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Cruisers and their captains
whitewinged7
Member Posts: 86 Arc User
Hey guys I wanted to talk about general choices in cruisers and what you all like to use and also their relevancy and your opinion on that.
Let me just start with what I think. As a captain I play an Engineer. Long ago when I first started playing I chose a Tactical as Im pretty sure most of us did for the red shirt haha. Well I played him for awhile and realized I did not like escorts one bit to small squishy and didnt feel star trek to me.
Obviously the game is FULL of escorts so there is a high demand for them or maybe it is because of the point on the cruiser relevancy which I will bring up momentarily.
Now as an example Id like to share with you an experience I had a few days ago starting over after a break I took from the game. I have just reached Lt. Comm 14 and am flying the Cruiser refit version off the C store. You know the one white material very cool to look at and generally thought of as a 24th century "connie".
Anyway I was in a 20 man PVE que where you defend the freighter pilots to their destination and you are split between seperate teams. Now to my point I am by no means a expert or a pro player I play because I want to immerse myself in Trek and the universe it commands.
During this PVE mission a Giant lockbox ship with what seemed like hundreds of cannons oppened fire on the incoming ships. As an Engineer and a cruiser captain I did my job I popped the threat reduction to allies and FAW'ed my way into the middle so the escorts could do their job while I held the line.
Now this went on for a few seconds and I was at 89% hull with 98% of the guys on me and only one or two escorts who had drawn aggro. The giant lockbox ship was one of them. During this few seconds the Lockbox ship was not only unable to destroy the ship he had unleased thousands of cannon shots on he somehow was oblitorated by that one single ship.
Yet here I sat with 5-8 of them on me roatating emergency power to shields and repairs doing just fine.
I vastly enjoy being the captain of my huge cruisers even the little beginning ships such as the one I fly now. Of course I understand my beams will never do the DPS of the cannons of the escorts ect but, on Elite and Adavanced I still hardly die but, my battles do take alot of time to complete.
I would like your opinions on the question and statement about why so many escorts are seen in game and what seems to be so few cruisers and also why escorts seem to be doing unimaginable DPS but then are crushed by the smallest of foes?
Is this working as intended would starfleet really commission ships able to be snuffed out by 50 year old birds of prey? Would the game not be better served to lower their dps and raise their survival rate? If we did indeed somehow make escorts in my opinion a more realistic ship and not some suicidal WW2 zero fighter then would we all not feel more useful? NOT to mention poor poor science ships are seen less and less due to no need for healers when you can just have 20 glass cannons.
My point is we are not Klingons or Gorn in the Federation we are Starfleet officers we value life and ships we serve on. Would a captain really want to just charge into a fight with no regard of the outcome. I believe if escorts were re-evaluated and cruisers brought even lower on the damage scale we would see more value to each fight and a bit more reward as well. After all we crave challenge and risk.
I hope somehow I was able to get at least some of my feelings and thoughts into this to be understood.
I hope this wall of text has not been to much to read and that we can have a good discussion about what maybe this game needs to balance the ship choices.
TL;DR- Im sorry reading is part of life
Let me just start with what I think. As a captain I play an Engineer. Long ago when I first started playing I chose a Tactical as Im pretty sure most of us did for the red shirt haha. Well I played him for awhile and realized I did not like escorts one bit to small squishy and didnt feel star trek to me.
Obviously the game is FULL of escorts so there is a high demand for them or maybe it is because of the point on the cruiser relevancy which I will bring up momentarily.
Now as an example Id like to share with you an experience I had a few days ago starting over after a break I took from the game. I have just reached Lt. Comm 14 and am flying the Cruiser refit version off the C store. You know the one white material very cool to look at and generally thought of as a 24th century "connie".
Anyway I was in a 20 man PVE que where you defend the freighter pilots to their destination and you are split between seperate teams. Now to my point I am by no means a expert or a pro player I play because I want to immerse myself in Trek and the universe it commands.
During this PVE mission a Giant lockbox ship with what seemed like hundreds of cannons oppened fire on the incoming ships. As an Engineer and a cruiser captain I did my job I popped the threat reduction to allies and FAW'ed my way into the middle so the escorts could do their job while I held the line.
Now this went on for a few seconds and I was at 89% hull with 98% of the guys on me and only one or two escorts who had drawn aggro. The giant lockbox ship was one of them. During this few seconds the Lockbox ship was not only unable to destroy the ship he had unleased thousands of cannon shots on he somehow was oblitorated by that one single ship.
Yet here I sat with 5-8 of them on me roatating emergency power to shields and repairs doing just fine.
I vastly enjoy being the captain of my huge cruisers even the little beginning ships such as the one I fly now. Of course I understand my beams will never do the DPS of the cannons of the escorts ect but, on Elite and Adavanced I still hardly die but, my battles do take alot of time to complete.
I would like your opinions on the question and statement about why so many escorts are seen in game and what seems to be so few cruisers and also why escorts seem to be doing unimaginable DPS but then are crushed by the smallest of foes?
Is this working as intended would starfleet really commission ships able to be snuffed out by 50 year old birds of prey? Would the game not be better served to lower their dps and raise their survival rate? If we did indeed somehow make escorts in my opinion a more realistic ship and not some suicidal WW2 zero fighter then would we all not feel more useful? NOT to mention poor poor science ships are seen less and less due to no need for healers when you can just have 20 glass cannons.
My point is we are not Klingons or Gorn in the Federation we are Starfleet officers we value life and ships we serve on. Would a captain really want to just charge into a fight with no regard of the outcome. I believe if escorts were re-evaluated and cruisers brought even lower on the damage scale we would see more value to each fight and a bit more reward as well. After all we crave challenge and risk.
I hope somehow I was able to get at least some of my feelings and thoughts into this to be understood.
I hope this wall of text has not been to much to read and that we can have a good discussion about what maybe this game needs to balance the ship choices.
TL;DR- Im sorry reading is part of life
Post edited by whitewinged7 on
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Comments
Working as intended? Yes. 100% in line with canon? No.
What we're seeing is the necessary balance that has to be made in game design. The Defiant and other "escorts" need to pack a pretty hard punch to match what was seen on TV - that's their whole purpose, after all.
However, to make escorts also be as durable as they were shown to be on TV (blah blah ablative armour, etc.) would make them more than a little overpowered for a combat-oriented game such as STO - why would you fly anything else? The gameplay compromise is to make escorts hit hard but be less durable, whlie cruisers can take a lot of punishment but cannot generally deal as much damage.
I would however point out that escorts are already far and away the ship everyone flies.
Would it not be possible to focus once again on what makes a fleet a fleet? Teamwork and opportunity.
As it stands I have to admit I feel like the big slow turtle in the back of a very very angry swarm of suicidal wasps that once they sting they will die.
It is my sole mission not only to complete each mission I join but to survive of course not at the risk of loosing or crippling the team but my ship is important to me and I dont understand how anyone with an escort could possibly care when the game makes them flying paper towels.
As I said I dont fly an escort but Id like to not have to worry about them so much and also not have to think I was unwanted because I didnt have 18 cannons attatched to my nose
As for doing little DPS, a properly built cruiser (read a2b+dem) and a few very expensive doff (read marion frances dulmur) will pull as much damage or probably more than an escort, as long as there is more than 1 target.
I'm an escort pilot. I like the cannons, I like the narrow arc, I like to be nimble and not a space whale, I liked the DPS it used to have compared to the other kind of ships. And also, I never truly like the saucer thing design ST always had. Brand me heretic, but I like how the Klingons and Romulan ships looks like, and find the various enterprise ugly. I really like how the patrol escort look like for example.
And BTW, the best defense is a good offense. If it's dead, it can't shoot you.
It's definitely possible, but it would be a pretty drastic redesign of the fundamental underpinnings of the game. I know there are plenty of players who would like to see some adjustments - as erei1 pointed out, the power creep over time has led to escorts being a lot tougher than they were originally designed to be, and at this point there's not a lot of incentive to fly anything but an escort - dedicated healers or other support roles generally aren't needed.
Edit:
For the record, I love cruisers, too, and tend to fly them more than anything else.
I respect that. Dont worry some people never really like the saucer and thats ok to Star Trek has more to offer.
However we could debate till the end of time about offense vs defense but, that wouldnt get us anywhere the truth is they are equal.
I dont think anyone can can say I want anything nerfed or to hurt anyones play experience. I simply am hoping for some similar thoughts on the state of the game.
Do we really want entire STF's of escorts? wouldnt it seem more viable to all work as a team. I fear that if we continue like we have eventually we will have to put blue shirts in a musuem and wave as the cruisers all migrate to their final resting place as thousands of escorts fill the gap.
Of course im blowing it out of proportion I just wondered if anyone felt the same and maybe find a way to fix what I know I see as a problem and also make things a bit more fun for advanced escort flyers?
But truly, when it comes down to it, the game is easy. Some people see this as a problem. I see it as a huge boon. Because if I want to fly that sinfully ugly Romulan Dreadnought because Leet DEEPS! or I want to whip out my Vulcan d'Kyr (dont have one yet...) because "I may slightly underperform, but I will look DAMNED good and unique doing it!", for 99% of the content (even elite STFs), you will be able to beat the PVE content.
So it makes the game more enjoyable to people not dedicating their entire life to determining the top 1 percentile of DPS ship builds, and fie on you 'pathetic scum who doesn't run mah l33t build lozer!'
TLDR: It's ok, the game is forgiving, no need to keep up with the Joneses. Fly the ship you like to fly!!
**(I actually love me the Galaxy, this was part of the sarcasm.)
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
I have to agree with galadiman's statement here. Fly what you want to fly and be effective at it.
In regards to your experience, it may just boil down to the how each player wants to play the game. You have your Leeroy Jenkins Highway to the Dangerzone types, you have people like yourself who want to survive an encounter like a "responsible captain" (I fly engie cruiser as well, survivability is my foundation), you have people who just want to fly one single particular ship (I have a captain entirely for the Galaxy and another one entirely for the start ship Miranda), etc.
Thankfully, it will never get to the point that escorts will replace all the other ship classes in the game. Sure, pure DPS onslaught have been documented to trump all of the challenges STO has thrown us thus far. But those situations took time to setup. Practice runs and lots of failed attempts.
Plus, it also depends on how the player handles their ship. I think I'm a pretty good cruiser captain (broadside-sliding to victory every day!) but I admit I'm a pretty amateur escort captain and possibly worst science and carrier captain.
TL;DR - Have a cup of tea and relax. You can't be responsible for how others play the game. Just make sure you're having fun. You're not alone in your sentiments.
(UFP) Ragnar
stopped reading there, because it told me everything about the "irrelevance" of everything after.
it's like saying: i don't like oranges because i tasted an apple.
tac captain <> escort
engi captain <> cruiser
science captain <> sci
if you limit yourself to that, you didn't even grasp the slightest bit about this game, which makes any following statement irrelevant.
Excuse you? I fly a Galaxy-X thank you very much.
In a cruiser I feel more involved in the fight, since they are actually fights and not ganks over in milliseconds. I don't use A2B and I don't bind keys, I also use cheap gear and doffs. For a long time I never even used 2 copies of anything, it's only since hitting 50 on this latest toon I've decided to run 2 copies of empw2.
I rotate and use skills manually with mouse clicks and the big tray. I enjoy managing my ship abilities and power levels during combat because it feels more like piloting a starship than just button mashing.
I know I'm shooting myself in the foot, and of course in PvP I'm terrible, but I don't really care. This is the way I most enjoy combat in the game so I'm sticking with it.
Glad to know that even though I was a little bummed by the sheer number of escort leeroy jenkins (lol good analogy) There are plenty of cruiser captains who do things like I do.
Also was not intending to insult escort captains but, I suppose it couldve come across that way. I apologize I didnt mean all escort captains in general you know?
Thanks for your thoughts guys! Feel free to keep adding to them.
While the state of the game is quite easy and yes it does let me play the way I want I suppose Id like to add my voice to the rising cheer that we need more team oriented combat that requires those poor poor neglected healer roles
Well said!!! This is exactly how I fly as well it feels more like a battle to me.
When you watch the shows sometimes battles can seem drawn out while the characters read their lines but, at the same time communication is required so I just feel like a captain.
But Im no pro either so my way is not best or L33T
Hehe... I have lots of practice with slow ships.
My character Tsin'xing
I got an Engie who's flying the Fleet Patrol Escort.
Picking Engie doesn't mean you MUST fly cruisers, or picking Tac = fly escorts. I may not be one shotting things, but I last longer.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
It comes down to fly what you like, your play style is just that yours...
N.C.C. 171867
Sovereign Class
Saint John Fleet Yard
"A Mari Usque Ad Mare"
I am a science officer, and I mostly use physics kits so that I would be a more of a damage dealer than a healer. I commanded an escort and science vessels first, and to be honest, even though it's cool to be able to do lots of damage on an escort and be all maneuverable or to be able to target a system on an enemy ship, I simply love cruisers. Now I have a Odyssey class, I've equipped it with 3 cannons, one Harg'Peng torpedo launcher, 1 omni directional Antiproton beam array, transphasic cluster torpedoes, 1 turret and a quantum torpedo, and with all this I make very, very good damage, especially with use of cannon spread and some science abilities. I've installed a special deflector dish to my ship so I also have 59000 hull and with the borg sub-transwarp impulse engines I can squeeze Transwarp 23 or so out of my ship and if I use advanced quantum slipstream drive I can go as fast as transwarp 32 plus I've installed some engeneering consoles to give myself better turn rate, in fact all of my engeneering console slots are dedicated to increasing the turn rate, and these cruisers are the best ships against the Borg, Undine, or really in any massive battles. I most certainly will stick with my Odyssey class starship - USS Atlantis NCC-93183
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
lots of people do dps because it's so easy, a group of tactical players in fleet defients with cloaks, with perfect synchronicity, defending each other when necessary, the fleet defiants like the t'varo's could batter anything before the defiants or t'varos go down. Realistically tactical class is probably one of the most played and like many other mmo games out there, dps is always the most played.
I play cruisers or science cruisers any chance i can, my style of play is not in escorts at all, 8/8 or 6/6 beam arrays with specific heals or crowd control powers, you dont need to focus too much on your position with your ship as you would with an escort. i have tacs running cruisers, recently my main a tac bought the fleet excelsior and hasnt regretted the choice since. the ship outputs solid damage between 3k to 4k a hit on some occasions, sometimes even puts other escort players to shame with faw, eptw1, atb2, tt2, apb3 and sometimes captain only skills like apa3 and tac team skill with fire on mark. the setup works well, just a conflict between engineering teams, tt and sci team boff skills but so far i havent really had the time to check that out the past few weeks.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
But yeah, while the Escort class ships may have many desirable attributes, I always go back to my Cruisers or my sci ship ( Well I a Nebula , so its kinda cruiser sized as well )
I suppose the Fleet Avenger Battlecrusier is a sort of compromise for me, thats as far towards escorts as i'll go
As far as the way the game is balanced, I think theres on aspect that could be made more useful, And thats Crew size, A lot of cruisers have large crew reserves that are largely untapped potential, Not sure how, but i would like to see some extra bonuses for our crew sizes maybe?
It's all about the play style player chooses, and considering that there's not much to do @ VA, players tend to focus their play style on heavy DPS so it's that quicker to go through STF 4 pack, or any other, every half and hour or so.
I play Engineer in a Cruiser because I like the looks of them, and I love being able to withstand heavy fire when in Hive (the only event that's hard enough to make use of a tank). Or when I play on Elite difficulty, which is not that often tbh. I don't contribute as much DPS as others, which bothers me at times considering I'm always somewhere at the bottom of DPS list. But then again I can support my team by attracting fire so they have a chance to shoot down things. Well, at least that's what I imagine in my head; let's face it, a tank is not that useful in this game as of the current state of it.
But I like it, I'll fly it, and I have lots of fun in the process.
No ship feels better than the Oddy. Yeah, it is slow but when I hit FaW a few times things just blowing
This!
I've really tried a lot of ships but I always fall back to a cruiser. I got 9 toons and my goal is to get all of them on a different cruiser. My second goal is to build every cruiser different ...
It's a lot of fun to punch some Borg faces with raw cruiser power
It can blow stuff up good and is surprisingly agile with the right fleet consoles and skill set.
I always tend toward some sort of hybrid solution so I am not locked into any kind of specialty.
So my character will never be the best in anything but it is very possible to perform above average.
In fleet actions it is not that difficult to get a 2nd or 3rd place reliably. Rarely 1st, because there always seem to be a couple min/maxer in lockbox ships or scimitars, though that has also happened.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
It is true that I do not necessarily mow things down in 5 seconds anymore. The upshot is that I can fly into trouble during those elite STFs and not die, while still throwing up pretty good sustained DPS. Survivability is pretty undervalued in general, but I appreciate it.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.