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Is FAW really broken? (now that fix is live, use other FaW thread in this subforum)
brandonfl
Member Posts: 892
Seriously, with overcapping it is still quite powerful.
Do we really need the crits back?
I vote NO.
Do we really need the crits back?
I vote NO.
LOLSTO
Post edited by brandonfl on
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@f4tamy | Sad Pandas
no power should take that away.
its the overcapping that is the issue. coupled with cruiser drain resistance.
even then, im not even sure what the fix would be there mechanically for faw that wouldnt cripple non cruiser pilots that use faw. we dont want them suffering at all.
and honestly, is it really even a problem anymore? its been a while since everyone and their mother was running a beam faw a2b cruiser....yeah they are still out in force, but nothing like last month.
im just rolling the thoughts here...but to put more drain on faw would definitely kill off destroyer faw guys. and sci guys that run faw to clear some spam...their weapons power is low already...not cool there...
and you can't change the way a power works for just one type of ship can you? that just sounds crappy anyways.
idunno.
just another problem we face.
have fun kill bad guys
Cannons don't benefit from over-capping the way beams do. If they limit or fix the over-capping issue, I will gladly retract my statement. For now though, there is really no comparison.
And Horizon, I agree, everything should have a chance to crit. There is just so much wrong with FAW and it actually feels like it's working properly right now w/o being too OP. Basically, I just want to leave it the way it is until Bort does his re-write of the skill, to prevent it from being bosted in a different, possibly more OP way.
Also, if faw adds a 5th shot to the cycle, adding the additional 25% drain that should happen wouldn't be too out of line. 12.5 instead of 10 per beam per cycle. There needs to be some cost somewhere.
Then we will see all the beam lovers get very very upset very very fast. lol
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
Isn't that what I said?
That's actually a brilliant idea. It pulls back a lot of the feature creep from the rep passives and rom ridiculousness in an interesting way.
I vote yes to this.
Meh, I didn't want to come back to the PvP forums - but I was bored. Besides, this is a mechanical thing, eh? Yeah, I can twist it that way.
Cannons do not benefit from overcap the way Beams do...hrmmm. That's not quite true. One could say, that since Cannons receive the same benefit for less investment - Cannons actually benefit more than Beams do.
~135 Weapon Power, there's little reason to continue pumping power into Weapons for Cannons. The same cannot be said for Beams. With Beams, you could be at ~180 Weapon Power and still wishing you had more...to get that stable 125 that Cannons get with an investment of ~135.
Yep, the Cannon guy is overcapping by 10 to get the same 125 Weapon Power that the guy with Beams is overcapping by 55+. The Beam guy is having to pull power from elsewhere or having to build to generate that additional power in some fashion.
There are a lot of complaints about overcapping as if it favors Beams - but the math doesn't really support that.
4x DHC/4x Turret provides a base damage of 876 in a 45 arc. Some folks will post about Beams being able to do 800 in a 360 arc. But it's not a 360 arc. There's a 110 degrees where a Beam can't hit. It's 800 damage where the two 250 arcs can overlap...which is actually just a 70 arc.
876 @ 45
800 @ 70
One might want to jump in here and say that's only 9.5% less damage for a 55.6% increase in arc. Well, yes - if one is able to maintain that stable 125 Weapon Power. Because of the manner in which drain mechanics work for Cannons and Beams, that's why the Cannons guy generally sees no benefit beyond ~135 and the Beam guy may still want more at ~180+.
That additional Subsystem Power that is not being put into Weapon Power, can be dropped in Engine Power - allowing one to better maintain that 45 arc. The Beam guy, though, is using that Subsystem Power they might have put into Engines to better maintain that 70 arc...is using it to overcap Weapons.
Cryptic's fundamentals - their core - is actually quite balanced. Overcap mechanics, in of themselves, are pretty well balanced.
That being said, mind you, there is a massive imbalance brought about by things such as AtB in regard to power.
Compare the non-AtB Beamboat to the AtB Beamboat...AtB breaks the balance that existed with the overcap mechanics. Do not the DHC/Turret and non-AtB Beamboat look more balanced (even favoring the Cannonboat)? The issue isn't overcap.
That being said, mind you, the issue isn't actually with AtB itself either. Because at it's core, AtB is balanced as well. Sure, it's buggy on the second application - has some other issues here and there - but if it were working, AtB is pretty well balanced itself as far as power goes (Tech DOFFs are another discussion entirely).
But to that, we add things like Plasmonic Leech, Cruiser Commands, Omega Weapon Amplifier, the new Cores, etc, etc, etc...and...AtB is no longer balanced.
Basically, it's something along the following lines (imho, of course):
1) Arc balanced by Drain.
2) Drain balanced by ability to Overcap, which involves sacrificing power elsewhere.
3) Sacrificing power elsewhere balanced by AtB, which is balanced by Aux drain (buggy as it may be).
4) The ability to ignore Aux drain causes #3 no longer to be balanced, which in turn causes #2 no longer to be balanced, which in turn causes #1 no longer to be balanced.
If Cryptic were to address the issues with AtB and Aux drain, say capping it at 5 while AtB was in play...then it would have the cascading effect of bringing balance back up the hierarchy through a series of sacrifices made while trying to maintain that 9.5% less damage for 55.6% better arc.
I had linked a pair of videos, where an Eng using AtB in a JHEC...experienced perhaps 2-3s of 0 Aux over almost a 17 minute period. Even the amount of time spent at 5 Aux was a tiny percentage of the overall duration of the two videos. He spent more time with Aux actually higher than the base setting than with it at 5.
That toon can display 450-500 power from the four subsystems...what's fun to do is break out havelock's power calculator to see that the actual numbers there are going to be closer to 700+.
So one might be easily tempted to say, "Hey VD, it might have been balanced on paper at some point - but with folks being able to pull that kind of power, overcap's an issue because Cryptic won't touch AtB for fear of outcries from the PvE community shrieking, 'Those pesky PvP folks and their incessant need to try to fix things and all their balance malarkey!' as the forums erupt in flames!"
Might not say it quite like that, but that's pretty much the gist.
Thing is, in touching the aspects that are actually balanced - you further break balance - and would need to make additional changes to make it balanced again. Resulting in something those asking for the change to overcapping would likely not be happy with themselves as it would affect them but also resulting in actual complaints that the PvP community got something nerfed.
It would also neuter anybody that's not running AtB builds - which would adversely affect ship sales...and generally be bad for the game.
Wouldn't it be simpler...wouldn't it be best...just to take a whack at addressing the AtB issues first, and then taking it from there rather than potentially TRIBBLE the game up even further and perhaps contributing to its dismal demise?
Just my 2 EC...
I tend to agree. A lot of things synchronised to bring beams to the point where they are now - FAW getting fixed, new warp cores/traits giving extra power, more drain resists, A2B technicians, romulan boffs, decoupling A2B & EPtX, plasmonic leech prevalence, etc. In and of themselves, each is balanced - but the interaction between them is the problem. Add teams into the picture, and things become even more complex. As some have said before, stacking is the problem with the game.
With so many interlocking factors, it really calls for careful bit-by-bit tweaking - since any change at all is liable to cause cascading effects. Kinda like playing a game of Jenga, eh? Easy does it, or the whole thing collapses.
The capping of Aux power at 5 with AtB certainly sounds like a good idea. Kinda like restoring AtB to its described use, really. But still, can't be certain unless it's tried out.
Fix a2b.... just means people use other methods to get the power overcaped. (not that I don't want to see a2b tech doffs fixed... I hate the mechanic and believe it to be the worst issue in the game right now) however.
Why not go a more radical way... and FIX beams in a more lasting way.
Why not remove the crazy idea of 4s firing cycles... and make there firing cycles identical to that of cannons... with DBB firing at DHC rates and Single arrays firing at single cannon rates. Then adjusting them, doing the math on the dmg to make it = to the dmg they are capable of now... I think perhaps beams at that point would have to have there power usage upped a little bit seeing as they have almost no range penalty compared to cannon range calculations. Also I think it would be crazy to leave the faw mechanic as it is if the firing cycle was standardized... however lets all get real faw is a terrible mechanic and I still say Cryptic would be better off scrapping the skill completely and doing the work it would take to allow Cannon Scatter volley to work with any energy weapon and renaming it Fire at Will so they can keep there "iconic" thing BS line they like to throw out when people point out how stupid it is to have FAW in a MMO.
Would that not be the better way to solve the issue ?
Its the odd firing cycles that is the real issue. isn't it ? or am I way off ?
Which actually gets into another factor that will add to the appearance of Beams being Super Bosted! With the amount of debuffs that can be stacked, it's far easier to have a bunch of Beamboats at least have some weapons in arc on a target when the team decides to drop the hammer...without it being as visually easy to identify the target (all the Escorts point their nose at a guy, odds are he's going to get unloaded on).
Is that an issue of Beam arcs...or...is that an issue of the sheer amount of debuffs that can be thrown at a target?
But again, any discussion of touching stacked debuffs will bring forum outrage - DPS channels wouldn't be where they are now without all the stacked debuffs on targets.
Run an ISE with a pair of Recluses with Weavers - run it without...compare the parses.
Heck, look around PvP - at the number of folks that are running APB even though one would think TT should prevent it. Much like HE and EWP can be problematic because of a lack of synchronization, TT and APB can do the same - shots will land with the debuff applied and before it can pulse the cleanse - with the debuff being applied again between cleansing pulses.
Beams make that easier to happen - teams make that easier to happen - but in the end, it couldn't happen if not for the stacking and manner in which it was applied.
Though I'm loathe to suggest buffs to any of the cleanses (since I loathe that an Ensign ranked cleanse is as powerful as a Lieutenant Commander cleanse)...perhaps if they added in an immunity as well as the cleanse. TT up - and - it's not a dance of pulses, the debuffs simply would not be applied. The same for the others, eh? Lol, then perhaps ET would do something about DOFF'd VM finally?
In the end, it's no wonder that Cryptic is not quick to make changes - they have quite the complex and convoluted mess on their hands. As you said, Jenga...but imagine playing Jenga with old sticks of dynamite, eh?
IMHO, it's part of how Cryptic played Jenga with the weapons. You could switch Arrays to 60 Base Damage with the Cannons' 4/3 RoF to maintain the Array's 80 Base DPS, which would leave you with 89.3 Base DPS for a 180 Arc and 80 Base DPS for a 250 Arc.
Add in a Turret though, you're looking at 60 Base DPS for a 360 Arc.
Cannon: 180, 89.3
Turret: 360, 60
Array: 250, 80
The Turret is putting out ~67.2% of the Cannon's DPS for a 200% the Arc. The Array sport's ~138.9% of the Cannon's Arc. Would it be as simple as...
0.5 / 0.72 = 0.672 / x; x * (0.5 / 0.72) = 0.672; x = 0.672 / 0.694; x = 0.968
89.3 * 0.968 = 86.4
So the Base DPS of the Beam Array should be 86.4, given that the Base DPS of the Cannon is 89.3 and the Turret is 60? Meaning the Base Damage of the Beam Array should be 64.8?
As mentioned though, there are quite a few factors involved - including the difference in Falloff for Damage. So, you could do the increased drain to account for that - or - you could reduce the Base Damage/DPS further to reflect that.
That really starts to get complicated...because there are also a crapload of other factors to factor in as well...heh/meh. It's where I'd normally step to the side in the hopes of somebody like frtoaster, queue, or bareel stepping in to take a look at the math...cause math is not my thing. I was an English Major. :P
Wait...hold on...
You mean people actually play Jenga WITHOUT using old sticks of dynamite? God, I've been playing it wrong this WHOLE time!?
IMO its the firing cycles that are the main issue. As you say working out the basic math for arc to dmg numbers shouldn't be that hard. The real complication comes in the way dmg fall off is treated... I don't know how they compensate for that. Unless they just standardize that as well... increasing cannons dmg fall off and reducing beams. (I do like that beams fall off further in theory though as it makes it more of a Cruiser / slow turning ship style weapon. But perhaps the wider arc is enough).
In any regard... imo that is the main issue that Cryptic needs to solve... Standardize the Fire cycles is pretty much needed before they can really get to a place of parity between beams and cannons... with out that the balance will always tip one way or the other.
It reminds me of another MMO I played where they standardized the cycles on melee weapons. At one time no one used large double handed weapons cause the faster cycle on the single hand weapons was superior. Once it was standardized there was a reason to run either... and builds that used both types of wepaons where pretty popular.
I think from a balance point of view Cryptic needs to do the same thing... and perhaps even standardize the dmg drop off... at that point it would come down to arc / and which set of skills you needed to run. (Disables / overloads VS Single target Rapid fire).... as for FAW it can still burn a slow death as far as I'm concerned perhaps its best for game balance to NOT have aoe Energy wepaon skills... leave that to the kinetic weapons and Sci magic.
Think Horizon summed it up best, coupled with a bit of beameddown, we do have to remember a lot of people that are complaining are the min/maxers and, well, Cryptic isn't catering to us.
Best thing for Cryptic to do is fix overcapping so that cannons benefit from it too, problem solved.
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.
I'm not sure the best fix is to supercharge everyone... sometimes as much as we all like to pile on the word Nerf like its some evil thing that only dic* head devs would resort to. At times adjusting down is the way to go.
Adjusting up adjusting up and adjusting up is what has gotten us into the mess where in. Yes its time for Cryptic to adjust a bunch of stuff back down, as it is PvE is more of a joke then it was, and PvP balance... only exists when the players enforce it.
I have Fleet Avenger with 18%Crith (no spire tac consoles yet and I aint even rom lol) 2xCritD Rom plasma beams and Dyson rep wep set, 2xFAW II and ApB with doffs, Auh To ID 1 + doff and Auh to Struc 3. Its stupid, its soo boring I fell asleep while mashing my space bar
the main diference beetwen FAW and cannon boff powers is that you need to position your self for canonns to be evective
For faw you just mash on space singing la la in your head and watching football on TV -_-
The problem is we don't get a finely tempered nerf with a hammer, we get a sledgehammer nerd that makes abilities woefully irrelevant. This is why I do not want to throw the nerf term out there or have we all forgotten our fallen tric mines?
Gecko a while back stated how overcapping is supposed to work, all I can say is it's not WAI at all. It sorta works with beams but cannons get little to no benefit from it at all. I'll have to dig it up at some point, but overcapping is intended, this is all intended going off that which means its cannons not benefiting that is the outlyer.
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.
But they do...and they benefit at less of a cost. I'm not sure why this has to be repeated so many times...meh.
You want pretty stable 125 Weapon Power...?
Cannons - there's little point in going beyond 135.
Beams - at 180, you're likely wishing you were at 200.
135 Weapon Power vs. 180-200+ Weapon Power for the "stable" 125 Weapon Power.
All the folks suggesting that Cannons "benefit" the same as Beams, well - they're actually suggesting that 135 not be good enough and that Cannon folks should have to push that 180-200+ overcap...so they benefit from it too - like the Beam folks.
I can't honestly believe anybody (outside of some Beam folks that really hate Cannon folks) suggesting that...
If we go back to the Single Cannon vs. Beam Array discussion...
Single Cannon: Faster RoF, Same Drain - But Less Drain/Faster Return, Lower Need to Overcap, 180 Arc, Lower DPV, Higher DPS
Beam Array: Slower RoF, Same Drain - But More Drain/Slower Return, Higher Need to Overcap, 250 Arc, Higher DPV, Lower DPS
Hrmm, before I did the 4x DHC/4x Turret (45 Arc) vs. 8x Beams (70 Arc)...what about adding 4x Cannons/4x Turrets into the mix?
DHC/Turret: 704 Base DPS @ 45 degrees
Arrays: 640 Base DPS @ 70 degrees
Cannons/Turrets: 597 Base DPS @ 180 degrees
That's ~84.8% DHC/Turret DPS with 400% Arc. It's ~93.3% Array DPS with ~257% Arc.
So you can get almost 260% the Arc of Arrays for ~6.7% of your DPS. That's not bad while keeping a 180 Arc on target rather than a 70 Arc. If you can't keep that 70 Arc with the Arrays, you've cut your DPS in half - meaning you're doing ~186% DPS with the Cannons by comparison. While needing to worry less about overcap, being able to drop that power to Engines or elsewhere - and thus being even more likely to have that ~186% more DPS with the Cannons/Turret build than the Array build.
Yes, it's true that in being attacked from the rear in said boat - you're looking at 240 Base DPS vs. 320 Base DPS with the Turrets vs. Arrays. (They've the precedent with the Experimental Proton Weapon of allowing Aft Cannons - they should open all Cannons (Cannons, not DCs/DHCs) to being able to be mounted Aft, imho).)
There are all sorts of things like this...where it's obviously balanced. It's only when you start adding in oodles and oodles of other things, that it goes haywire.
Frosted Flakes are good, imho.
Cheese is good, imho.
Bacon is good, imho.
Diet Moutain Dew is good, imho.
I don't want bacon 'n cheese on my frosted flakes soaked in Diet Dew...
How is it not working?
With the way drain/return works differently between Cannons and Beams, there's little point of going above 135 with Cannons - you're already back at 125. With Beams on the other hand, 135 just isn't going to cut it.
Sure, there was the issue where FAW didn't drain at all - but that was a FAW bug - not an overcap issue...
So how is it not working?
Its also a good example of something that HAD to be adjusted down... beefing up every other weapon to that level of stupid wasn't an option... and neither is buffing Rapid fire and scatter volley to the current level of stupid that is faw.
I always found it odd that cannons do but beams do not, that way you can have the crits back without issue. And I too have noticed that FAW does seem more 'balanced' now, I do not use it but come up against it lots and even in a FAW team it still hurts like hell but survivability is now at least there to utilise.
I was sort of meaning that when firing weapons under say CRF your power noticably drops down below 100 every cycle, with your other weapons firing at less power. This you don't often get with beams and overcapping, especially if you are hitting the + 180 with efficiency.
Ah well, can't argue with numbers so, ah well.
It's this bit and I'll embold the part:
However, let say:
You are at 100/125.
You activate a buff that gives you 50 power.
You will be at 125/125.
Weapons fire based on 125 weapon power.
If multiple weapons are fired, power will start to drain. However, you still have 25 unclaimed power from your buff, so that fills in. Your weapon power level wont drop below 125 until you deplete that buff. Once that happens, then power levels will drop below 125 power.
Gecko makes it sound like if you have 3 beams and a reserve of say 30 above the 125 that essentially these beams use that energy and you don't drop below 125. Problem is even with 50 more weapons power, weapon power still drops on the first firing, it then creeps back up and sits at 125 but it initially drains as if that surplus wasn't there.
In other words while you do benefit from the overcap on beams it isn't using the reserve power first, it's using it second, which is not how Gecko described it.
This is more in line with how Porch described it as tested by saxfire.
Also Antonio, maybe the tric mines are more useful in PvP but they have become next to useless in PvE to all but a tactical captain (even then not really useful). Sure they were OP but it was the top end (150% super boosted by everything a tactical captain in an escort can do) that needed reigning in, not a blanket nerf to all spike.
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.
I won't argue as I agree lots of stuff could and should be changed including dmg cylces in the game. We do need more dmg and healing cycles... the last year or 2 cryptic has had a war on skill. There isn't a lot of timing needed anymore... cause every buff lasts for way to long... and the cool downs are now way to short. Used to be when you saw something you countered it... now its up all the time and so is the counter not much for interesting game play there.
On the mines just to play devils advocate here... the same could be said of pretty much any mine there all useless in PvE. None of them where really pve weapons ever.
However, I have no problem with a limitation timer on a crit from each skill and weapon.