No. That's not true. Of course I could make the [Over] mod not drain power. Was it convenient to make planned changes to Beam Overload in order to alleviate the [Over] issue? Yes. But game balance changes to "meta" and "non-meta" powers have been planned for months now, and we're finally getting to start making them.
Please stop repeating this (albeit hilarious-sounding "ah ha devs are so dumb") soundbite. It's flat out not true.
And we had any way of knowing that.... how, exactly?
Keep in mind that you guys have a long and storied history of deciding that bugs are too hard to fix and so are now 'emergent features', or changing fundamental underlying mechanics to solve an issue that you 'can't' fix another way.
The perception isn't that you guys are dumb, it's that you're working with a system where there every bug that isn't easy to fix becomes a 'feature' and that any eventual fixes are a result of you changing something else that also happens to affect this one specific thing- but that you flat out lack the ability to fix this specific issue -to quote Q, you have to alter the gravitational constant of the entire universe to move a single moon- regardless of the other effects such a change might have.
Just based on initial tribble testing, I think that this change in particular will see the end of pvp- I understand the reasoning that you've put forward on why you believe it is a necessary change, but understand that it's going to make pvp into even more of a push button, receive instant victory gametype.
All those different kinds of captains, all those different ships, all that gear, rep, everything- none of it has any value as of now. It's all worthless, because of this change, which means that if you are not running a romulan beam overload 3 vaper... you may as well not play, because there is, flat out, not any way to compete with those builds if 100% crit is assured.
Even at its worst- and PVP has been at its worst for a long time, it was still fun. There were still options. Now there are no other options. Play a vaper, or don't play at all.
Please stop repeating this (albeit hilarious-sounding "ah ha devs are so dumb") soundbite. It's flat out not true.
I don't doubt that Cryptic has some technically proficient people working for it. That said, the non-technical people seem to be the gaming equivalent of Michael Bay. What was going through your guys' heads with these Beam Overload changes? I don't play STO anymore (thank God) but I'm hearing reports from friends of full on Wells tank builds being literally one-shotted by MKIV weapons in testing.
Given Cryptic's horrible track record of balancing STO, it's not surprising that some people have set their expectations of Cryptic so low.
So what if BO can now one shot ships. Its been done plenty of times within the current mechanics. also, so what if this is 'dumbing down' alpha strikes. Are you sure you arent afraid that now more people are acually going to be able to score a kill or contribute to damage, and the gap between opvp and the other 99.9% of sto will be reduced?
This is the only game I have played with both pvp and pve where the pvp component was so far beyond pve in the skills and knowledge required that the average player didnt stand a chance in hell against someone who has invested in a thorough study of the game. There will still be the reward for players who take the time to learn the mechanics, but if changes like this make pvp more accessible, im all for it. Rest assured, if there will Ever be changes made to pvp, they will be in measures to make it more accessible. As it stands right now, Cryptic has to be conscious of the fact that a new user joining the ques for their first pvp match is going to get stomped. No Contest. Did you get stomped as bad as a new user would in sto against a horde of opvp whales the first time you pvp'd in any other game? Sure, you lost, but you didnt feel that you were 100% useless and everything you did was futile.
Dont expect for this pvp system to continue to require tribal knowledge to be a part of if you ever hope for it to evolve, until then, enjoy quing against the same people over and over all night long.
If cryptic removed the ability to publically que for pvp, do you think they would lose revenue?
Do you think that the pvp que presents an avenue for revenue?
Do you think that is pvp was more accessible they wouldnt mind drawing attention to is as a selling point to their product?
If you were Cryptic, knowing what you know about pvp and what to expect if you qued this very moment, would you want to invite a new user into it if you thought that user might be a potential source of revenue?
Dumb it down, it isnt as if the elitests are driving sales. One whale spending $1000 a year is equal to one new user a day spending $20 over the same period, just so they can fly a Defiant like Captain Sisko, and kill a Jem Hadar Attack ship in one shot.
Its all about the Sisko's baby.
I'm recommending you see the ships Shrink you have a unhealthy Sisko fixation.
But all kidding aside the great battles in trek history weren't one hit "I win cause vape!" battles. they were most times drawn out where captains had to use there brains to win.
I don't doubt that Cryptic has some technically proficient people working for it. That said, the non-technical people seem to be the gaming equivalent of Michael Bay. What was going through your guys' heads with these Beam Overload changes? I don't play STO anymore (thank God) but I'm hearing reports from friends of full on Wells tank builds being literally one-shotted by MKIV weapons in testing.
Given Cryptic's horrible track record of balancing STO, it's not surprising that some people have set their expectations of Cryptic so low.
Yeah pretty much all the people I knew from seasons 2-7 pretty much do not even log in anymore. Their platform is all about entertaining some newer player base although the ques are showing that player base to not actually exist. The expansion 2 and season 10 together have to be something completely attractive or its just going to sink whats left of the player base even more. I'm somewhat preparing for guild wars 2 to be my main game soon if expansion 2 sucks.
Edit: Like the new EP said on his one and only communication he said this game is boring doing the same old grind but yet nothing thus far shows that its going to change. All they have done since season 6 really is drop in reps and a few more grind fests each season/expansion. So unlike this game its something new every time I log into guild wars 2 which is apples and oranges since its more like a neverwinter based game but its way way better than neverwinter lol. So that speaks volumes on how behind the curve Cryptic is as far as mmo trends. Not to knock them but they seem to have a healthy balance on game economy, keeping players entertained, and doing their lockboxes as well as it has a decent exchange like the dilithium one. If they had a license to do star trek mmorpg this one would be a genuine ghost town.
And Kirks? And Picards? And Janeways? And Archers? And any other aspect of Star Trek.
There is a finite, but increasing amount of Trekkers. Of these, a proportion will find STO. Of those, only some will pay money.
Pursuing new players at the expense of old players will lead into a situation where there are no new players, and the old players have left, and STO is dead.
Enabling people to "Sisko/Kirk/Picard/etc it, baby" in STO is a good first step - but player retention is key to long term success. And powercreep stunts to make newbies feel better which ruin content which actually makes people stay is a very bad idea.
And balanced PvP is one of the best ways to retain players - and balanced PvP has just been thrown out the window.
As others have said... if this wan't just a way to easy fix the broken mod. Should this change not have ended up on tribble for more then a day. Every other mechanic change has at least gotten a week or so for people to stew over.
I am pretty sure it's not an easy fix for a broken mod.
Adjudicatorhawk (or someone else on the design team?) has expressed his displeasure with beam overload and its power drain before. The idea may be thematically sound, but mechanically, it's flawed. There is no guarantee in the mechanics that BO will actually boost your net damage output. I think BO3 probably always worked out, but how many people would recommend a BO1?
PvP at least has the benefit that it doesn't matter if it's always good for your DPS - it matters that it can allow you to deliver a deadly spike, even if that works only 30 % of the time, it's still good, because the regular DPS without the power wouldn't have killed the target either.
Whether the current damage is effectively too high is another matter.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Mind actually arguing your point? I'm not about to sit for 3 hours trying to find the bit you actually want to use as your point.
At least link the time so I can skip to it.
ETA:
Sadly, I have to agree on that.
the link Was time indexed, if you cared to acually read it past the youtube.com part. It was about how lifers and whales just arent as important in a f2p business model as content tourists. I retracted the link because although it was a Gecko interview, it was mostly the show host speaking on the topic, and it would have been more credible to my position if it had coem from a cryptic employee.
It only seems like yesterday when all we saw were cruisers and the occasional sci-vessel flying around space and exploring the galaxy before them. Then it appears the Terran Empire has infiltrated the Federation and created a state of constant warfare with all who surround it. Exploration based cruisers and science vessels got pushed to the side just like the ol sail ships-of-the-line did when steam power came into great use. In the end, Starfleet will be based on nothing more then heavily armed warships blasting away at anything that they dont like.
I, for one, do not hail our Terran Empire overlords or their ideals.
Cruisers didnt used BO because it was insane, what BO did was completely empty weapon power of a cruiser that would end up taking longer to recover
No, Drakron, you buffoon, that is NOT why cruisers don't use BO. Cruisers don't use BO because BO with arrays stinks and firing only ONE weapon, leaving the remaining 7 weapons on your ship sitting there uselessly, is not a good use of your already extremely limited Tac slots.
I am pretty sure it's not an easy fix for a broken mod.
Adjudicatorhawk (or someone else on the design team?) has expressed his displeasure with beam overload and its power drain before. The idea may be thematically sound, but mechanically, it's flawed. There is no guarantee in the mechanics that BO will actually boost your net damage output. I think BO3 probably always worked out, but how many people would recommend a BO1?
PvP at least has the benefit that it doesn't matter if it's always good for your DPS - it matters that it can allow you to deliver a deadly spike, even if that works only 30 % of the time, it's still good, because the regular DPS without the power wouldn't have killed the target either.
Whether the current damage is effectively too high is another matter.
Hey now I have scored a 70k BO1 crit before, so it is still very effective.
I am pretty sure it's not an easy fix for a broken mod.
Adjudicatorhawk (or someone else on the design team?) has expressed his displeasure with beam overload and its power drain before. The idea may be thematically sound, but mechanically, it's flawed. There is no guarantee in the mechanics that BO will actually boost your net damage output. I think BO3 probably always worked out, but how many people would recommend a BO1?
PvP at least has the benefit that it doesn't matter if it's always good for your DPS - it matters that it can allow you to deliver a deadly spike, even if that works only 30 % of the time, it's still good, because the regular DPS without the power wouldn't have killed the target either.
Whether the current damage is effectively too high is another matter.
Ok I can roll with that... power drain is an issue for pve and all. Still doesn't much explain the crit thing.
It would have almost been better to make overload NEVER crit and double the base dmg.
im pretty sure that in the end, this will be a good change for BO. thats not starting tomorrow though, OH no its gonna be hell till its further tweaked.
but with this change, the goal posts for BO damage will be much more narrow and predictable over all. there wont be the 4k non crit fired into a fully resisted target, and the 120k shot that hit a guy scaned, FOMM and APB'ed from multiple pets. with it functioning like this, it can easily be adjusted ever so slightly till its dialed in appropriately. such precision adjustments to its spike and DPS would be impossible the current way it works.
i wonder what these other meta changes are. hopefully they are limited to
-improved torp/shield interaction
-actually factoring in power insulators at 6 on everybody when balancing tach beam and CPB
-a longer system cooldown on FBP
-THY sucks and is in no way beter then TS, even vs 1 target
-maybe FAW doesn't need to fire 10 shots per cycle, per beam
nothing else is in any need of tweaking, no not even THAT :rolleyes:
Please vape me OMG, please try! FBP FBP FBP FBP FBP FBP FBP.... Reflective immunity matrix... Yes! Never leave home with a FBP of some kind. Now people will die 100% of the time. No chance of living from my FBP.
1) Unique characteristic added to a boff ability (auto-crit)
2) Easier to tweak (instead of several possible outcomes of miss, hit, critical hit, and having to balance the damage output based off all those various possibilities with their relevent odds of occuring it can now be tweaked simply with miss, critical hit at max severity with max bonuses)
3) It is no longer a newbie trap ability. Keep in mind most players run with terrible weapon layouts let alone a solid boff ability selection.
However if I could suggest one change. Have the extra damage it deals be a DoT cleared by something unconventional (not hazard emitters perhaps aux2strut) that lasts between 5 or 10 seconds. So it would be a normal beam critical with the bonus x% damage from the boff ability converted to a DoT effect.
im pretty sure that in the end, this will be a good change for BO. thats not starting tomorrow though, OH no its gonna be hell till its further tweaked.
but with this change, the goal posts for BO damage will be much more narrow and predictable over all. there wont be the 4k non crit fired into a fully resisted target, and the 120k shot that hit a guy scaned, FOMM and APB'ed from multiple pets. with it functioning like this, it can easily be adjusted ever so slightly till its dialed in appropriately. such precision adjustments to its spike and DPS would be impossible the current way it works.
i wonder what these other meta changes are. hopefully they are limited to
-improved torp/shield interaction
-actually factoring in power insulators at 6 on everybody when balancing tach beam and CPB
-a longer system cooldown on FBP
-THY sucks and is in no way beter then TS, even vs 1 target
-maybe FAW doesn't need to fire 10 shots per cycle, per beam
nothing else is in any need of tweaking, no not even THAT :rolleyes:
We will be bringing down the Tribble server for maintenance to apply a new update: ST."Death to PvP"
General:
Fire-at-Will
-Fire-at-Will attacks are now always a Critical Hit.
-Their tooltips have been updated to indicate that they always Critically Hit.
-Fire-at-Will no longer drains Weapon Power.
-Fire-at-Will's base damage has been increased by 25% under the hood.
But game balance changes to "meta" and "non-meta" powers have been planned for months now, and we're finally getting to start making them.
Dear Hawk:
Please allow 1 week of testing for future changes like this one. It feels rushed without proper testing, specially since it has actually made one-shot kills even worse.
As I said in the other post around this, the only possible reasoning I can think of is that if you build around BO, then if you're a min-maxer you'll consider the CrtH stacking stuff a waste, so you'll look at other console and uni console options.
I mean, at the moment, everyone and their mother has Zero Point and Assimilated, and probably uses Vulnerability Locators from Fleet, right? Well, with BO as a guaranteed crit, all that is a waste, and you'll look at other consoles, possibily diversifying builds in the long run.
However, this doesn't quite make sense on its own, it would have to be part of a larger strategy; but Geko talked about a larger strategy to get around power creep, so I guess this may be the first glimpse of it.
IOW, an ability with guaranteed crit isn't necessarily OP, it depends on the surrounding context and other available options, it might just be another tool in the toolbox, and it does relieve worries about building crit chance into one's build, if one's built one's build around big BO hits.
With the exception of one or two posts everyone is against the BO changes. Doesn't that say something? Like maybe this change should be thought about a little bit longer before being implemented?
As for the one day of testing, that's ridiculous. Considering how many bugs roll out in this game for things that are "tested" for over a week can you imagine the laughable debacle this will be?
Comments
And we had any way of knowing that.... how, exactly?
Keep in mind that you guys have a long and storied history of deciding that bugs are too hard to fix and so are now 'emergent features', or changing fundamental underlying mechanics to solve an issue that you 'can't' fix another way.
The perception isn't that you guys are dumb, it's that you're working with a system where there every bug that isn't easy to fix becomes a 'feature' and that any eventual fixes are a result of you changing something else that also happens to affect this one specific thing- but that you flat out lack the ability to fix this specific issue -to quote Q, you have to alter the gravitational constant of the entire universe to move a single moon- regardless of the other effects such a change might have.
Just based on initial tribble testing, I think that this change in particular will see the end of pvp- I understand the reasoning that you've put forward on why you believe it is a necessary change, but understand that it's going to make pvp into even more of a push button, receive instant victory gametype.
All those different kinds of captains, all those different ships, all that gear, rep, everything- none of it has any value as of now. It's all worthless, because of this change, which means that if you are not running a romulan beam overload 3 vaper... you may as well not play, because there is, flat out, not any way to compete with those builds if 100% crit is assured.
Even at its worst- and PVP has been at its worst for a long time, it was still fun. There were still options. Now there are no other options. Play a vaper, or don't play at all.
And once you've run out of Siskos?
Kirk it, baby.
I don't doubt that Cryptic has some technically proficient people working for it. That said, the non-technical people seem to be the gaming equivalent of Michael Bay. What was going through your guys' heads with these Beam Overload changes? I don't play STO anymore (thank God) but I'm hearing reports from friends of full on Wells tank builds being literally one-shotted by MKIV weapons in testing.
Given Cryptic's horrible track record of balancing STO, it's not surprising that some people have set their expectations of Cryptic so low.
I'm recommending you see the ships Shrink you have a unhealthy Sisko fixation.
But all kidding aside the great battles in trek history weren't one hit "I win cause vape!" battles. they were most times drawn out where captains had to use there brains to win.
[/SIGPIC]
Yeah pretty much all the people I knew from seasons 2-7 pretty much do not even log in anymore. Their platform is all about entertaining some newer player base although the ques are showing that player base to not actually exist. The expansion 2 and season 10 together have to be something completely attractive or its just going to sink whats left of the player base even more. I'm somewhat preparing for guild wars 2 to be my main game soon if expansion 2 sucks.
Edit: Like the new EP said on his one and only communication he said this game is boring doing the same old grind but yet nothing thus far shows that its going to change. All they have done since season 6 really is drop in reps and a few more grind fests each season/expansion. So unlike this game its something new every time I log into guild wars 2 which is apples and oranges since its more like a neverwinter based game but its way way better than neverwinter lol. So that speaks volumes on how behind the curve Cryptic is as far as mmo trends. Not to knock them but they seem to have a healthy balance on game economy, keeping players entertained, and doing their lockboxes as well as it has a decent exchange like the dilithium one. If they had a license to do star trek mmorpg this one would be a genuine ghost town.
And Kirks? And Picards? And Janeways? And Archers? And any other aspect of Star Trek.
There is a finite, but increasing amount of Trekkers. Of these, a proportion will find STO. Of those, only some will pay money.
Pursuing new players at the expense of old players will lead into a situation where there are no new players, and the old players have left, and STO is dead.
Enabling people to "Sisko/Kirk/Picard/etc it, baby" in STO is a good first step - but player retention is key to long term success. And powercreep stunts to make newbies feel better which ruin content which actually makes people stay is a very bad idea.
And balanced PvP is one of the best ways to retain players - and balanced PvP has just been thrown out the window.
Mind actually arguing your point? I'm not about to sit for 3 hours trying to find the bit you actually want to use as your point.
At least link the time so I can skip to it.
ETA:
Sadly, I have to agree on that.
Adjudicatorhawk (or someone else on the design team?) has expressed his displeasure with beam overload and its power drain before. The idea may be thematically sound, but mechanically, it's flawed. There is no guarantee in the mechanics that BO will actually boost your net damage output. I think BO3 probably always worked out, but how many people would recommend a BO1?
PvP at least has the benefit that it doesn't matter if it's always good for your DPS - it matters that it can allow you to deliver a deadly spike, even if that works only 30 % of the time, it's still good, because the regular DPS without the power wouldn't have killed the target either.
Whether the current damage is effectively too high is another matter.
the link Was time indexed, if you cared to acually read it past the youtube.com part. It was about how lifers and whales just arent as important in a f2p business model as content tourists. I retracted the link because although it was a Gecko interview, it was mostly the show host speaking on the topic, and it would have been more credible to my position if it had coem from a cryptic employee.
I, for one, do not hail our Terran Empire overlords or their ideals.
Hey now I have scored a 70k BO1 crit before, so it is still very effective.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Ok I can roll with that... power drain is an issue for pve and all. Still doesn't much explain the crit thing.
It would have almost been better to make overload NEVER crit and double the base dmg.
I think the devs must have heard us laugh a little to much at the poor ground guys that have been saying there mode of pvp is dead.
but with this change, the goal posts for BO damage will be much more narrow and predictable over all. there wont be the 4k non crit fired into a fully resisted target, and the 120k shot that hit a guy scaned, FOMM and APB'ed from multiple pets. with it functioning like this, it can easily be adjusted ever so slightly till its dialed in appropriately. such precision adjustments to its spike and DPS would be impossible the current way it works.
i wonder what these other meta changes are. hopefully they are limited to
-improved torp/shield interaction
-actually factoring in power insulators at 6 on everybody when balancing tach beam and CPB
-a longer system cooldown on FBP
-THY sucks and is in no way beter then TS, even vs 1 target
-maybe FAW doesn't need to fire 10 shots per cycle, per beam
nothing else is in any need of tweaking, no not even THAT :rolleyes:
HAHAHAHAH Best!!
1) Unique characteristic added to a boff ability (auto-crit)
2) Easier to tweak (instead of several possible outcomes of miss, hit, critical hit, and having to balance the damage output based off all those various possibilities with their relevent odds of occuring it can now be tweaked simply with miss, critical hit at max severity with max bonuses)
3) It is no longer a newbie trap ability. Keep in mind most players run with terrible weapon layouts let alone a solid boff ability selection.
However if I could suggest one change. Have the extra damage it deals be a DoT cleared by something unconventional (not hazard emitters perhaps aux2strut) that lasts between 5 or 10 seconds. So it would be a normal beam critical with the bonus x% damage from the boff ability converted to a DoT effect.
We will be bringing down the Tribble server for maintenance to apply a new update: ST."Death to PvP"
General:
Fire-at-Will
-Fire-at-Will attacks are now always a Critical Hit.
-Their tooltips have been updated to indicate that they always Critically Hit.
-Fire-at-Will no longer drains Weapon Power.
-Fire-at-Will's base damage has been increased by 25% under the hood.
:eek::P
Dear Hawk:
Please allow 1 week of testing for future changes like this one. It feels rushed without proper testing, specially since it has actually made one-shot kills even worse.
Sincerely,
PvP players
I mean, at the moment, everyone and their mother has Zero Point and Assimilated, and probably uses Vulnerability Locators from Fleet, right? Well, with BO as a guaranteed crit, all that is a waste, and you'll look at other consoles, possibily diversifying builds in the long run.
However, this doesn't quite make sense on its own, it would have to be part of a larger strategy; but Geko talked about a larger strategy to get around power creep, so I guess this may be the first glimpse of it.
IOW, an ability with guaranteed crit isn't necessarily OP, it depends on the surrounding context and other available options, it might just be another tool in the toolbox, and it does relieve worries about building crit chance into one's build, if one's built one's build around big BO hits.
As for the one day of testing, that's ridiculous. Considering how many bugs roll out in this game for things that are "tested" for over a week can you imagine the laughable debacle this will be?
Here's Cryptic's approach to game development.