other players using damage buffs in PvP. I think players don't use ground abilities because they don't realize what a massive impact they have on game performance.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Shield heals (and the shield generator fabrication) are also a bit of trouble... against high-DPS enemies, they're weak compared to medical heals, but against low-DPS enemies, they're not needed. They're also beaten out by reputation and set powers.
sci and engi only have 2 useful kits tacs have alot more. a module set up would be nice.
Operative
Ambush: 15s Buff (one shot), 60s CD
Battle Strategies: 15s buff, 60s CD
Stealth Module: Variable Invis, 5s damage Buff, 20s CD
Lunge: Instant, 12s CD
Close Combat
Stun Grenade: Instant, 60s CD
Sweeping Strikes: Instant, 0s CD
Lunge: Instant, 12s CD
Motion Accelerator: 14s, 180s CD
Squad Leader
Rally Cry: 15s Buff, 120s CD
Overwatch: 30s Buff, 90s CD
Smoke Grenade: Instant, 30s CD
Photon Grenade: Instant, 20s CD
Security
Draw Fire: 16s, 45s
Overwatch: 30s Buff, 90s CD
Stun Grenade: Instant, 60s CD
Suppressing Fire: 16s Buff, 8s Debuff, 24s CD
So far it seems like Tac is already actually functioning the way you are suggesting, with the exception of the melee abilities - although these seem reasonable at their low CDs due to actually being melee and requiring closing to melee range.
I'll list out some Eng kits and Sci kits in a bit if someone doesn't get to it before me.
Combat supply as a buff dispenser makes sense, but I have a different idea: have Combat Supply beam down and specifically apply a buff to friendlies within range, but also debuff enemies that enter range.
Transphasic Bomb should work entirely differently, more like the Subspace mines that Jem'Hadar NPCs use. Transphasic Bomb would be more of a high damage single target attack, the bomb would drift toward its target and then detonate, but would be destructible in transit. Or, get rid of something bad and give one of the classes Subspace Mines.
If Chroniton mines are going to have a duration, make them self-replenish. So, a couple seconds after one target runs in, the mines they detonated are replaced by new ones, maybe tie it to a small ground device that if destroyed would take out the minefield. Otherwise, Chroniton mines should last until they explode of their owner dies/changes zone.
I'd like to be able to shoot through Cover Shield, as right now the only point is using it to keep someone from shooting your Mortar.
Generally, more customization would be nice. Let us choose the weapon types of our turrets and mortars, mines and bombs, too. More variety in turret types would be especially welcome, such as a heavy Burst assault turret that could knock down and expose, but fires slowly. Or an arcwave turret that deals heavy damage but only at close range. Long range turrets with sniper beams, or wide angle beams. Mini gun turrets that would fire in cone sprays. These things greatly interest me.
As to generators, I could think of one to add, a repair generator. Something that would passively repair other fabrications. Perhaps as some future Medical Generator IV.
Ambush is 15 seconds, not 10. It's also a one off buff (think beam overload). Stealth Module is also like battle cloak, it's a toggle with a damage buff on breaking stealth.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Edited my posts with your corrections, thanks.
Exothermic Induction Field: Low Damage, long CD. Needs a rebalancing to compensate for the higher health pools and resists. Also classified as "Radiation" when it should be "Fire".
Hyperonic Radiation: the AoE range needs to be increased.
Electro-Gravitic Field: willpower resists make this useless in PvP.
Sonic Pulse: cut damage by 30%. In return, make it an un-resistable knockdown.
Tricorder, Vascular, Science Team: increase the base heals, Voth Spec Ops out-damage all medic heals.
Okay, here's a proposal. Instead of a longer cooldown timer to make way for more potent skills, how about an item being consumed instead? For instance a Large Power Cell consumed for a strong tactical buff.
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I would like to see the kits have slots where I pick a power like when I train my Boff in a skill.
Also, we need a one click deploy all turrets and generator button for each Boff when on ground missions. Just sayin. :-)
Tac is in fact pretty close to what I have in mind for combat pacing. Science is pretty close, too - Engineering has more trouble in terms of having some powers with really long cooldowns and some powers with close to 100% uptime from just one copy of the power. Specific things I was looking at:
Eng:
-Combat Supply bring to 33% uptime, make it actually useful. 60 sec CD or so.
-Transphasic Bomb - Closer to 45-60 sec CD, but really impactful on use and much easier to use.
-Quantum Mortar Fabrication - Bring to 33% uptime, but really good while it's out. Make it better at actually hitting NPCs, make hits deal more damage.
-Medical Generator - Again, reduce the uptime but make it really significant when it's there
Things that should stay spammable/very low CD:
-Shield Recharge
-Quick Fix
That's the general type of idea.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Exothermic Induction Field + Hyperonic Radiation is the most powerful science attack combinations in the game. Toss on 3x Geologist duty officers, the cooldown is more than acceptable. Electro-Gravitic Field is a disrupt and root, it's more harmful than you might think. Sonic Pulse is perfect in it's current state.
Now healing, increasing the base heals are a very bad idea. There's a delicate balance between damage vs healing on the ground right now. It's stable for the moment, but any form of boost or alteration could disrupt that balance. Ground PvP doesn't need tanks that can only be killed by 3+ people or insane spike damage, that's something Space PvPers can keep.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
A 4-6 second disable in an AoE with a short cooldown can be worth it. If you make the AoE large enough to blanket an entire area, you can give yourself, and whoever else is near you, enough time to fully recharge personal shields.
The problem is that the AoE requires a DOFF, and the DOFF itself only gives an unreliable 35% chance to jump to additional nearby targets.
Originally Posted by ussultimatum
Some more Tac kits (all skill ranks at 6)
So far it seems like Tac is already actually functioning the way you are suggesting.
I'll list out some Eng kits and Sci kits in a bit if someone doesn't get to it before me.
Tac is in fact pretty close to what I have in mind for combat pacing. Science is pretty close, too - Engineering has more trouble in terms of having some powers with really long cooldowns and some powers with close to 100% uptime from just one copy of the power. Specific things I was looking at:
Eng:
-Combat Supply bring to 33% uptime, make it actually useful. 60 sec CD or so.
-Transphasic Bomb - Closer to 45-60 sec CD, but really impactful on use and much easier to use.
-Quantum Mortar Fabrication - Bring to 33% uptime, but really good while it's out. Make it better at actually hitting NPCs, make hits deal more damage.
-Medical Generator - Again, reduce the uptime but make it really significant when it's there
Things that should stay spammable/very low CD:
-Shield Recharge
-Quick Fix
That's the general type of idea.
Jeff "Adjudicator Hawk" Hamilton
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Mortars need to be stronger? Is that a joke?
Vanilla Ground PvP information
Not in PvP, but they are a bit lackluster in PvE due to being kind of bad at actually hitting things. More damage is not the solution - you can ignore that part of the previous post, I'm just spitballing here, some mistakes will likely be made in this thinking-out-loud.
Systems Designer - Cryptic Studios
Twitter: @JeffAHamilton
Vanilla Ground PvP information
Here's some crazy spit-balling, what if the mortars and turrets (or perhaps a variant to keep current functionality untouched) were actually part of the Engineers combat suit - but reduced their speed?
The Engineer would turn into a heavy unit (like the big voth suits), but they would be mobile and could bring those powers with them - perhaps at a range, or damage loss compared to stationary pets.
Just some left field stuff.
That is kinda what happens, except that currently the "Big Bad" has to be something super-slow or immobile for it to actually do anything. The V-Rex is a good example, except that its own mortars hit faster than ours and blow ours up, so it rarely ever really feels the wrath of a slowly falling quantum explosive.
Quantum Mortars are another story, they are worthless when alone, but they become a deadly spam ability when used in groups of three or more. You've also mentioned a fix for combat supply which sounds fantastic. The only other engineering ability that truly suffers is Equipment Diagnostics, which should probably have a 15 second uptime and a 45 second cooldown instead of a 30 second uptime and a 1 minute 30 second cooldown.
With all of that said, please don't revert us to a pre-Season 4 state, the fast pace of ground combat is one of it's defining features. I understand the desire to make engineers more versatile with their fabrications and I think it's a great idea. At the same time, I love how fast pace of ground combat and I would hate to lose something like that with long ability cooldowns.
That's brilliant actually. Deploying a portable shoulder mounted auto-turret or mortar. The generators could be turned into healing auras, similar to cruiser commands in space, but with limited durations. That would make for some interesting gameplay. Forcefield dome could receive similar changes, allowing the dome to move with the Engineer.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)