The only thing I'd disagree with is Tactical Team. IMO, the shield distribution function should be moved to its own skill, possibly Engineering.
Even better, just bring manual distribution up to the same standard, if TT does something meaningful (like the buff to damage, like the AP buff when paired with it's doffs) it wouldn't matter if manual shield distribution was brought up to the TT speed and it would make dropping TT on ships with low tactical boff slots less of an issue meaning they too could slot FAW and APB so everyone wins.
Not only that but if TT keeps the distro function then it means you can just run TT rather than spamming the distro button.
Not going to go into micro detail, more of a general approach. Please forgive me in advance as it is PvP centric but i hope it reads across to PvE.
1. Drain Mechanic
The whole drain mechanic needs addressing. Not fun when you are in a PvP match at 0 power level across the board for most of it.
Flow caps is a very cheap skill to specialise into as well
Plasmonic leach
Siphon
Aceton Assimilator
The Klingon drones (Forgot the name)
Tykens Rift
Not forgetting polarons
All this can be fitted on to 1 ship and boy that would make it a bad day for anyone
2. Console swapping to mitigate timers
if you have more than 1 of the same clicky console in the inventory, you can minimise the cooldown timer to less than a minute "hot swapping it" to another one e.g. 2 isometric charges or the fluidic console. This seems to make a mockery of timers on various consoles.
3. Power creep via console stacking
Stacking too many consoles and using all at once makes for a very unpleasant experience. Especially when your AMS'd (anti matter Spread), ISO'd (Isometric Charged), Black balled (Sub space integration circuit i think), TIFed (Temporal Inversion Field - which also drastically reduces captain level cool downs like Attack pattern Alpha and Sub Nucleonic beam). imagine this being done over and over and over on you.
This would completely switch off or turn away any newcomer to PvP. The whole experience is meant to be fun. Not nebulas appearing on the screen with the sheer amount of knocks, repels, stuns, disables.
4. Cool down timers in general
Power creep isn't just about items getting stronger and stronger. Its also about the frequency at which things are used also.
removing shared cool down timers between all Team abilities like Tac Team, Sci team and Eng team. there are no consequences left to your choices.
Aux to Bat with Tech DOFF's is another example of this. Used to have shared cooldowns with Emergency Power To X abilities. For improved cool downs, you sacrificed survivability. Not any more.
Not all things are bad...
Now the things that are real positive is the way the Reputation traits were redone. Limiting options & forcing you to choose. If all the above is re done in the same way, it would make this game a lot more of a puzzle (adding to the fun element) to solve with the right combinations instead of being given answers without questions.
Reference PvP directly, just a thought:
PvPers complain about balance till they become blue in the face. What if the PvP element of this game was so much fun for both parties (winners & loosers) that the balance issue became irrelevant?
I'm sure aside from the PvPer attitudes involved (includes me), more people would want to PvP.
Even better, just bring manual distribution up to the same standard, if TT does something meaningful (like the buff to damage, like the AP buff when paired with it's doffs) it wouldn't matter if manual shield distribution was brought up to the TT speed and it would make dropping TT on ships with low tactical boff slots less of an issue meaning they too could slot FAW and APB so everyone wins.
Not only that but if TT keeps the distro function then it means you can just run TT rather than spamming the distro button.
I think that the devs wanted to essentially get rid of staple skills by rebalancing everything else. If the staple skill is already innate, such as the manual shield distribution skill, that might be along the lines of what they're looking for.
PvPers complain about balance till they become blue in the face. What if the PvP element of this game was so much fun for both parties (winners & loosers) that the balance issue became irrelevant?
I'm sure aside from the PvPer attitudes involved (includes me), more people would want to PvP.
I'm was not expecting that post from Naz...read it as some care bear that can't be bothered to build a ship and outfit it right. But coming from a top dog... well, that's rather interesting.
The whole drain mechanic needs addressing. Not fun when you are in a PvP match at 0 power level across the board for most of it.
Flow caps is a verk cheap skill to spec into as well. -maybe this should be a higher tier skill
Plasma leach -is hard-capped for the drain portion so doesn't drain much
Siphon -easily cleared
Aceton Assimilator -is hard-capped for the drain portion so doesn't drain much
The Klingon drones (Forgot the name) -too slow to be effective
Tykens Rift -the only good drain power, but takes a coordinated team effort to actually trap someone in a Tyken's Rift, and even then there are multiple escape mechanics/consoles that exist to help you escape even if you do get trapped in one
PvPers complain about balance till they become blue in the face. What if the PvP element of this game was so much fun for both parties (winners & loosers) that the balance issue became irrelevant?
I'm sure aside from the PvPer attitudes involved (includes me), more people would want to PvP.
I am not sure that is possible to achieve without balance.
If there is a way, the winning strategies (even if there are clear winners and clear loses among powers and ship choices) need to be fun. I think what is unfun is:
- combat that takes forever (too much healing and resistances)
- combat that is over too fast (damage spikes you can't really protect yourself against)
- combat where you are not in control (stun locks, but also "space bar smashing" where pets and abilities do all the work for you, you just need to press a button to keep it going, but don't really make decisions.)
Positively formulated:
- Combat length must be reasonable, both in terms of an idnividual engagement (e.g. 2 or even 10 players meeting each other somewhere on the amp), and the entire length of a match (assuming that enemies split up - even if just because of respawn)
- Players need to be active. Counters must be available, understanding the enemy tactics and finding the counter-approach.
But that is all very abstract.
There are probably also "metagame" mechanics that can increase the fun experienced in PvP. For example, leaderboards where you can compete in the long term. Or Territory Control (but that doesn't really seem to fit the new story development with the cease-fire. And considering how long this has been idea and has not happened, I would recommend players not not bet on that ever happening, and I recommend the Devs to set realistic goals. If you couldn't do territory control since STO's intial release, you may just never be able to get around it. Leaderboards seem "simpler" to achieve, and can still provide a lot of motivation.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
There are probably also "metagame" mechanics that can increase the fun experienced in PvP. For example, leaderboards where you can compete in the long term. Or Territory Control (but that doesn't really seem to fit the new story development with the cease-fire. And considering how long this has been idea and has not happened, I would recommend players not not bet on that ever happening, and I recommend the Devs to set realistic goals. If you couldn't do territory control since STO's intial release, you may just never be able to get around it. Leaderboards seem "simpler" to achieve, and can still provide a lot of motivation.)
I think with completely new sector blocks in the Delta quadrant there is no reason why we can't have moving borders attached to a pve territory control system with no reset, it just sends more ships based on the number of players in the zone.
PVP does need work done to it to make it balanced. So does non-PVP content. However, as seen by the buffs and Nerf in the past, you can't make changes to PVP, and it work the same in PVEs and STFs?
The developers saw this issue with the Raiders. That is why there is a separate flanking damage for PVP, and non-PVP.
The same problem applies with a lot of skills, consoles, gear, etc. When something is changed to make it useful in non-PVP content, then it usually causes problems in PVP. This results in a buff/debuff to it, and then it loses its effectiveness with non-PVP.
This results in a tug-of-war between the two, and causes disagreements between them. Personally, I don't do PVP. But, that doesn't mean that I think things should only be done in a way to benefit non-PVP.
The only way to balance one, without throwing what little balance the other one has out of whack is to view them as separate parts of gameplay, and make the changes to one effect only it, and not the other.
A very recent example is the tactical skill Beam Overload. When the skill was changed to crit 100%, it has its base damage Nerfed. This did drop its effectiveness down, but did help make it more useful in non-PVP content, but it was too powerful for some in PVP. Therefore, it was nerfed. This nerf hit non-PVP content as well, hurting it there. The last nerf should have only been for PVP, and not across the board.
I hope the developers see that they need to be viewed separate, and start to try it to see the benefits it can bring.
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I guess you missed the point. Each one in itself isn't an issue. Add it all together and it takes a new life.
Throw a stun or a disable in there before the the drain, then it gets worse. Throw a nuke in there, stun and then drain, even worse.
Now add another identical build in there, and then look what you have. Add a third and then a 4th, where's the fun left?
I guess you already knew this but didn't want to let the cat out of the bag so to speak.
1 person doing it may not be bad, 2 doing it becomes effective. 3 begins the realm of certain lock down. 4 now that's just a bit OTT.
This can be read across to many build setups in STO right now.
In another PvP orientated mmo I play, they have a balancing system which is so simple and effective, that I believe it could work here. In a PvP match you are only aloud a certain number of classes into the match. It's a 3 - 3 - 3 -3 system. Max of 3 assaults, heavies, mediums and lights.
To translate that across to STO, what if you could have no more than 2 of the same class of ship and 2 of the same class of captain in the 5 man queues?
Overnight the force multiplying effect would be decreased without effecting PvE side of things and power creep as people put it would be drastically capped without altering anything major in the overall game.
Also , to help the new comer, just like you can auto fire weapons abilities by highlighting it, what if you could do the same to trays? Benefit to both PvE and PvP. No need anymore to write complex binds to trigger a few abilities. Just highlight it like you do to weapons and it will auto fire on its allocated cool down.
Rather than thinking complex solutions, maybe try the small but significant changes. Pick the low lying fruit first so to speak.
There are probably also "metagame" mechanics that can increase the fun experienced in PvP. For example, leaderboards where you can compete in the long term.
One of the things that I think should be a no brainer for every MMO company to implement is something like The Secret Worlds out of game character page that lists a bunch of stats for in game participation metrics (NOT accolades). STO has accolades, but they stop at a certain point. I think most MMO companies do not realize the competitive/pride factors involved with a lot of their players, even over things that are just pure grinding; for example, TSW's version has a stat for various mobs killed. They might be surprised at how many people would stay in game and grind just to make a score go up somewhere they can point to out of game and brag.
I guess you missed the point. Each one in itself isn't an issue. Add it all together and it takes a new life.
Throw a stun or a disable in there before the the drain, then it gets worse. Throw a nuke in there, stunand then drain , even worse.
Now add another identical build in there, and then look what you have. Add a third and then a 4th, where's the fun left?
I guess you already knew this but didn't want to let the cat out of the bag so to speak.
1 person doing it may not be bad, 2 doing it becomes effective. 3 begins the realm of certain lock down. 4 now that's just a bit OTT.
This can be read across to many build setups in STO right now.
In another PvP orientated mmo I play, they have a balancing system which is so simple and effective, that I believe it could work here. In a PvP match you are only aloud a certain number of classes into the match. It's a 3 - 3 - 3 -3 system. Max of 3 assaults, heavies, mediums and lights.
To translate that across to STO, what if you could have no more than 2 of the same class of ship and 2 of the same class of captain in the 5 man queues?
Overnight the force multiplying effect would be decreased without effecting PvE side of things and power creep as people put it would be drastically capped without altering anything major in the overall game.
Also , to help the new comer, just like you can auto fire weapons abilities by highlighting it, what if you could do the same to trays? Benefit to both PvE and PvP. No need anymore to write complex binds to trigger a few abilities. Just highlight it like you do to weapons and it will auto fire on its allocated cool down.
Rather than thinking complex solutions, maybe try the small but significant changes. Pick the low lying fruit first so to speak.
this was such an awesome post I had to highlight it!
If there is only one weak link in the chain it is the longer wait times to get a match meeting the criteria.
Something not quite in line with what is asked for but I still think is important:
The first large skill tray needs more slots. Yes, you can copy it wich will be a vertical one and wich is placed on the right side, where all the mission information is, so those two get in the way.
Currently a skill tray can not have more than three visible sections. I would like that to be increased to five. Simply because three is not enough.
i will talk ONLY about tt. my change would echo what others have said,make the shield distribution a toggle similar to the cruise commands. toggle it on and it stays on until turned off or respawn. i would leave the other tt powers alone.
Tactical Team is a staple in many builds. If I were to make a suggestion on it, take the shield redirection ability and stick it on the innate Shield Redistribution skill available to any ships that have shields. That should make the skill less 'needed' in a lot of player's books.
Aceton Beam is a skill that I feel is underpowered, though that might be because its effects are hardly noticeable. I think however that Engineering powers should be more diverse and desired in general anyway, so ships like the Galaxy-R would be more competitively viable.
^Pretty much the powers my mind immediately turned as well.
The Emergency Power to X abilities come to mind as well. Even attempting to do without at least one of them just seems stupid. It's not so much that they are overpowered I guess; rather a ship just doesn't feel like it is performing properly without them.
Photonic officer never really felt all that useful; and feels even less so since Doffs were introduced.
Lastly, Attack Pattern Omega just seems too good; like it's 2 or 3 different abilities all rolled into 1.
Is there any intention to make STO more like a Star Trek simulation and less arcade like?
If the answer is "no", then i think most of the things written here is a waste of time and you can leave everything as it is, it doesn't matter anyways.
If the answer is "yes" and you are indeed want STO to be more true to Star Trek, then i would suggest to firstly rework how ships in STO work in general.
Big ships should turn slower than small ones, no matter if someone put a "escort" sticker on them or not. It cannot be allowed to have huge "escorts" that turn on a dime and tiny Cruisers that need ages for a 180° turn. This does not make sense. Better get rid of the Escort/Cruiser/Science vessel mechanic altoghter.
Also bigger ships should have more power to work with. Smaller ships naturally can't have as much power to feed their Weapons, Shields or other systems. Also it doesn't make much sense to give the smallest ships the most heavy weapons but the biggest ships magicly cannot equip them.
When talkiing about this, we should never forget that STO is a Star Trek game, things work different than todays marine ships/Airforce jets and whatever these shouldn't be taken as example.
In Star Trek the general rule is: the bigger the more powerful. (with SOME exceptions)
These are just some basic things that don't make sense in STOs meta game.
After these things are straighten, THEN we can talk about BOFF powers. there's not point to do some patchwork fixes if the whole system doesnt make much sense.
But that's just my opinion, i am sure you can easy find 100 other people who will gladly disagree with me on your behalf.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Before I get into Engineering powers; I first want to suggest Attack Patterns no longer enhance any other damage apart from weapons only. I.e. no longer increases exotic damage such as Gravity Well.
Ok Engineering powers; unfortunately an Engineer in a Cruiser is not very offensive at all when compared to a Tactical Capt. in an Escort or a Science Capt. in a Science ship.
- The only level III offensive (and I use that word lightly) BOff power at lt. commander, is Emergency Power to Weapons III.
- So, the rest of the offensive level III BOff powers are at commander, which are Directed Energy Modulation, Eject Warp Plasma, Aceton Beam and Boarding Party. Unfortunately, they all have long cool downs and with comparison to Tactical or Science BOff Powers are not as effective.
So Engineering Captain Abilities:
- Most Engineering Captain powers only have a single effect, whereas many of the other career caption powesr have multiple effects. I.e.Nadion Inversion (Massive Power Insulators) APA Damage increase, turn rate etc.
I am not sure how, but I think more offensive edges need to be added to Engineering Powers and cooldowns need to be tweaked.
In general I would really like to see all the ability ranks extended so that a version was available at each rank, The main benefit of this being it would allow people to still use the ability's they like on more restrictive bridge officer layout ship's. This would basically just be adding a new rank or two of the ability's for instance Grav well would now have ensign rank I, lt. rank 2, lt. com rank 3 and commander rank 4. This would extend to all powers enabling some rank of the ability to be selected even at ensign levels.
The other change would be to make some power's universal or slottable in any appropriate boff's slot meeting the required ability rank, this would be most easily done by just copying the current powers and adding them to the available list for the different boff's to learn. This would allow for some more flexibility in how you want to build your ship as well. A good example of this would be making versions subsystem targeting available to be learned by eng, sci or tac boff's at any rank, mask energy field would be another.
Engineering :
Emergency power 2 ability's : seem pretty decent at the moment but would like to see aux provide a bonus similar to the psychological warfare trait & exotic damage rather than just increase the skills, would also be nice if shield's also was changed to provide a shield HoT as well.
Engineering team : decent at the moment, would be nice if it caused shields to redistribute as well tho.
Aux2Bat : Seems fine as is, I haven't used any of the tech doff's but realistically if its a problem then its the doff's not the ability it's self.
Aux2SIF & Damp : both seem fine would be nice if SIF innately caused a HoT tho (doff would instead give a chance to double up)
Boarding party : Ditch the crew removal and make it so it kinda double fires, launches shuttles which are armed (without doff) these will jam sensor's and attack any targetable projectile or small ship en-route to their destination, for a short time after shuttle launch if the target has a shield facing hit 0 for a moment boarding parties will then be transported over and do their work. Also adding a small chance of taking control of the ships weapons systems causing it to target allies would be nice as well as would setting charge's which detonate when a certain ability ie. heal or cleanse is used disrupting systems. This would also be a good candidate to be universal useable in tac & eng slot's.
Directed energy modulation : it's not horrible especially with the doff, but would rather see it increase power consumption of weapon's by 2? and do a bit more possibly add a proc similar to phaser's to it to kind of mimic it hitting a critical system, lower cd would also make it bit more usable would probably need to modify doff tho. Another that would be good uni across all boff's.
Extend shield's : would like to see it expand to protect a aoe rather than just one target, ie. all allies within 5km or something. Another that would fit better being usable by eng & sci
Reverse shield polarity : pretty good as is makes a nice panic button. sci & eng would work to tho.
Aceton Beam : would rather see it create a spatial cloud affecting all enemies in the target area possibly lower cd as well. sci & eng
Eject warp plasma : pretty decent as is, option to fire on the plasma causing it to detonate doing damage and possibly disabling would be nice as well, creating something like a temp tricobalt rift for a few sec's. Would be nice universal as well eng, sci and possibly tac.
Science :
Hazard emitters : really good atm because they are pretty much mandatory to clear a large number of nasty debuff's would like to see the debuffs either cleared by other thing's or something to make this less of a mandatory ability. eng & sci
Jam sensor's : haven't really used this much would be nice if it caused a chance for target to fire on its allies for a set duration which would remain even if placate was broken by damage decreased accuracy might be worthwhile as well. tac, sci & eng
Mask Energy Sig : 2 mode's out of combat it stealth's for a short time after dropping +30 weapons power, +5% crit, +25-50% severity, in-combat switches to shuts down your weapons, +20 power to shields & eng, defense buff & creates a decoy for a short time (in-combat it pretty much becomes another panic button). Full universal usable by tac, sci & eng.
Polarize hull : decent as is, possibly make universal
Science team : decent would like to see distribution, a HoT component and removal of more debuffs on it.
Tachyon beam : would like to see it drain more and weaken/destabilize targets shields causing all attacks to do more damage to them for a short time both energy and kinetic would hopefully bring regular torpedoes up to similar penetration of transphasic's temporarily. Alternatively increasing torp penetration & causing allies energy attacks to have a chance of bleeding off shields and healing theirs might be nice as well.
Tractor beam : decent would however like to see the range increased dependent on aux power up to possibly beyond 10km
Transfer shield strength : would like to see it re-distribute shields and possibly bit more healing on the HoT portion, cleansing shield type debuffs would be nice as well. eng & sci
Charged particle burst : would like to see aoe range extended by aux power & lower shield's resist to damage for a short time as well similar to tachyon beam suggestion.
Energy siphon : would really like to see the duration be set rather then modified by aux power and the drain instead be based off the power. eng & sci
Feedback pulse : pretty decent atm would however like to see it fire off a low damage pulse something equivalent to a turret every few seconds even if you aren't being shot, would make it a bit more viable outside of being setup to tank as well. Being shot would disable the low damage pulse for a few seconds preventing it from doubling up. Could be explained as it using the excess energy bleed off from your own weapons to fire off a small burst.
Photonic officer : would like to see it be a bit more useful possibly given a chance to randomly activate any ability you currently have slotted on its own without activating it's cooldown. For example you activate the officer and after a set duration it decides to fire off your science team or torpedo hy, the ability wouldn't start a cooldown on either of those skills, its selection would be random but limited ie. couldn't activate it's self and only a chance of activating ability's at the set duration's. Would give it a little more utility and bit of random fun.
Tractor beam repulsors : it's fairly good as is currently aside from its troll usage the only way to possibly prevent its trolling slightly tho would be to modify it to check what direction the majority of allies / teammates are in and only push in the opposite direction. eng & sci
Scramble Sensor's : larger aoe would be nice and have it affect targetable torp's and small craft at a higher chance / longer than bigger ships. tac & sci
Tykens rift : would be nice if it increased in size and power as it absorbs more energy, on expiration causing it to detonate causing damage and short disable dependent on its total absorption would be nice as well. Visually it would be nice to see a better indicator of what's being drained ie. streamers going from the affected ships into the rift and such also draining engine power at a increased rate would be nice as well.
Gravity well : really enjoy it at the moment aside from making it available at any rank via the 4 ability rank suggestion can't really think of anything else I would like to see with it.
Photonic Shockwave : availability at more rank's, possibly adding a accuracy debuff to affected targets (photonic ghost's messing with their targeting sensors). eng, sci & possibly tac
Viral Matrix : adding a innate chance to spread and having it possibly cause the targets to shoot at their allies would be a nice improvement to this as would better availability / ranks, eng & sci.
Tactical :
Beam fire at will : only thing I could really see doing with this is possibly making it cause all weapon's to drain more power when firing.
Beam overload : I kind of like it currently but the damage seems to be fluctuating quite widely for some reason I've seen it do anywhere from 2000 damage up to 40,000 damage with no apparent rime or reason as to what the descrepency was have heard of higher numbers as well pve seems pretty much fine pvp might want to cause it to have a reduced effect or something / increase how much shields affect it against players would probably do it fine. eng & tac
Tactical team : seems fine atm would like to see more things remove boarding parties tho especially if they were buffed.
Torpedo HY : pretty decent targetable torpedo's in general are kinda problematic with current levels of aoe spam they have to deal with other than that its pretty good. I would like to see hy do more damage to shields as well kind of what you want to use to overwhelm the targets shield's. Would like to see all torpedo ability's made universal as well useable in tac, eng or sci slot.
Torp spread : good at the moment, as mentioned in HY would like to see it slotable in tac, eng or sci slots as well. Possibly have shields resist it a bit more due to more of a grazing type damage rather than targeted high impact HY seems to be based around.
Target subsystem's : lower cooldown, fires 3 shots normal damage with 20% chance per shot to knock out the system's, chance increased by accuracy. even on failure it debuffs the target dependent on the version (weapon's = lower acc, shields = lower resist, eng = lower turn & speed, aux = reduced heal affect). Would also have a chance to strip buffs of the applicable type ie. kill off rapid fire on wep target and such. Universal availability eng, tac & sci
Attack pattern Beta : pretty good atm would like to see it cause the debuff in a small aoe radius around targets tho just to make it a bit more usable with non-aoe attacks like rapid fire and such.
Attack pattern delta : decent would like to see it debuff your current target and buff your resist slightly even if your not being shot. The amount would be fairly low just something to still retain some use if you don't have aggro. Would be nice if eng could slot as well.
Cannon Rapid fire : pretty decent for what it does increased damage to shields could help it compete a bit more with aoe option's. tac & eng
Cannon Scatter volley : decent would like to see the cone removed and it instead do aoe based on the weapon arc's (turrets would scatter 360, cannons 180, dc & dhc 45/90). Reducing the damage it does to shields might also be decent.
Mine dispersal pattern's : I don't really like these honestly would like to see them removed and become a innate part of the mine launcher's ie. tricobalt mine launcher mk - xii [type B] would always launch mines as if it were under the affects of dispersal pattern beta in the above case. Current version seems kinda clunky hard to explain really
Attack pattern omega : Due to the cd I don't fine myself really using this much in pve the speed boost and such as well combined with it being a escape ability tends to make it something I tend to end up saving and never using. PvP I can see it being potentially rather powerful. not really sure what could be done to it to improve this aside from possibly breaking it up into a few different ability's instead of just the one. Something breaking it into a non-tac captains mini attack pattern alpha and a good escape ability type of thing.
Additional Ability's :
Would be nice to see some additional ability's
Modulate weapons frequency : causes beams & cannons rotate their frequency, similar to rapid fire but would also toss on a phaser type proc to them (chance of punching through shields and nailing a subsystem). eng, tac & sci cooldown with other ability's.
Graviton beam : similar to the heavy version from set but less powerful.
Deflector pulse : temporarily rendered deflector ability's unusable but causes the deflector to fire off pulse's essentially turning the deflector into a additional single target cannon temporarily.
Torpedo intercept : would temporarily disable torpedo launcher but cause a buff which would use torpedo's to attempt intercept and negate the next torpedo special attack against you.
Misc :
Sensor analysis : would really like to see this setup to automatically switch to your current target if the original dies or to another teammate if it was on a ally.
Sensor scan : would like to see lower cd as well as possibly causing attacks against the affected targets to have a chance of knocking out subsystems similar to phaser's
I'm not really into PVP so most of my suggestions have nothing to do with that aspect of the game and realistically any ability could be balanced pvp wise with the adding of a reduced affect vs players or in pvp area's.
I'm also of the opinion that ships shouldn't be locked into any one role, if your a tac captain you are going to need the ability to heal because there won't always be someone around to help you out, sci and eng captains need to be able to defend themselves and destroy a target for the same reason.
"Space is big and roadside assistance takes to long if your in a sticky situation."
Since most of what I wanted to say has already been said, I will confine myself to asking a few questions. What is the scope of the planned changes?
1. Are you able to change the ranks of abilities? Several people have asked for ensign-level cannon abilities in the past, and Attack Pattern Omega II is largely unused.
2. Will we see extensive changes to the combat math? Many formulas are overly complicated.
3. Will we see extensive revisions of the tooltips? Most numbers cannot be understood without knowing the formulas. Many tooltips contain bad mathematical English: a 20% increase to recharge rate is not the same as a 20% reduction in cooldown time.
Here are my thoughts on potential space metagame changes.
Boarding Party: I have to agree that this skill basically has no use has far as i am aware of for players in this day and age. My thought on this sort of flows with other peoples.
"Ditch the shuttles"
Personally i think if you are going to board someone whose ship is still firing, you would use transports. I think the base mechanic (the percentages to do things with boarding party) should remain the same. However i think that that boarding party should be able to transport through shields etc.
Of course, this wouldnt make it all that useful still, however please see below for other thoughts.
Team abilities: Right now, the teams (tac team, eng team, and sci team) if i remember correctly, all have a 100% chance to remove some particular debuffs (eg, boarding team) (and also correct me if I am wrong on the 100% please).
I believe this should be dropped to 75% base with no way of improving that percentage. That way if you get boarded by borg in PvE, or sub-nuc in PvP, while you still have a high chance of removing the debuff, there is a chance that attempt will fail and now you are at the mercy of whatever tagged you.
This will help maybe make some other abilities useful again, and would still have a danger factor and risk. My thoughts only of course.
Other abilities: As for other abilities having no 100% chance to removing a debuff, its kinda of difficult to know if cryptic tried this where we would draw the line with this idea, do we leave it at the teams, or expand it to all abilities that can remove debuffs.
Tactical Team: While my ship is a tank/dps hybrid, like almost everyone i do use tac team to redistribute my shields when needed. I am surprising agreeing with people that that ability might be removed, and placed elsewhere.
But exactly how this could be done may be difficult, maybe switching it to engineering team might work, however i am honesty not sure how, if we did change this, exactly how it could be done to be mostly fair to everyone.
That are my thoughts so far, I may have some further thoughts on science stuff, but i have the flu atm so my head is pretty fluffed up atm
Tactical Team: While my ship is a tank/dps hybrid, like almost everyone i do use tac team to redistribute my shields when needed. I am surprising agreeing with people that that ability might be removed, and placed elsewhere.
But exactly how this could be done may be difficult, maybe switching it to engineering team might work, however i am honesty not sure how, if we did change this, exactly how it could be done to be mostly fair to everyone.
That are my thoughts so far, I may have some further thoughts on science stuff, but i have the flu atm so my head is pretty fluffed up atm
Err. Effectively re-balancing the Shields should be an INNATE ABILITY OF EVERY ******NED SHIP! Not a magic power. Its a shield system. Shifting power from one sector to another at the best possible speed should be part of the freaking base design of the system.
How did that design meeting go?!
"Hey we have this high performance shield system but we decided to make the shield distribution so ****ty that any ensign with rubber band, spit and toothpaste can effectively quantillionize the amount of shield power shifted. All in favor?"
What.
Who would green light this TRIBBLE. Apart from you lot.
Space combat needs:
Limited ship resources that are subject to attrition over time, moving the game away from the current, binary mechanic of "either you tank it or you die. Either you have the firepower to break the tank or you do not. You have f+cked your game up when one character classes ability is the deciding factor (SNB).
- Energy (shields, weapons, engines, aux - these things need to be recharging pools, not some stat that wobbles up and down. Ships should not be able to last forever, they should need to cycle out of combat for while to restore their battered resources....)
- Hull integrity
- Ammo
- Torpedos need to get un-nerfed in terms of shield damage.
Boff powers need to move away from the bombastic high impact gameplay and instead need to be re-rolled into an extensive and intricate buff system where the captain (the player) decides which buffs he will use to increase his ships performance and change up things.
All Heals should be long hots, get rid of high impact healing powers, the same way you should get rid of high impact attack powers.
A torpedo spread should not be a magic ability of an officer but an integral part of a torpedo launch system (and guys, here alone you can open up many gear choices if you bring in a large variety of projectile launchers that offer different options) that i can switch to on when i need it.
An energy weapons power should not be fueled by magic boff power, but instead be a switch on any weapon. Want faster shots? More range? less range more damage? One big blast? Rapid fire until the weapon reaches heated status and needs to cool down?
ETC. ETC. ETC
These are things ships should be able to do because thats what ships can do. Boffs should be able to modify, buff and enhance, but not outright magic up 20 torpedoes from one shot out of a ship that could not even hold.
In fact the player should have to make a choice in terms of torpedo systems. rapid fire? launcher that can fire spreads? or do i take the ones offering high yield volleys and rapid fire? Double launchers?
And why should torpedoes not do some serious damage, they should cost ammo too.
As long as you hang yourself up on keeping this messy boff-super-power system, you will never get space combat in a good place.
Space combat should not be about boff powers and timing of those. It should be about how you have set up your ship, what buffs you chose and how well that meshes with your ability to fly the ship and position yourself to take advantage of your enemies weaknesses. It should be cruel hard fact dictating the outcome, not miracle powers. Does your setup mesh with your playstyle and SKILL?
Eve online has taken one part of this formula and perfected it. The Cold hard facts of numbers have a huge impact, player skill in usage and positioning is paramount to victory. Where it went wrong was when eve removed the personal action from the game.
You are not "flying" your ship, you give approach orders, keep distance orders, activate modules and weapons....
But you do not "fly" your ship, that component is missing.
STO has the fly part, but utterly fails the the other part. Instead of the effort i spend in creating my ship, what counts in the end is the magic power of my boffs and doffs.
In our preparation for Delta Rising, we've been taking a hard look at Space powers and abilities that are underperforming, as well as a select few that dominate the choices players make across the board. The purpose of this thread is for the community to come together and discuss what powers they feel meet either of these two categories, and to talk frankly about any problems with the current metagame of Star Trek Online.
I'm going to largely be lurking in this thread, but may chime in from time to time. Let's see if we can civilly and rationally discuss what we think are problems, and more importantly why we think those powers are problematic. I want to see what you all care about, and see what changes we can make to address things that you care about while making the game a better game, with a more interesting decision-tree structure that defines your "best action to take at any given time" during space combat.
Thank you so much for asking for feedback. Here are some of my thoughts and opinions on various powers.
Background: I am a Sci that runs all torpedo builds (except when using photons) to maximize my Aux., and an occasional energy build if running NWS. I only run PvE.
By the way, I like that Cryptic builds on the value of exists abilities, gives players choice and recycles the value of prior released weapons (e.g. the Breen/Cryo guns ability to put out fire in Undine Infiltration).
Engineering
Emergency Power to Auxiliary -
Even when I ran energy weapons build I did not use this power. Too little gain vs the downtime for the spot it would take up.
Emergency Power to Weapons -
Ive tried using two copies of this on beam weapon builds to compensate for power drain. Ive always been disappointed with the performance of 1 and 2.
Emergency Power to Engines -
I never use this. With rare exception I really do not see meaningful bonuses from speed in combat. From what I have read defense bonuses tops out at 25.
Emergency Power to Shields -
This is a Dominant power. Many posted builds use this power; and I use this on both my energy weapons and torpedo boat builds.
Engineering Team -
This seems to be a Dominant power.
I have only used this power on an engineer heavy slotted ship (Oblisek, Risan ships, etc.), which I rarely use. Otherwise, my rare engineering slots go to shield powers and my heal is science (aux) based.
Auxiliary to Batteries -
A Dominant power that I do not use.
Auxiliary to Dampeners -
No comment or opinion as I do not use this ability, especially not in sparsely seated engineering slot on Sci ships.
Boarding Party -
Underutilized power that Id like to see improved. Id love to see the crew mechanic fixed. Build the value of the crew, perhaps hull and shield repair and ship speed (I doubt you would curtail weapons abilities) could be affected by crew loss. Make having a crew doffs and consoles important.
Reverse Shield Polarity
I have this power on nearly all of my builds. A very dominant power.
Aceton Beam -
I use this power on the engineering centric, Risan & Voth, torpedo boats. Id love an alternative and I think 3 is a bit underpowered for the cool down duration.
Eject Warp Plasma -
While I find this difficult to aim, I see this power in use.
Science
Hazard Emitters -
A very Dominant power. I use this on most if not all of my builds.
Jam Sensors -
As a get away power it underperforms as there are other competitive abilities, and devices that could be used instead of it. As a defensive power Ive found it limited with the damage cap since Im still firing at the enemy-it is combat and I cannot make enemies give up (via diplomacy, bluffing, charm) or cause them to turn and run. It could be useful as a sneak power in conjunction with a successful follow up viral matrix, tachyon beam, charged particle burst (disable attack) attack them you could begin to build its value.
Mask Energy Signature
An underperforming power. Allow for a follow up successful disable, capture, or hold science attacks and the value of a small stealth ship sneaking up on another ship gains value.
Polarize Hull -
Dominant power and very useful at level 1. So useful at low aux that I have not needed to use 2 or 3. It is on nearly every build of mine.
Science Team -
A Dominant power but I never use it. The heals have underwhelmed me, and I normally use an engie shield heal-Ive gotten more shields from it.
Tachyon Beam -
Regeneration rates and shield strengths overpower this ability. At full aux, level one barely does any damage. The Secondary Deflector made it a bit more competitive for me but it also took 3-4 VR fleet flowcaps and full Aux. Too costly. Ive tried making builds using level 3 and 2 of this ability but it is just too weak to effectively knock down shields for a meaning duration where torpedoes can be brought to bear, especially on larger ships.
Tractor Beam -
This is not popular but it is on most of my builds. I wish there was an aoe version, especially for Tykens Rift. Hold the target still and shoot at it while it has lost any speed defense bonus.
I actually enjoyed seeing my tractor beam level 1 not work on some cruiser/ battlecruiser Undine ships in the Undine Space Battle zone. I never figured out why and perhaps I need a stronger tractor beam or the enemy could be using a resist but kudos for building the value of having a tractor beam 2 and 3. This is what Cryptic does that I love, it builds the value to existing abilities.
Transfer Shield Strength -
A dominant and great power from what I hear.
Charged Particle Burst -
This underperforms. It did not do a very good job as a shield damager when I used it at full Aux during the Mirror event. Id actually like to see more cloaked ships, within enemy waves and overall to build the value of this power.
Energy Syphon -
Not widely used but I use it on most of my torpedo boats in lieu of no having an equivalent leech console to boost power. With the AMP core I use this to also add damage to my torpedoes. Id like to see slightly more powerful versions of level one and two. Id like to see either a more disabling effect to enemies or lengthen the duration.
Feedback Pulse -
Underperforms. As a power it is not competitive. It does a little return damage and does not deter/placate the attacker.
Photonic Officer
Not widely used. Id like to use it but I does not reduce my BOFF abilities but that much. Perhaps it could be more competitive if it helped reduce non-deflector sci powers by a greater amount or if its reduction value were competitive with Deflection Officer doffs.
Tractor Beam Repulsors -
Dominant power, Im not sure if they are widely used. Im not a fan of this power but I like the balance of damage, control and usability. It is situational, not very controllable but very damaging.
Scramble Sensors -
Underperforms. Interesting concept. I tried this power out at level 3 using full Aux during the mirror event multiple times or days and was surprised that this power lasted only a few seconds. It is not worth a slot at any level given how briefly the power works. It seems more of a get-away than an offensive power.
Tykens Rift -
Im not sure what percentage of people use this ability. It performs but Id like to see it perform better. Id like to see its drain functions improve, it become a more universally used power, and it last longer. If not then please consider making its current abilities stronger to make it more competitive and keep it different. Id like to see it competitive with Gravity Well as an alternative.
I think I see what the devs did when they introduced the Tykens Rift/Secondary Deflector (shield transfer), High Yield Torpedo, and the Enhanced Bio Molec. Torpedo combo, kind of/ or an attempt to include an alternative to the Gravimetric Torp, Torp Spread, and GW combo. But the shield strip/transfer aspect of the Secondary Deflector calls for much more an investment (in flowcaps and multiple Deflector abilities) that the Gravimetric counterpart. Its not equal.
Gravity Well -
Dominant and a bit overpowered. Unfortunately many people see this as a mandatory power; and its ability to hold makes it an obvious choice. I would like to see other science powers compete with Gravity Well for BOFF ability space.
Photonic Shockwave -
Underperforming. Shield regeneration and resists blunt the power of this ability (if a shield is down it pops back up quickly). The stun ability is too short. Not enough NPCs carry and deploy fighters in STFs or in the game for this ability to matter.
Clumping enemies up and setting off a chain reaction that destroys a group makes sense. Pushing enemies away makes sense in certain situations but what is the real benefit of pushing enemies away from you? Ok, less weapon damage
I say a chain ability or attack needs to be developed that works on distant ships spread out. The ability only works outside of a certain radius (5km) and needs a minimum distance (1-3k) between ships to work.
Viral Matrix -
Underperforms and not competitive. I did not find this ability useful in one on one combat. I used it when I ran energy weapons on science ships with low aux and could never tell when it worked. A solid (an ability that an average player can use fairly reliably, like a level 1 Gravity Well) disable ability would be nice.
Id actually like to see an ability that dumps weapons power into a battery or that dumps weapons power and boosts certain Sci powers or stats.
Tactical
Beam Array: Fire At Will -
Mandatory from many builds posted. I think an energy drain should be incorporated.
Beam Array: Overload -
I think a damage boost and energy drain should be reincorporated.
Cannon: Rapid Fire -
This seems to not be as efficient on single targets as Scatter Volley is on multiple targets. I generally use this power if I run cannons.
Cannon: Scatter Fire -
Dominant. I think costs for using the ability should be adjusted and balanced. Less damage for an AOE attack than vs a single target.
Torpedo: High Yield -
Performs.
Torpedo: Spread -
Dominant ability. In my opinion an attack that never misses should trade damage for that advantage.
I general use this ability if I use an attack pattern.
Tactical Team -
A level one power is a go to ability for me. I use it mainly for the extra damage. The shield balancing and debuff is very nice also. Its abilities overreach in my opinion.
Target Weapons Subsystem -
Please build the value of the abilities, meaning stronger effects, longer duration's, etc.
Target Engines Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilities
See Target Weapons Subsystem.
Target Shields Subsystem -
As a torp Captain Im very concerned with shields. This is much better than the Sci version but with limited tac spots on my Sci ships this weak power is not one I consider. Ive tried it on the Corvette and a Sci ship or two and it seems to work better than TB.
Attack Pattern Beta -
Dominant. I general use this ability if I use an attack pattern for the team benefits.
Attack Pattern Delta -
I've seldom used this ability. No comment.
Attack Pattern Omega -
Dominant. The damage bonus seems a bit much, but that is just my opinion.
OK, here we go with what i have to give as feedback:
1.You asked for statements to current game abilitys, so here we go:
TacticalTeam: I think this is one of the abilitys that causes major problems which is mainly because of its shield distribution. This distribution is absulutely needed to survive any form of burstdmg - may i be pvp or invisible high yield of doom. And as tactical team is the only ability to provide this amount of distribution, it is not for nothing recommended in around 80% of all sto-builds, and even if some might think different most people take it for its being as the best tanking skill ingame, even though it should be for tactical(offensive) usage.
The next point is a bit larger. Unlike many others i think a lot of the sience abilitys are theoreticlly potent, however they have a few problems:
1. much of them have a long cd while only lasting for a short time, so their credit to a long fight is negleciable. This could be served by either increasing their duration. or by reducing their cd so they come to a decent uptime/downtime ratio.
2. This point i need to differ between pve and pvp, and i do have to say that i would like to see skills differing in usage between pve and pvp.
For PvE the Problem of some theoreticlly nice sience spells is that you either cant see the results they bring (For example their is no way to see how many energie a tac cube has left after my Energie Syphon, so the possibility to get more information (maybe sensor analyses could also allow you to see power levels or even cds after a certain amount of stacks are employed) could really make some skills reconsidered in PvE. The other PvE problem is that quite a lot of sience powers arent good to use, because the NPC`s are either immune to the effects, and again we cant see which NPC is immune to wich effect, more information would again be beneficial, or the effect simply dont affect the npc because they dont do what the effect is used for (Example: Subnucleonic Beam. In PvE nearly no abilitys are used that are worth cleansing, only the feedback of the borgqueen is ok for subnuke, but imagine if a cube would use the standard tt+EptS+TSS rotation, suddenly subnuke would have a good use to reduce the massiv defense the borg would have)
For PvP however the whole thing looks different.
Here the sience abilitys could also bring great results, for example aceton beam(i know its engi but it works like a sience power) could shutdown major dmg from escort-alphas, however you need just 2 abilitys to clear 95% of all sci powers, so everyone runs them: hazzard emitters and sience team.
Just that point is no problem, other mmos also have abilitys that, for example, cleanse all cc or all debuffs, however they have often very long cds and last quite short, mostly they clear at a moment and then go on a 1min or even longer cd. However in sto hazzard has a 1/3 uptime and sciteam has a 1/6, however they are ready at 45/30 sek cd that can be dropped to 30/15-even if they would be instant you can see the different to a 1min+ cd. So i think for pvp we either need more different skills that remove certain debuffs (i dont like that idea as then its just luck if someone carrys a certain skill against a certain debuff) or we need to set the cleanse of hazzard to just when it gets activated and maybe increase its cd a bit and increases sci team cd to at least 45 sek, and that should be glo cd too, this would make debuffs more interesting as you can now bait the hazzard/sci team with a little debuff and then hit the strong abilitys.
The only powers that, in my opinion, need a buff are mask energie signature (simply no use in pve, very little in PvP), Aceton Beam (Needs a better up/Downtime), Photonic Officer(cool concept, but its up/downtime combined with the lack of other cd reductions exept the op Aux2Bat makes it obsolete for long fights), boarding party ( the aoe spam make the shuttels never arrive, it would be fine if boarding partys use a Mask energy signature, Jam Sensors and a doff that, if the boarding party is used while enemys shields are down, beams them directly to the enemy ship).
However i see more powers needing a change because they are doing too much, i dont say that they are too strong but they do too much in a single power):
1.Tactical Team, see the begin of my post
2. Attack Pattern Omega: It gives almost everything you need (alot more dmg, maneuverability, Defense, immunity to movement control). Actual my oppinion would be to make a offensive version (Turnrate+Dmg) And a defenisve (Speed+Defense+Immunity) so you have to choose if you go more offensive or defensive.
3. Hazzard Emitter: It gives the strongests heal in game, it cleanses nearly all debuffs, it gives bonus dmg resistance, so you have a 1click all def ability. Here i would also like to split the ability into 2:
1HoT; it could even get a bit stronger then and need more time; and a ability that cleanses debuffs and give resistance, so you can either benefit from the strong hull heal, but you`re vulnerable to debuffs, or you cover that weakness.
4. Aux2Bat with doff: Here i like the cd reduction from the doffs, however i think that just cutting aut aux by the ability is a not acceptable weakness. When you want all your powers 2times total then you should need to sacrifise something for it.
Here are my suggestions: Remove the Aux2Bat Doff and Change the aux to bat ability to "Sends the auxilary to batterie. Reduces all your power levels by 20for 10seconds and after those 10sek, increase them by 40 for the next 20sek (45sek cd, 30sek glob cd)"
Then introduce a new ability (dont found a name yet): "Reduce all your running cooldowns by 10/20/30%(Lt/LtCOm/Com), however all unused abilitys wil go on a 4/3/2 second cd and you loose 40/30/20 energy off all subsystems" and introduce a doff for it: "Each activation reduces your running cooldowns by an additional 6,66%), so with 3 off those doffs you could archive the same effect than current A2B, or you can use a higher level slot to get the effect with less doffs and minor disadvantages - your decision.
The next thing i wanna talk about is the current tanking meta: There are many ways of buffing your (Shield) Resistances, but not so many to debuff them. Here i see a huge potential for new sience abilitys:
1. Shield Matrix Virus: Set a Virus into the enemys shield system to reduce their shield resistance while also slowly draining shield power: Inflicts -5% Shieldresistanz per sec (Max 25/30/35%) and reduces shieldpower by 1/2/3 per sec(Max 10/20/30) over 10/12/14 seconds (lt//ltCom/Com Sience)
2. Computer annulation device: You attack enemys computer systems, preventing enemys trys to increase their defense: This steals 1/2/3 off the enemys defensive buffs and increases the cooldowns of those stripped buffs by 10/20/30% (lt Com/Com/Com trained).
My last thing I could complain about is vaping, i think it is not what should happen, and although i dont know too much about it, so i cant go into details, i feel like adding a global cd to console- and reputationactives like the vestaconsoles have could solve a lot of problems here.
So that was actual my wall of text, if any questions are still open feel free to ask me either here or by PM, thank you for reading all of this
PS: Sorry for my bad language, i wrote this on tablet and hope i prevented too many mistakes, also english is not my native language so i sometimes may have done mistakes, i hope you can forgive me.
You have MORE than enough suggestions on abilities, powers, etc.
I'd like to point out the lack of playable races for the KDF and RR, as well as a few staple races for the FED s that are long overdue.
FEDERATION:
Denobulan
Deltan
Efrosian (The Fed President's race in ST:VI)
Edosian (Mr. Arex's race; possiblely related to the Undine?)
Benzite
Talaxian
Ocampa
New races are not really related to space metagame changes. Specific races can affect the metagame, like those Romulan BOFFs with traits that buff vapers did.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
Even better, just bring manual distribution up to the same standard, if TT does something meaningful (like the buff to damage, like the AP buff when paired with it's doffs) it wouldn't matter if manual shield distribution was brought up to the TT speed and it would make dropping TT on ships with low tactical boff slots less of an issue meaning they too could slot FAW and APB so everyone wins.
Not only that but if TT keeps the distro function then it means you can just run TT rather than spamming the distro button.
1. Drain Mechanic
The whole drain mechanic needs addressing. Not fun when you are in a PvP match at 0 power level across the board for most of it.
Flow caps is a very cheap skill to specialise into as well
Plasmonic leach
Siphon
Aceton Assimilator
The Klingon drones (Forgot the name)
Tykens Rift
Not forgetting polarons
All this can be fitted on to 1 ship and boy that would make it a bad day for anyone
2. Console swapping to mitigate timers
if you have more than 1 of the same clicky console in the inventory, you can minimise the cooldown timer to less than a minute "hot swapping it" to another one e.g. 2 isometric charges or the fluidic console. This seems to make a mockery of timers on various consoles.
3. Power creep via console stacking
Stacking too many consoles and using all at once makes for a very unpleasant experience. Especially when your AMS'd (anti matter Spread), ISO'd (Isometric Charged), Black balled (Sub space integration circuit i think), TIFed (Temporal Inversion Field - which also drastically reduces captain level cool downs like Attack pattern Alpha and Sub Nucleonic beam). imagine this being done over and over and over on you.
This would completely switch off or turn away any newcomer to PvP. The whole experience is meant to be fun. Not nebulas appearing on the screen with the sheer amount of knocks, repels, stuns, disables.
4. Cool down timers in general
Power creep isn't just about items getting stronger and stronger. Its also about the frequency at which things are used also.
removing shared cool down timers between all Team abilities like Tac Team, Sci team and Eng team. there are no consequences left to your choices.
Aux to Bat with Tech DOFF's is another example of this. Used to have shared cooldowns with Emergency Power To X abilities. For improved cool downs, you sacrificed survivability. Not any more.
Not all things are bad...
Now the things that are real positive is the way the Reputation traits were redone. Limiting options & forcing you to choose. If all the above is re done in the same way, it would make this game a lot more of a puzzle (adding to the fun element) to solve with the right combinations instead of being given answers without questions.
Reference PvP directly, just a thought:
PvPers complain about balance till they become blue in the face. What if the PvP element of this game was so much fun for both parties (winners & loosers) that the balance issue became irrelevant?
I'm sure aside from the PvPer attitudes involved (includes me), more people would want to PvP.
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I strongly agree with this.
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
@DevolvedOne
If there is a way, the winning strategies (even if there are clear winners and clear loses among powers and ship choices) need to be fun. I think what is unfun is:
- combat that takes forever (too much healing and resistances)
- combat that is over too fast (damage spikes you can't really protect yourself against)
- combat where you are not in control (stun locks, but also "space bar smashing" where pets and abilities do all the work for you, you just need to press a button to keep it going, but don't really make decisions.)
Positively formulated:
- Combat length must be reasonable, both in terms of an idnividual engagement (e.g. 2 or even 10 players meeting each other somewhere on the amp), and the entire length of a match (assuming that enemies split up - even if just because of respawn)
- Players need to be active. Counters must be available, understanding the enemy tactics and finding the counter-approach.
But that is all very abstract.
There are probably also "metagame" mechanics that can increase the fun experienced in PvP. For example, leaderboards where you can compete in the long term. Or Territory Control (but that doesn't really seem to fit the new story development with the cease-fire. And considering how long this has been idea and has not happened, I would recommend players not not bet on that ever happening, and I recommend the Devs to set realistic goals. If you couldn't do territory control since STO's intial release, you may just never be able to get around it. Leaderboards seem "simpler" to achieve, and can still provide a lot of motivation.)
I think with completely new sector blocks in the Delta quadrant there is no reason why we can't have moving borders attached to a pve territory control system with no reset, it just sends more ships based on the number of players in the zone.
The developers saw this issue with the Raiders. That is why there is a separate flanking damage for PVP, and non-PVP.
The same problem applies with a lot of skills, consoles, gear, etc. When something is changed to make it useful in non-PVP content, then it usually causes problems in PVP. This results in a buff/debuff to it, and then it loses its effectiveness with non-PVP.
This results in a tug-of-war between the two, and causes disagreements between them. Personally, I don't do PVP. But, that doesn't mean that I think things should only be done in a way to benefit non-PVP.
The only way to balance one, without throwing what little balance the other one has out of whack is to view them as separate parts of gameplay, and make the changes to one effect only it, and not the other.
A very recent example is the tactical skill Beam Overload. When the skill was changed to crit 100%, it has its base damage Nerfed. This did drop its effectiveness down, but did help make it more useful in non-PVP content, but it was too powerful for some in PVP. Therefore, it was nerfed. This nerf hit non-PVP content as well, hurting it there. The last nerf should have only been for PVP, and not across the board.
I hope the developers see that they need to be viewed separate, and start to try it to see the benefits it can bring.
I guess you missed the point. Each one in itself isn't an issue. Add it all together and it takes a new life.
Throw a stun or a disable in there before the the drain, then it gets worse. Throw a nuke in there, stun and then drain, even worse.
Now add another identical build in there, and then look what you have. Add a third and then a 4th, where's the fun left?
I guess you already knew this but didn't want to let the cat out of the bag so to speak.
1 person doing it may not be bad, 2 doing it becomes effective. 3 begins the realm of certain lock down. 4 now that's just a bit OTT.
This can be read across to many build setups in STO right now.
In another PvP orientated mmo I play, they have a balancing system which is so simple and effective, that I believe it could work here. In a PvP match you are only aloud a certain number of classes into the match. It's a 3 - 3 - 3 -3 system. Max of 3 assaults, heavies, mediums and lights.
To translate that across to STO, what if you could have no more than 2 of the same class of ship and 2 of the same class of captain in the 5 man queues?
Overnight the force multiplying effect would be decreased without effecting PvE side of things and power creep as people put it would be drastically capped without altering anything major in the overall game.
Also , to help the new comer, just like you can auto fire weapons abilities by highlighting it, what if you could do the same to trays? Benefit to both PvE and PvP. No need anymore to write complex binds to trigger a few abilities. Just highlight it like you do to weapons and it will auto fire on its allocated cool down.
Rather than thinking complex solutions, maybe try the small but significant changes. Pick the low lying fruit first so to speak.
One of the things that I think should be a no brainer for every MMO company to implement is something like The Secret Worlds out of game character page that lists a bunch of stats for in game participation metrics (NOT accolades). STO has accolades, but they stop at a certain point. I think most MMO companies do not realize the competitive/pride factors involved with a lot of their players, even over things that are just pure grinding; for example, TSW's version has a stat for various mobs killed. They might be surprised at how many people would stay in game and grind just to make a score go up somewhere they can point to out of game and brag.
this was such an awesome post I had to highlight it!
If there is only one weak link in the chain it is the longer wait times to get a match meeting the criteria.
The first large skill tray needs more slots. Yes, you can copy it wich will be a vertical one and wich is placed on the right side, where all the mission information is, so those two get in the way.
Currently a skill tray can not have more than three visible sections. I would like that to be increased to five. Simply because three is not enough.
just my 2 CR worth......
*****peace*****
for all your supreme overlord needs choose Ba'al
With regards to Aux2Bat, please see this thread on why to keep it in its current state
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1194451
^Pretty much the powers my mind immediately turned as well.
The Emergency Power to X abilities come to mind as well. Even attempting to do without at least one of them just seems stupid. It's not so much that they are overpowered I guess; rather a ship just doesn't feel like it is performing properly without them.
Photonic officer never really felt all that useful; and feels even less so since Doffs were introduced.
Lastly, Attack Pattern Omega just seems too good; like it's 2 or 3 different abilities all rolled into 1.
Is there any intention to make STO more like a Star Trek simulation and less arcade like?
- If the answer is "no", then i think most of the things written here is a waste of time and you can leave everything as it is, it doesn't matter anyways.
- If the answer is "yes" and you are indeed want STO to be more true to Star Trek, then i would suggest to firstly rework how ships in STO work in general.
These are just some basic things that don't make sense in STOs meta game.Big ships should turn slower than small ones, no matter if someone put a "escort" sticker on them or not. It cannot be allowed to have huge "escorts" that turn on a dime and tiny Cruisers that need ages for a 180° turn. This does not make sense. Better get rid of the Escort/Cruiser/Science vessel mechanic altoghter.
Also bigger ships should have more power to work with. Smaller ships naturally can't have as much power to feed their Weapons, Shields or other systems. Also it doesn't make much sense to give the smallest ships the most heavy weapons but the biggest ships magicly cannot equip them.
When talkiing about this, we should never forget that STO is a Star Trek game, things work different than todays marine ships/Airforce jets and whatever these shouldn't be taken as example.
In Star Trek the general rule is: the bigger the more powerful. (with SOME exceptions)
After these things are straighten, THEN we can talk about BOFF powers. there's not point to do some patchwork fixes if the whole system doesnt make much sense.
But that's just my opinion, i am sure you can easy find 100 other people who will gladly disagree with me on your behalf.
Before I get into Engineering powers; I first want to suggest Attack Patterns no longer enhance any other damage apart from weapons only. I.e. no longer increases exotic damage such as Gravity Well.
Ok Engineering powers; unfortunately an Engineer in a Cruiser is not very offensive at all when compared to a Tactical Capt. in an Escort or a Science Capt. in a Science ship.
- The only level III offensive (and I use that word lightly) BOff power at lt. commander, is Emergency Power to Weapons III.
- So, the rest of the offensive level III BOff powers are at commander, which are Directed Energy Modulation, Eject Warp Plasma, Aceton Beam and Boarding Party. Unfortunately, they all have long cool downs and with comparison to Tactical or Science BOff Powers are not as effective.
So Engineering Captain Abilities:
- Most Engineering Captain powers only have a single effect, whereas many of the other career caption powesr have multiple effects. I.e.Nadion Inversion (Massive Power Insulators) APA Damage increase, turn rate etc.
I am not sure how, but I think more offensive edges need to be added to Engineering Powers and cooldowns need to be tweaked.
The other change would be to make some power's universal or slottable in any appropriate boff's slot meeting the required ability rank, this would be most easily done by just copying the current powers and adding them to the available list for the different boff's to learn. This would allow for some more flexibility in how you want to build your ship as well. A good example of this would be making versions subsystem targeting available to be learned by eng, sci or tac boff's at any rank, mask energy field would be another.
Engineering :
Emergency power 2 ability's : seem pretty decent at the moment but would like to see aux provide a bonus similar to the psychological warfare trait & exotic damage rather than just increase the skills, would also be nice if shield's also was changed to provide a shield HoT as well.
Engineering team : decent at the moment, would be nice if it caused shields to redistribute as well tho.
Aux2Bat : Seems fine as is, I haven't used any of the tech doff's but realistically if its a problem then its the doff's not the ability it's self.
Aux2SIF & Damp : both seem fine would be nice if SIF innately caused a HoT tho (doff would instead give a chance to double up)
Boarding party : Ditch the crew removal and make it so it kinda double fires, launches shuttles which are armed (without doff) these will jam sensor's and attack any targetable projectile or small ship en-route to their destination, for a short time after shuttle launch if the target has a shield facing hit 0 for a moment boarding parties will then be transported over and do their work. Also adding a small chance of taking control of the ships weapons systems causing it to target allies would be nice as well as would setting charge's which detonate when a certain ability ie. heal or cleanse is used disrupting systems. This would also be a good candidate to be universal useable in tac & eng slot's.
Directed energy modulation : it's not horrible especially with the doff, but would rather see it increase power consumption of weapon's by 2? and do a bit more possibly add a proc similar to phaser's to it to kind of mimic it hitting a critical system, lower cd would also make it bit more usable would probably need to modify doff tho. Another that would be good uni across all boff's.
Extend shield's : would like to see it expand to protect a aoe rather than just one target, ie. all allies within 5km or something. Another that would fit better being usable by eng & sci
Reverse shield polarity : pretty good as is makes a nice panic button. sci & eng would work to tho.
Aceton Beam : would rather see it create a spatial cloud affecting all enemies in the target area possibly lower cd as well. sci & eng
Eject warp plasma : pretty decent as is, option to fire on the plasma causing it to detonate doing damage and possibly disabling would be nice as well, creating something like a temp tricobalt rift for a few sec's. Would be nice universal as well eng, sci and possibly tac.
Science :
Hazard emitters : really good atm because they are pretty much mandatory to clear a large number of nasty debuff's would like to see the debuffs either cleared by other thing's or something to make this less of a mandatory ability. eng & sci
Jam sensor's : haven't really used this much would be nice if it caused a chance for target to fire on its allies for a set duration which would remain even if placate was broken by damage decreased accuracy might be worthwhile as well. tac, sci & eng
Mask Energy Sig : 2 mode's out of combat it stealth's for a short time after dropping +30 weapons power, +5% crit, +25-50% severity, in-combat switches to shuts down your weapons, +20 power to shields & eng, defense buff & creates a decoy for a short time (in-combat it pretty much becomes another panic button). Full universal usable by tac, sci & eng.
Polarize hull : decent as is, possibly make universal
Science team : decent would like to see distribution, a HoT component and removal of more debuffs on it.
Tachyon beam : would like to see it drain more and weaken/destabilize targets shields causing all attacks to do more damage to them for a short time both energy and kinetic would hopefully bring regular torpedoes up to similar penetration of transphasic's temporarily. Alternatively increasing torp penetration & causing allies energy attacks to have a chance of bleeding off shields and healing theirs might be nice as well.
Tractor beam : decent would however like to see the range increased dependent on aux power up to possibly beyond 10km
Transfer shield strength : would like to see it re-distribute shields and possibly bit more healing on the HoT portion, cleansing shield type debuffs would be nice as well. eng & sci
Charged particle burst : would like to see aoe range extended by aux power & lower shield's resist to damage for a short time as well similar to tachyon beam suggestion.
Energy siphon : would really like to see the duration be set rather then modified by aux power and the drain instead be based off the power. eng & sci
Feedback pulse : pretty decent atm would however like to see it fire off a low damage pulse something equivalent to a turret every few seconds even if you aren't being shot, would make it a bit more viable outside of being setup to tank as well. Being shot would disable the low damage pulse for a few seconds preventing it from doubling up. Could be explained as it using the excess energy bleed off from your own weapons to fire off a small burst.
Photonic officer : would like to see it be a bit more useful possibly given a chance to randomly activate any ability you currently have slotted on its own without activating it's cooldown. For example you activate the officer and after a set duration it decides to fire off your science team or torpedo hy, the ability wouldn't start a cooldown on either of those skills, its selection would be random but limited ie. couldn't activate it's self and only a chance of activating ability's at the set duration's. Would give it a little more utility and bit of random fun.
Tractor beam repulsors : it's fairly good as is currently aside from its troll usage the only way to possibly prevent its trolling slightly tho would be to modify it to check what direction the majority of allies / teammates are in and only push in the opposite direction. eng & sci
Scramble Sensor's : larger aoe would be nice and have it affect targetable torp's and small craft at a higher chance / longer than bigger ships. tac & sci
Tykens rift : would be nice if it increased in size and power as it absorbs more energy, on expiration causing it to detonate causing damage and short disable dependent on its total absorption would be nice as well. Visually it would be nice to see a better indicator of what's being drained ie. streamers going from the affected ships into the rift and such also draining engine power at a increased rate would be nice as well.
Gravity well : really enjoy it at the moment aside from making it available at any rank via the 4 ability rank suggestion can't really think of anything else I would like to see with it.
Photonic Shockwave : availability at more rank's, possibly adding a accuracy debuff to affected targets (photonic ghost's messing with their targeting sensors). eng, sci & possibly tac
Viral Matrix : adding a innate chance to spread and having it possibly cause the targets to shoot at their allies would be a nice improvement to this as would better availability / ranks, eng & sci.
Tactical :
Beam fire at will : only thing I could really see doing with this is possibly making it cause all weapon's to drain more power when firing.
Beam overload : I kind of like it currently but the damage seems to be fluctuating quite widely for some reason I've seen it do anywhere from 2000 damage up to 40,000 damage with no apparent rime or reason as to what the descrepency was have heard of higher numbers as well pve seems pretty much fine pvp might want to cause it to have a reduced effect or something / increase how much shields affect it against players would probably do it fine. eng & tac
Tactical team : seems fine atm would like to see more things remove boarding parties tho especially if they were buffed.
Torpedo HY : pretty decent targetable torpedo's in general are kinda problematic with current levels of aoe spam they have to deal with other than that its pretty good. I would like to see hy do more damage to shields as well kind of what you want to use to overwhelm the targets shield's. Would like to see all torpedo ability's made universal as well useable in tac, eng or sci slot.
Torp spread : good at the moment, as mentioned in HY would like to see it slotable in tac, eng or sci slots as well. Possibly have shields resist it a bit more due to more of a grazing type damage rather than targeted high impact HY seems to be based around.
Target subsystem's : lower cooldown, fires 3 shots normal damage with 20% chance per shot to knock out the system's, chance increased by accuracy. even on failure it debuffs the target dependent on the version (weapon's = lower acc, shields = lower resist, eng = lower turn & speed, aux = reduced heal affect). Would also have a chance to strip buffs of the applicable type ie. kill off rapid fire on wep target and such. Universal availability eng, tac & sci
Attack pattern Beta : pretty good atm would like to see it cause the debuff in a small aoe radius around targets tho just to make it a bit more usable with non-aoe attacks like rapid fire and such.
Attack pattern delta : decent would like to see it debuff your current target and buff your resist slightly even if your not being shot. The amount would be fairly low just something to still retain some use if you don't have aggro. Would be nice if eng could slot as well.
Cannon Rapid fire : pretty decent for what it does increased damage to shields could help it compete a bit more with aoe option's. tac & eng
Cannon Scatter volley : decent would like to see the cone removed and it instead do aoe based on the weapon arc's (turrets would scatter 360, cannons 180, dc & dhc 45/90). Reducing the damage it does to shields might also be decent.
Mine dispersal pattern's : I don't really like these honestly would like to see them removed and become a innate part of the mine launcher's ie. tricobalt mine launcher mk - xii [type B] would always launch mines as if it were under the affects of dispersal pattern beta in the above case. Current version seems kinda clunky hard to explain really
Attack pattern omega : Due to the cd I don't fine myself really using this much in pve the speed boost and such as well combined with it being a escape ability tends to make it something I tend to end up saving and never using. PvP I can see it being potentially rather powerful. not really sure what could be done to it to improve this aside from possibly breaking it up into a few different ability's instead of just the one. Something breaking it into a non-tac captains mini attack pattern alpha and a good escape ability type of thing.
Additional Ability's :
Would be nice to see some additional ability's
Modulate weapons frequency : causes beams & cannons rotate their frequency, similar to rapid fire but would also toss on a phaser type proc to them (chance of punching through shields and nailing a subsystem). eng, tac & sci cooldown with other ability's.
Graviton beam : similar to the heavy version from set but less powerful.
Deflector pulse : temporarily rendered deflector ability's unusable but causes the deflector to fire off pulse's essentially turning the deflector into a additional single target cannon temporarily.
Torpedo intercept : would temporarily disable torpedo launcher but cause a buff which would use torpedo's to attempt intercept and negate the next torpedo special attack against you.
Misc :
Sensor analysis : would really like to see this setup to automatically switch to your current target if the original dies or to another teammate if it was on a ally.
Sensor scan : would like to see lower cd as well as possibly causing attacks against the affected targets to have a chance of knocking out subsystems similar to phaser's
I'm not really into PVP so most of my suggestions have nothing to do with that aspect of the game and realistically any ability could be balanced pvp wise with the adding of a reduced affect vs players or in pvp area's.
I'm also of the opinion that ships shouldn't be locked into any one role, if your a tac captain you are going to need the ability to heal because there won't always be someone around to help you out, sci and eng captains need to be able to defend themselves and destroy a target for the same reason.
"Space is big and roadside assistance takes to long if your in a sticky situation."
1. Are you able to change the ranks of abilities? Several people have asked for ensign-level cannon abilities in the past, and Attack Pattern Omega II is largely unused.
2. Will we see extensive changes to the combat math? Many formulas are overly complicated.
3. Will we see extensive revisions of the tooltips? Most numbers cannot be understood without knowing the formulas. Many tooltips contain bad mathematical English: a 20% increase to recharge rate is not the same as a 20% reduction in cooldown time.
Here are my thoughts on potential space metagame changes.
Boarding Party: I have to agree that this skill basically has no use has far as i am aware of for players in this day and age. My thought on this sort of flows with other peoples.
"Ditch the shuttles"
Personally i think if you are going to board someone whose ship is still firing, you would use transports. I think the base mechanic (the percentages to do things with boarding party) should remain the same. However i think that that boarding party should be able to transport through shields etc.
Of course, this wouldnt make it all that useful still, however please see below for other thoughts.
Team abilities: Right now, the teams (tac team, eng team, and sci team) if i remember correctly, all have a 100% chance to remove some particular debuffs (eg, boarding team) (and also correct me if I am wrong on the 100% please).
I believe this should be dropped to 75% base with no way of improving that percentage. That way if you get boarded by borg in PvE, or sub-nuc in PvP, while you still have a high chance of removing the debuff, there is a chance that attempt will fail and now you are at the mercy of whatever tagged you.
This will help maybe make some other abilities useful again, and would still have a danger factor and risk. My thoughts only of course.
Other abilities: As for other abilities having no 100% chance to removing a debuff, its kinda of difficult to know if cryptic tried this where we would draw the line with this idea, do we leave it at the teams, or expand it to all abilities that can remove debuffs.
Tactical Team: While my ship is a tank/dps hybrid, like almost everyone i do use tac team to redistribute my shields when needed. I am surprising agreeing with people that that ability might be removed, and placed elsewhere.
But exactly how this could be done may be difficult, maybe switching it to engineering team might work, however i am honesty not sure how, if we did change this, exactly how it could be done to be mostly fair to everyone.
That are my thoughts so far, I may have some further thoughts on science stuff, but i have the flu atm so my head is pretty fluffed up atm
Err. Effectively re-balancing the Shields should be an INNATE ABILITY OF EVERY ******NED SHIP! Not a magic power. Its a shield system. Shifting power from one sector to another at the best possible speed should be part of the freaking base design of the system.
How did that design meeting go?!
"Hey we have this high performance shield system but we decided to make the shield distribution so ****ty that any ensign with rubber band, spit and toothpaste can effectively quantillionize the amount of shield power shifted. All in favor?"
What.
Who would green light this TRIBBLE. Apart from you lot.
Space combat needs:
Limited ship resources that are subject to attrition over time, moving the game away from the current, binary mechanic of "either you tank it or you die. Either you have the firepower to break the tank or you do not. You have f+cked your game up when one character classes ability is the deciding factor (SNB).
- Energy (shields, weapons, engines, aux - these things need to be recharging pools, not some stat that wobbles up and down. Ships should not be able to last forever, they should need to cycle out of combat for while to restore their battered resources....)
- Hull integrity
- Ammo
- Torpedos need to get un-nerfed in terms of shield damage.
Boff powers need to move away from the bombastic high impact gameplay and instead need to be re-rolled into an extensive and intricate buff system where the captain (the player) decides which buffs he will use to increase his ships performance and change up things.
All Heals should be long hots, get rid of high impact healing powers, the same way you should get rid of high impact attack powers.
A torpedo spread should not be a magic ability of an officer but an integral part of a torpedo launch system (and guys, here alone you can open up many gear choices if you bring in a large variety of projectile launchers that offer different options) that i can switch to on when i need it.
An energy weapons power should not be fueled by magic boff power, but instead be a switch on any weapon. Want faster shots? More range? less range more damage? One big blast? Rapid fire until the weapon reaches heated status and needs to cool down?
ETC. ETC. ETC
These are things ships should be able to do because thats what ships can do. Boffs should be able to modify, buff and enhance, but not outright magic up 20 torpedoes from one shot out of a ship that could not even hold.
In fact the player should have to make a choice in terms of torpedo systems. rapid fire? launcher that can fire spreads? or do i take the ones offering high yield volleys and rapid fire? Double launchers?
And why should torpedoes not do some serious damage, they should cost ammo too.
As long as you hang yourself up on keeping this messy boff-super-power system, you will never get space combat in a good place.
Space combat should not be about boff powers and timing of those. It should be about how you have set up your ship, what buffs you chose and how well that meshes with your ability to fly the ship and position yourself to take advantage of your enemies weaknesses. It should be cruel hard fact dictating the outcome, not miracle powers. Does your setup mesh with your playstyle and SKILL?
Eve online has taken one part of this formula and perfected it. The Cold hard facts of numbers have a huge impact, player skill in usage and positioning is paramount to victory. Where it went wrong was when eve removed the personal action from the game.
You are not "flying" your ship, you give approach orders, keep distance orders, activate modules and weapons....
But you do not "fly" your ship, that component is missing.
STO has the fly part, but utterly fails the the other part. Instead of the effort i spend in creating my ship, what counts in the end is the magic power of my boffs and doffs.
So yeah. it will be hilarious.
Thank you so much for asking for feedback. Here are some of my thoughts and opinions on various powers.
Background: I am a Sci that runs all torpedo builds (except when using photons) to maximize my Aux., and an occasional energy build if running NWS. I only run PvE.
By the way, I like that Cryptic builds on the value of exists abilities, gives players choice and recycles the value of prior released weapons (e.g. the Breen/Cryo guns ability to put out fire in Undine Infiltration).
Engineering
Emergency Power to Auxiliary -
Even when I ran energy weapons build I did not use this power. Too little gain vs the downtime for the spot it would take up.
Emergency Power to Weapons -
Ive tried using two copies of this on beam weapon builds to compensate for power drain. Ive always been disappointed with the performance of 1 and 2.
Emergency Power to Engines -
I never use this. With rare exception I really do not see meaningful bonuses from speed in combat. From what I have read defense bonuses tops out at 25.
Emergency Power to Shields -
This is a Dominant power. Many posted builds use this power; and I use this on both my energy weapons and torpedo boat builds.
Engineering Team -
This seems to be a Dominant power.
I have only used this power on an engineer heavy slotted ship (Oblisek, Risan ships, etc.), which I rarely use. Otherwise, my rare engineering slots go to shield powers and my heal is science (aux) based.
Auxiliary to Batteries -
A Dominant power that I do not use.
Auxiliary to Dampeners -
No comment or opinion as I do not use this ability, especially not in sparsely seated engineering slot on Sci ships.
Boarding Party -
Underutilized power that Id like to see improved. Id love to see the crew mechanic fixed. Build the value of the crew, perhaps hull and shield repair and ship speed (I doubt you would curtail weapons abilities) could be affected by crew loss. Make having a crew doffs and consoles important.
Reverse Shield Polarity
I have this power on nearly all of my builds. A very dominant power.
Aceton Beam -
I use this power on the engineering centric, Risan & Voth, torpedo boats. Id love an alternative and I think 3 is a bit underpowered for the cool down duration.
Eject Warp Plasma -
While I find this difficult to aim, I see this power in use.
Science
Hazard Emitters -
A very Dominant power. I use this on most if not all of my builds.
Jam Sensors -
As a get away power it underperforms as there are other competitive abilities, and devices that could be used instead of it. As a defensive power Ive found it limited with the damage cap since Im still firing at the enemy-it is combat and I cannot make enemies give up (via diplomacy, bluffing, charm) or cause them to turn and run. It could be useful as a sneak power in conjunction with a successful follow up viral matrix, tachyon beam, charged particle burst (disable attack) attack them you could begin to build its value.
Mask Energy Signature
An underperforming power. Allow for a follow up successful disable, capture, or hold science attacks and the value of a small stealth ship sneaking up on another ship gains value.
Polarize Hull -
Dominant power and very useful at level 1. So useful at low aux that I have not needed to use 2 or 3. It is on nearly every build of mine.
Science Team -
A Dominant power but I never use it. The heals have underwhelmed me, and I normally use an engie shield heal-Ive gotten more shields from it.
Tachyon Beam -
Regeneration rates and shield strengths overpower this ability. At full aux, level one barely does any damage. The Secondary Deflector made it a bit more competitive for me but it also took 3-4 VR fleet flowcaps and full Aux. Too costly. Ive tried making builds using level 3 and 2 of this ability but it is just too weak to effectively knock down shields for a meaning duration where torpedoes can be brought to bear, especially on larger ships.
Tractor Beam -
This is not popular but it is on most of my builds. I wish there was an aoe version, especially for Tykens Rift. Hold the target still and shoot at it while it has lost any speed defense bonus.
I actually enjoyed seeing my tractor beam level 1 not work on some cruiser/ battlecruiser Undine ships in the Undine Space Battle zone. I never figured out why and perhaps I need a stronger tractor beam or the enemy could be using a resist but kudos for building the value of having a tractor beam 2 and 3. This is what Cryptic does that I love, it builds the value to existing abilities.
Transfer Shield Strength -
A dominant and great power from what I hear.
Charged Particle Burst -
This underperforms. It did not do a very good job as a shield damager when I used it at full Aux during the Mirror event. Id actually like to see more cloaked ships, within enemy waves and overall to build the value of this power.
Energy Syphon -
Not widely used but I use it on most of my torpedo boats in lieu of no having an equivalent leech console to boost power. With the AMP core I use this to also add damage to my torpedoes. Id like to see slightly more powerful versions of level one and two. Id like to see either a more disabling effect to enemies or lengthen the duration.
Feedback Pulse -
Underperforms. As a power it is not competitive. It does a little return damage and does not deter/placate the attacker.
Photonic Officer
Not widely used. Id like to use it but I does not reduce my BOFF abilities but that much. Perhaps it could be more competitive if it helped reduce non-deflector sci powers by a greater amount or if its reduction value were competitive with Deflection Officer doffs.
Tractor Beam Repulsors -
Dominant power, Im not sure if they are widely used. Im not a fan of this power but I like the balance of damage, control and usability. It is situational, not very controllable but very damaging.
Scramble Sensors -
Underperforms. Interesting concept. I tried this power out at level 3 using full Aux during the mirror event multiple times or days and was surprised that this power lasted only a few seconds. It is not worth a slot at any level given how briefly the power works. It seems more of a get-away than an offensive power.
Tykens Rift -
Im not sure what percentage of people use this ability. It performs but Id like to see it perform better. Id like to see its drain functions improve, it become a more universally used power, and it last longer. If not then please consider making its current abilities stronger to make it more competitive and keep it different. Id like to see it competitive with Gravity Well as an alternative.
I think I see what the devs did when they introduced the Tykens Rift/Secondary Deflector (shield transfer), High Yield Torpedo, and the Enhanced Bio Molec. Torpedo combo, kind of/ or an attempt to include an alternative to the Gravimetric Torp, Torp Spread, and GW combo. But the shield strip/transfer aspect of the Secondary Deflector calls for much more an investment (in flowcaps and multiple Deflector abilities) that the Gravimetric counterpart. Its not equal.
Gravity Well -
Dominant and a bit overpowered. Unfortunately many people see this as a mandatory power; and its ability to hold makes it an obvious choice. I would like to see other science powers compete with Gravity Well for BOFF ability space.
Photonic Shockwave -
Underperforming. Shield regeneration and resists blunt the power of this ability (if a shield is down it pops back up quickly). The stun ability is too short. Not enough NPCs carry and deploy fighters in STFs or in the game for this ability to matter.
Clumping enemies up and setting off a chain reaction that destroys a group makes sense. Pushing enemies away makes sense in certain situations but what is the real benefit of pushing enemies away from you? Ok, less weapon damage
I say a chain ability or attack needs to be developed that works on distant ships spread out. The ability only works outside of a certain radius (5km) and needs a minimum distance (1-3k) between ships to work.
Viral Matrix -
Underperforms and not competitive. I did not find this ability useful in one on one combat. I used it when I ran energy weapons on science ships with low aux and could never tell when it worked. A solid (an ability that an average player can use fairly reliably, like a level 1 Gravity Well) disable ability would be nice.
Id actually like to see an ability that dumps weapons power into a battery or that dumps weapons power and boosts certain Sci powers or stats.
Tactical
Beam Array: Fire At Will -
Mandatory from many builds posted. I think an energy drain should be incorporated.
Beam Array: Overload -
I think a damage boost and energy drain should be reincorporated.
Cannon: Rapid Fire -
This seems to not be as efficient on single targets as Scatter Volley is on multiple targets. I generally use this power if I run cannons.
Cannon: Scatter Fire -
Dominant. I think costs for using the ability should be adjusted and balanced. Less damage for an AOE attack than vs a single target.
Torpedo: High Yield -
Performs.
Torpedo: Spread -
Dominant ability. In my opinion an attack that never misses should trade damage for that advantage.
I general use this ability if I use an attack pattern.
Tactical Team -
A level one power is a go to ability for me. I use it mainly for the extra damage. The shield balancing and debuff is very nice also. Its abilities overreach in my opinion.
Target Weapons Subsystem -
Please build the value of the abilities, meaning stronger effects, longer duration's, etc.
Target Engines Subsystem -
overshadowed by weapon based abilities
See Target Weapons Subsystem.
Target Shields Subsystem -
As a torp Captain Im very concerned with shields. This is much better than the Sci version but with limited tac spots on my Sci ships this weak power is not one I consider. Ive tried it on the Corvette and a Sci ship or two and it seems to work better than TB.
Attack Pattern Beta -
Dominant. I general use this ability if I use an attack pattern for the team benefits.
Attack Pattern Delta -
I've seldom used this ability. No comment.
Attack Pattern Omega -
Dominant. The damage bonus seems a bit much, but that is just my opinion.
Thanks again for asking.
1.You asked for statements to current game abilitys, so here we go:
TacticalTeam: I think this is one of the abilitys that causes major problems which is mainly because of its shield distribution. This distribution is absulutely needed to survive any form of burstdmg - may i be pvp or invisible high yield of doom. And as tactical team is the only ability to provide this amount of distribution, it is not for nothing recommended in around 80% of all sto-builds, and even if some might think different most people take it for its being as the best tanking skill ingame, even though it should be for tactical(offensive) usage.
The next point is a bit larger. Unlike many others i think a lot of the sience abilitys are theoreticlly potent, however they have a few problems:
1. much of them have a long cd while only lasting for a short time, so their credit to a long fight is negleciable. This could be served by either increasing their duration. or by reducing their cd so they come to a decent uptime/downtime ratio.
2. This point i need to differ between pve and pvp, and i do have to say that i would like to see skills differing in usage between pve and pvp.
For PvE the Problem of some theoreticlly nice sience spells is that you either cant see the results they bring (For example their is no way to see how many energie a tac cube has left after my Energie Syphon, so the possibility to get more information (maybe sensor analyses could also allow you to see power levels or even cds after a certain amount of stacks are employed) could really make some skills reconsidered in PvE. The other PvE problem is that quite a lot of sience powers arent good to use, because the NPC`s are either immune to the effects, and again we cant see which NPC is immune to wich effect, more information would again be beneficial, or the effect simply dont affect the npc because they dont do what the effect is used for (Example: Subnucleonic Beam. In PvE nearly no abilitys are used that are worth cleansing, only the feedback of the borgqueen is ok for subnuke, but imagine if a cube would use the standard tt+EptS+TSS rotation, suddenly subnuke would have a good use to reduce the massiv defense the borg would have)
For PvP however the whole thing looks different.
Here the sience abilitys could also bring great results, for example aceton beam(i know its engi but it works like a sience power) could shutdown major dmg from escort-alphas, however you need just 2 abilitys to clear 95% of all sci powers, so everyone runs them: hazzard emitters and sience team.
Just that point is no problem, other mmos also have abilitys that, for example, cleanse all cc or all debuffs, however they have often very long cds and last quite short, mostly they clear at a moment and then go on a 1min or even longer cd. However in sto hazzard has a 1/3 uptime and sciteam has a 1/6, however they are ready at 45/30 sek cd that can be dropped to 30/15-even if they would be instant you can see the different to a 1min+ cd. So i think for pvp we either need more different skills that remove certain debuffs (i dont like that idea as then its just luck if someone carrys a certain skill against a certain debuff) or we need to set the cleanse of hazzard to just when it gets activated and maybe increase its cd a bit and increases sci team cd to at least 45 sek, and that should be glo cd too, this would make debuffs more interesting as you can now bait the hazzard/sci team with a little debuff and then hit the strong abilitys.
The only powers that, in my opinion, need a buff are mask energie signature (simply no use in pve, very little in PvP), Aceton Beam (Needs a better up/Downtime), Photonic Officer(cool concept, but its up/downtime combined with the lack of other cd reductions exept the op Aux2Bat makes it obsolete for long fights), boarding party ( the aoe spam make the shuttels never arrive, it would be fine if boarding partys use a Mask energy signature, Jam Sensors and a doff that, if the boarding party is used while enemys shields are down, beams them directly to the enemy ship).
However i see more powers needing a change because they are doing too much, i dont say that they are too strong but they do too much in a single power):
1.Tactical Team, see the begin of my post
2. Attack Pattern Omega: It gives almost everything you need (alot more dmg, maneuverability, Defense, immunity to movement control). Actual my oppinion would be to make a offensive version (Turnrate+Dmg) And a defenisve (Speed+Defense+Immunity) so you have to choose if you go more offensive or defensive.
3. Hazzard Emitter: It gives the strongests heal in game, it cleanses nearly all debuffs, it gives bonus dmg resistance, so you have a 1click all def ability. Here i would also like to split the ability into 2:
1HoT; it could even get a bit stronger then and need more time; and a ability that cleanses debuffs and give resistance, so you can either benefit from the strong hull heal, but you`re vulnerable to debuffs, or you cover that weakness.
4. Aux2Bat with doff: Here i like the cd reduction from the doffs, however i think that just cutting aut aux by the ability is a not acceptable weakness. When you want all your powers 2times total then you should need to sacrifise something for it.
Here are my suggestions: Remove the Aux2Bat Doff and Change the aux to bat ability to "Sends the auxilary to batterie. Reduces all your power levels by 20for 10seconds and after those 10sek, increase them by 40 for the next 20sek (45sek cd, 30sek glob cd)"
Then introduce a new ability (dont found a name yet): "Reduce all your running cooldowns by 10/20/30%(Lt/LtCOm/Com), however all unused abilitys wil go on a 4/3/2 second cd and you loose 40/30/20 energy off all subsystems" and introduce a doff for it: "Each activation reduces your running cooldowns by an additional 6,66%), so with 3 off those doffs you could archive the same effect than current A2B, or you can use a higher level slot to get the effect with less doffs and minor disadvantages - your decision.
The next thing i wanna talk about is the current tanking meta: There are many ways of buffing your (Shield) Resistances, but not so many to debuff them. Here i see a huge potential for new sience abilitys:
1. Shield Matrix Virus: Set a Virus into the enemys shield system to reduce their shield resistance while also slowly draining shield power: Inflicts -5% Shieldresistanz per sec (Max 25/30/35%) and reduces shieldpower by 1/2/3 per sec(Max 10/20/30) over 10/12/14 seconds (lt//ltCom/Com Sience)
2. Computer annulation device: You attack enemys computer systems, preventing enemys trys to increase their defense: This steals 1/2/3 off the enemys defensive buffs and increases the cooldowns of those stripped buffs by 10/20/30% (lt Com/Com/Com trained).
My last thing I could complain about is vaping, i think it is not what should happen, and although i dont know too much about it, so i cant go into details, i feel like adding a global cd to console- and reputationactives like the vestaconsoles have could solve a lot of problems here.
So that was actual my wall of text, if any questions are still open feel free to ask me either here or by PM, thank you for reading all of this
PS: Sorry for my bad language, i wrote this on tablet and hope i prevented too many mistakes, also english is not my native language so i sometimes may have done mistakes, i hope you can forgive me.
I'd like to point out the lack of playable races for the KDF and RR, as well as a few staple races for the FED s that are long overdue.
FEDERATION:
Denobulan
Deltan
Efrosian (The Fed President's race in ST:VI)
Edosian (Mr. Arex's race; possiblely related to the Undine?)
Benzite
Talaxian
Ocampa
KLINGON EMPIRE:
Chalnoth
Flaxian
Arin'Sen
Kriosian
Tessic's Species (Tessicans ?)
Xarantine
Kazon
ROMULAN REPUBLIC:
Suliban
Hirogen
Mizarian
NEUTRAL RACES (Available to any faction):
Boslic
Dopterian
Yridian