After some of the results I've seen from the test servers, I'm pretty sure we can no longer accuse Cryptic of careless power creep... Nope, definitely not the right term. I think we should just plain start calling it "Power Leap". Really, it's out of control.
I upgraded my bio-phaser dual heavy cannons from mk xii (1589.2) to mk xiv (1780.3) = 191.1 = 12.02% extra damage, just after upgrading your weapons !!!
With new mk xiv consoles, space-set, ship-traits/r&d traits and rest its a power leap..
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
It all started when a crafting experiment I was conducting went... a little ka-ka. In the blink of a cosmic clock I went from starship captain to factory worker. Which could have been fun... if I had enough dilithium. Fortunately, I had help. An observer from a Star Trek convention named Leeta. Unfortunately, Leeta's a hologram, so all she can lend is moral support. Anyway, here I am. Waiting on projects to finish, hoping I slotted the right DOFF for a crit. A sort of time wasting Abbott, with Leeta as my Costello. And I don't even know what, who, why to ask. Oh boy.
It all started when a crafting experiment I was conducting went... a little ka-ka. In the blink of a cosmic clock I went from starship captain to factory worker. Which could have been fun... if I had enough dilithium. Fortunately, I had help. An observer from a Star Trek convention named Leeta. Unfortunately, Leeta's a hologram, so all she can lend is moral support. Anyway, here I am. Waiting on projects to finish, hoping I slotted the right DOFF for a crit. A sort of time wasting Abbott, with Leeta as my Costello. And I don't even know what, who, why to ask. Oh boy.
It all started when a crafting experiment I was conducting went... a little ka-ka. In the blink of a cosmic clock I went from starship captain to factory worker. Which could have been fun... if I had enough dilithium. Fortunately, I had help. An observer from a Star Trek convention named Leeta. Unfortunately, Leeta's a hologram, so all she can lend is moral support. Anyway, here I am. Waiting on projects to finish, hoping I slotted the right DOFF for a crit. A sort of time wasting Abbott, with Leeta as my Costello. And I don't even know what, who, why to ask. Oh boy.
Y'know, I bet a 'Quantum Leap' esque Foundry mission would be interesting I bet.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
according to gecko all the mk1 to mk12 power increase has been totally linear, put they are going to pull out all the stops to creep the HELL out of mk13 and 14
in the new podcast, he said the difference in power between mark 12 and 13 is twice as much as normal, and mark 13 to 14 is 4 times as much of a power increase. on top of ultra violet and gold grade on top of that.
according to gecko all the mk1 to mk12 power increase has been totally linear, put they are going to pull out all the stops to creep the HELL out of mk13 and 14
in the new podcast, he said the difference in power between mark 12 and 13 is twice as much as normal, and mark 13 to 14 is 4 times as much of a power increase. on top of ultra violet and gold grade on top of that.
the power creep train truly has no breaks :mad:
Except for the Jem'Hadar set, that one got a big slap in the face.
ok, im gonna try to count all the sources of creep there are now
* -new for DR
new captain traits/passives from lockboxes
new reputation space traits/passives
new reputation ground traits/passives
new reputation active skills
crafting system captain traits
crafting system leet loot
*a new rep system with some of the best stuff yet
*tier 5U and 6 ship progression passives
*tier 5U ship, when maxed out have like 25% more hull health then standard tier 5, and up to 11 consoles
*tier 6 ships have 13 boff powers, intel skills, and some the active sensor thing
*super op captain traits on max progression tier 6 ships
*post 60 captain specialization passives/traits/actives, sounds like 2 at a time
*mk14gold items, according to geko mk13 and 14 items don't edge up linearly, would basicly be the equivalent of VR mk20,
*there's a mk13 tricobalt mine cluster torp as one of the early DR mission rewards, it drops 4 level 65 full power tric mines.
this is truly an explosion of power creep, its not even subtle. sure the level cap is going up, but this is not a linear increase in power what so ever, its creep^2. pvp will be so ruined for months as everyone acquires all these new things at a variety of paces. the power gap that will be possible now is simply gargantuan. not a big deal in pve really, any crummy mirror ship could do anything but the new elite ques. but the pace of this creep, how one day it will all suddenly exist on holodeck, its actual pvp doom.
The only thing I'm really worried about are the specializations since they cannot be unslotted, which will make keeping VPvP vanilla very difficult. Normal PvP is gonna be deader than dead, its corpse will be maimed, and its defiled remains finally chopped into fine pieces, then burned.
trying to decide between amputating on launch day, and just buying the DR pack before they raise the price and deal with it. slowly upgrading, hoping to find good matches were i can. in a vacuum, the tier 6 ships look really fun, ive played all my tier 5 to death, but im worried there will be no gameplay fun to be found, with the mess pvp will be in.
that thing is useless, just grab an elite shield and done. It will subnuke 3 stacks of shield resistences lol
Whew, that's a relief. Not only will anyone trying to hold onto PvP have to deal with the power leap, they'll be forced to run an elite fleet shield or be beaten to death by AoE subnuke! We don't want any variety, after all.
trying to decide between amputating on launch day, and just buying the DR pack before they raise the price and deal with it. slowly upgrading, hoping to find good matches were i can. in a vacuum, the tier 6 ships look really fun, ive played all my tier 5 to death, but im worried there will be no gameplay fun to be found, with the mess pvp will be in.
Come to VPvP man... it's the only way PvP will still be viable and fun.
Whew, that's a relief. Not only will anyone trying to hold onto PvP have to deal with the power leap, they'll be forced to run an elite fleet shield or be beaten to death by AoE subnuke! We don't want any variety, after all.
No one is going to run the aoe nuke... to be honest its just not very good, for the same reason on one runs sub nuke doffs.
The ships get free nukes for one class of skills at a time... that isn't all T6 though just the new Intel class which have problems of there own.
I am fine with progress I like flavor and I honestly don't mind half the stupid things Cryptic adds to the game. People need to stop taking STO so seriously this game has hardly ever been esport worthy.
Having said that I do like your idea of Mirror or vanilla T5 leagues. I am not a one of the other type person though. I think we can have and enjoy both for exactly what they are.
trying to decide between amputating on launch day, and just buying the DR pack before they raise the price and deal with it. slowly upgrading, hoping to find good matches were i can. in a vacuum, the tier 6 ships look really fun, ive played all my tier 5 to death, but im worried there will be no gameplay fun to be found, with the mess pvp will be in.
first of all, the specialization thing, you can slot 1 primary school, and 1 secondary school, not 1 primary and secondary skill, big difference. currently there is 1 primary school, and 2 secondary. ether way, when you have leveled up to what would be level 110, you will have a total of 45 new active and passive skills. just getting to level 60 gets you all the nifty pilot stuff just about, the other secondary school is mostly ground.
you feel numb already, i know. its better that way, just let any anger flow out of you, it wont help you now
moving on, a question. do you like quantum torpedoes? do you like the classic high damage per torp, with no heavy torp nonsense? sure you do. now just hypothetically, would you like a quantum with like 2k more base damage, that also applies a 100% chance proc each hit of an instant ~1500 rad damage direct to hull, drain a bit of power and slow down your transfer rate, based on flow caps? would you like that? then the [Neutronic Torpedo Launcher Mk XII] is for you!
but wait, there's more! use torp spread with it, and every single torp in the spread get that 100% chance proc, its not just 1 proc per target! its twice as powerful as the bio torp when it was 'broken'!
back to specialization. did you know that at the bottom of the primary tree, there is an intel fleet skill? oh whats it do you ask? nothing much , just grants you 15% shield and armor penn for THIRTY SECONDS. did you know, a new rep passive also gives you a 15% hull armor pen as well?
so, for 30 seconds, its kinda like you got a BO penn doff proc on everyone, and they cant clear it! i bet it would go well with the item set, 3 part, that iso cannon that deals a good ~8k base damage to target with 100% shield bypass.
its not like your arm is being twisted much to run the set. the gel pack has a 7% reduction of station power cooldowns, the Neutronic torp is another must have, and the 3rd item is ether a thoron pol beam array or DHC, your choice. a real arm twister to get you to want to run any of that right? oh and the the 2 part buffs rad damage 13% and lowers the Neutronic torp's cooldown back to normal quantum 8 seconds, from 10.
how about the equipment rep set? well, the engine has a built in +35 to dampners skill on it, exactly how much you want to put into the skill on the skill tree, to basically be immune to GW! thanks for that hyper engine that also gives you +5 eng power too!
the deflector gives you +5 to shields and aux, with +35 to both hull repair and structural integrity, and 17.5 to PI for good measure
the core is nothing special, but its got a picard maneuver jump built in. stack this, the picard jump, and fluidic jump, and you probably cant be killed ever if your trying to run and battleclaok.
the shield is actually pretty nice, i'll have to see how i like it vs an elite. it appears to be the first set shield based on a middle of the road standard, and its about time honestly. its got ~8k capacity vs ~6k on the elite resilient i use, the 10% built in resistance to all energy, 50% drain resistance, best shield to do the new STF in bar none, 10% pol damage res for good measure, and also stacks of shield hardening. did we ever figure out what that is? is that bleed through resistance? anyway, it can have 3 stacks of 5%
the 2 part set bonus gives you +25% more defense wile evasive is on, the CRAZY 3 part gives you a flat 20% bonus to movement speed and turn rate, and the 4 part pretty much destroyed all spam near you over 5 seconds
stack that 3 part bonus with the reputation trait that does the same, only for 25%, and your playing a different game from everyone else. your base mobility has transcended beyond what mortals can perceive.
the last 2 space passives are a hull heal proc on getting crit, and a increase in crit chance per shot until you get a crit, and its reset to start over again.
i guess thats all for now. i don't think its fully understood just whats waiting when the expansion goes live, even if you got none of the new ships. there will of course be a lockbox as well. well now you have been informed
Great info drunk all great news i cant wait to use allthis spammy wammy goodness and i win buttons! If anyone wants pvp without that (shameless plug) vpvp put ur name down
Progress? What on earth are you talking about hahaha...?
Hmm, out of curiosity, I went to look up STO game reviews from 4 years ago. Some very interesting finds, nothing has changed in the last 4 years. :eek:
No doubt, 5 months away from 5 years... and nothing at all has really changed as far as the actual game goes.
Just more barriers and more stuff spread over the top that requires you to drop $, or wait a long time, or drop $ to not wait. All so you can do the exact same stuff over and over and over.
At least PvP evolves as the meta evolves... of course Cryptic does nothing but try there hardest to kill that off. Eh whatever... the last straw for me might be the current major patches on a test server that excludes 90% of the games population. I mean we all knew they stopped (or never bothered) testing anything, for awhile at least they listened to feed back and tried to promote there test server to try and get some feedback. It seems now they are plain out admitting they don't care about the quality of there work. So long as it continues to pay. There is no other way to explain the limited testing... and what seems like zero testing of upcoming ships. Perhaps or perhaps not there running focus groups or planning to... beats me, I know none of the people that where in previous ship test focus groups have been asked. (that I am aware of anyway).
I don't know there are only 7 or 8 of us that even bother posting on here or getting worked up by any of it anymore. Wish there was another MMO worth playing. I can't believe I have been saying that for almost 5 freaking years. lol POE is fun at least, I should spend more time there.
PVP in STO has always been emergent. That's to say, I'm pretty sure it's not planned for, or actively developed. It is a thing that happens after the dust settles, and then the devs will come in and adjust the most egregious interactions (the one shots, the CCs that last for minutes on end...); at least I hope they will, even if it takes some time.
When the theme of the expansion is leveling, it makes sense that the pendulum is swinging toward "the one who invests the most time wins" and money is always a good substitute for time. Eventually, it will be realized that making older players far more powerful than newer ones discourages new players -- once a game gets a reputation for this, new people will stop coming because why play a game where you can never catch up to the guy who started before you? That is anti-fun, and there are so many other games out there to play instead. And the pendulum will start to swing back the other way.
The damage output or damage absorption of a ship using active powers has always been huge (5x? 10x?) compared to that of a ship flying along doing nothing. All this extra power, both offensive and defensive, will change the tipping point, but where the roulette wheel lands with regard to pvp balance, I don't think anybody can say, as I don't think there is an intended destination. Just like Star Trek, it is where no one has gone before.
The one thing that will be certain is that, after all this, a fresh ungeared character will no longer have 90% of the ability of a seasoned veteran (once upon a time, this was possible -- I remember pvping in whites for the challenge of it). And, with base player hit points so small compared to how much damage is dealt, pvp for a new player will be even more of a "blink and you're dead / I can't scratch the paint on the other guy's ship" experience.
What to do to counteract this? Who knows? Maybe they will start pumping up leveled player health enormously compared to a baseline character. Maybe easy to get PVP gear will show up that chops damage to players to a fraction of its normal value. But nobody can say how such dramatic changes as these would turn out either. This is a totally unexplored area of development.
Welcome to the Delta Quadrant, Voyager. Hope you like it here, because we'll be here for a while.
Comments
With new mk xiv consoles, space-set, ship-traits/r&d traits and rest its a power leap..
Vin Naftero@playhard88 - FED Sciencie
K'tan@playhard88 - KDF Tactical
Argento@playhard88 - RRF Tactical (FED)
Actually if they did that, it'd probably be the best thing they've ever added to STO.
Immense!:cool:
Y'know, I bet a 'Quantum Leap' esque Foundry mission would be interesting I bet.
Cryptic wouldn't have it any other way.
FBP users, i love you all
Vin Naftero@playhard88 - FED Sciencie
K'tan@playhard88 - KDF Tactical
Argento@playhard88 - RRF Tactical (FED)
More like failing as intended.
Nothing is impossible to him who would try.... except getting cryptic to care about pvp.
in the new podcast, he said the difference in power between mark 12 and 13 is twice as much as normal, and mark 13 to 14 is 4 times as much of a power increase. on top of ultra violet and gold grade on top of that.
the power creep train truly has no breaks :mad:
Overflow is much much less than purely increasing the stats with a [CrtH] or [CrtD] mod.
Except for the Jem'Hadar set, that one got a big slap in the face.
* -new for DR
new captain traits/passives from lockboxes
new reputation space traits/passives
new reputation ground traits/passives
new reputation active skills
crafting system captain traits
crafting system leet loot
*a new rep system with some of the best stuff yet
*tier 5U and 6 ship progression passives
*tier 5U ship, when maxed out have like 25% more hull health then standard tier 5, and up to 11 consoles
*tier 6 ships have 13 boff powers, intel skills, and some the active sensor thing
*super op captain traits on max progression tier 6 ships
*post 60 captain specialization passives/traits/actives, sounds like 2 at a time
*mk14gold items, according to geko mk13 and 14 items don't edge up linearly, would basicly be the equivalent of VR mk20,
*there's a mk13 tricobalt mine cluster torp as one of the early DR mission rewards, it drops 4 level 65 full power tric mines.
this is truly an explosion of power creep, its not even subtle. sure the level cap is going up, but this is not a linear increase in power what so ever, its creep^2. pvp will be so ruined for months as everyone acquires all these new things at a variety of paces. the power gap that will be possible now is simply gargantuan. not a big deal in pve really, any crummy mirror ship could do anything but the new elite ques. but the pace of this creep, how one day it will all suddenly exist on holodeck, its actual pvp doom.
so what is your plan for it
that thing is useless, just grab an elite shield and done. It will subnuke 3 stacks of shield resistences lol
Vin Naftero@playhard88 - FED Sciencie
K'tan@playhard88 - KDF Tactical
Argento@playhard88 - RRF Tactical (FED)
trying to decide between amputating on launch day, and just buying the DR pack before they raise the price and deal with it. slowly upgrading, hoping to find good matches were i can. in a vacuum, the tier 6 ships look really fun, ive played all my tier 5 to death, but im worried there will be no gameplay fun to be found, with the mess pvp will be in.
Whew, that's a relief. Not only will anyone trying to hold onto PvP have to deal with the power leap, they'll be forced to run an elite fleet shield or be beaten to death by AoE subnuke! We don't want any variety, after all.
Come to VPvP man... it's the only way PvP will still be viable and fun.
No one is going to run the aoe nuke... to be honest its just not very good, for the same reason on one runs sub nuke doffs.
The ships get free nukes for one class of skills at a time... that isn't all T6 though just the new Intel class which have problems of there own.
I am fine with progress I like flavor and I honestly don't mind half the stupid things Cryptic adds to the game. People need to stop taking STO so seriously this game has hardly ever been esport worthy.
Having said that I do like your idea of Mirror or vanilla T5 leagues. I am not a one of the other type person though. I think we can have and enjoy both for exactly what they are.
Yeah VPvP
you can use a vorcha or mirror neghvar and be competitive
It's cheap too. Two runs of Tour the Galaxy and cleaning out my overflow bag and I was all ready to go.
but yes...I hope they have an option to turn off the specialization. While I'm really stoked about specialization, it would really hurt VPvP.
WAI, oh why?!?
first of all, the specialization thing, you can slot 1 primary school, and 1 secondary school, not 1 primary and secondary skill, big difference. currently there is 1 primary school, and 2 secondary. ether way, when you have leveled up to what would be level 110, you will have a total of 45 new active and passive skills. just getting to level 60 gets you all the nifty pilot stuff just about, the other secondary school is mostly ground.
you feel numb already, i know. its better that way, just let any anger flow out of you, it wont help you now
moving on, a question. do you like quantum torpedoes? do you like the classic high damage per torp, with no heavy torp nonsense? sure you do. now just hypothetically, would you like a quantum with like 2k more base damage, that also applies a 100% chance proc each hit of an instant ~1500 rad damage direct to hull, drain a bit of power and slow down your transfer rate, based on flow caps? would you like that? then the [Neutronic Torpedo Launcher Mk XII] is for you!
but wait, there's more! use torp spread with it, and every single torp in the spread get that 100% chance proc, its not just 1 proc per target! its twice as powerful as the bio torp when it was 'broken'!
back to specialization. did you know that at the bottom of the primary tree, there is an intel fleet skill? oh whats it do you ask? nothing much , just grants you 15% shield and armor penn for THIRTY SECONDS. did you know, a new rep passive also gives you a 15% hull armor pen as well?
so, for 30 seconds, its kinda like you got a BO penn doff proc on everyone, and they cant clear it! i bet it would go well with the item set, 3 part, that iso cannon that deals a good ~8k base damage to target with 100% shield bypass.
its not like your arm is being twisted much to run the set. the gel pack has a 7% reduction of station power cooldowns, the Neutronic torp is another must have, and the 3rd item is ether a thoron pol beam array or DHC, your choice. a real arm twister to get you to want to run any of that right? oh and the the 2 part buffs rad damage 13% and lowers the Neutronic torp's cooldown back to normal quantum 8 seconds, from 10.
how about the equipment rep set? well, the engine has a built in +35 to dampners skill on it, exactly how much you want to put into the skill on the skill tree, to basically be immune to GW! thanks for that hyper engine that also gives you +5 eng power too!
the deflector gives you +5 to shields and aux, with +35 to both hull repair and structural integrity, and 17.5 to PI for good measure
the core is nothing special, but its got a picard maneuver jump built in. stack this, the picard jump, and fluidic jump, and you probably cant be killed ever if your trying to run and battleclaok.
the shield is actually pretty nice, i'll have to see how i like it vs an elite. it appears to be the first set shield based on a middle of the road standard, and its about time honestly. its got ~8k capacity vs ~6k on the elite resilient i use, the 10% built in resistance to all energy, 50% drain resistance, best shield to do the new STF in bar none, 10% pol damage res for good measure, and also stacks of shield hardening. did we ever figure out what that is? is that bleed through resistance? anyway, it can have 3 stacks of 5%
the 2 part set bonus gives you +25% more defense wile evasive is on, the CRAZY 3 part gives you a flat 20% bonus to movement speed and turn rate, and the 4 part pretty much destroyed all spam near you over 5 seconds
stack that 3 part bonus with the reputation trait that does the same, only for 25%, and your playing a different game from everyone else. your base mobility has transcended beyond what mortals can perceive.
the last 2 space passives are a hull heal proc on getting crit, and a increase in crit chance per shot until you get a crit, and its reset to start over again.
i guess thats all for now. i don't think its fully understood just whats waiting when the expansion goes live, even if you got none of the new ships. there will of course be a lockbox as well. well now you have been informed
Just more barriers and more stuff spread over the top that requires you to drop $, or wait a long time, or drop $ to not wait. All so you can do the exact same stuff over and over and over.
At least PvP evolves as the meta evolves... of course Cryptic does nothing but try there hardest to kill that off. Eh whatever... the last straw for me might be the current major patches on a test server that excludes 90% of the games population. I mean we all knew they stopped (or never bothered) testing anything, for awhile at least they listened to feed back and tried to promote there test server to try and get some feedback. It seems now they are plain out admitting they don't care about the quality of there work. So long as it continues to pay. There is no other way to explain the limited testing... and what seems like zero testing of upcoming ships. Perhaps or perhaps not there running focus groups or planning to... beats me, I know none of the people that where in previous ship test focus groups have been asked. (that I am aware of anyway).
I don't know there are only 7 or 8 of us that even bother posting on here or getting worked up by any of it anymore. Wish there was another MMO worth playing. I can't believe I have been saying that for almost 5 freaking years. lol POE is fun at least, I should spend more time there.
When the theme of the expansion is leveling, it makes sense that the pendulum is swinging toward "the one who invests the most time wins" and money is always a good substitute for time. Eventually, it will be realized that making older players far more powerful than newer ones discourages new players -- once a game gets a reputation for this, new people will stop coming because why play a game where you can never catch up to the guy who started before you? That is anti-fun, and there are so many other games out there to play instead. And the pendulum will start to swing back the other way.
The damage output or damage absorption of a ship using active powers has always been huge (5x? 10x?) compared to that of a ship flying along doing nothing. All this extra power, both offensive and defensive, will change the tipping point, but where the roulette wheel lands with regard to pvp balance, I don't think anybody can say, as I don't think there is an intended destination. Just like Star Trek, it is where no one has gone before.
The one thing that will be certain is that, after all this, a fresh ungeared character will no longer have 90% of the ability of a seasoned veteran (once upon a time, this was possible -- I remember pvping in whites for the challenge of it). And, with base player hit points so small compared to how much damage is dealt, pvp for a new player will be even more of a "blink and you're dead / I can't scratch the paint on the other guy's ship" experience.
What to do to counteract this? Who knows? Maybe they will start pumping up leveled player health enormously compared to a baseline character. Maybe easy to get PVP gear will show up that chops damage to players to a fraction of its normal value. But nobody can say how such dramatic changes as these would turn out either. This is a totally unexplored area of development.
Welcome to the Delta Quadrant, Voyager. Hope you like it here, because we'll be here for a while.
Please tell me that was a joke. That makes the Power Creep from LOR look like it was the recommended daily dose of vitamins.