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Space Combat vs. the Vaadwaur
terloki
Member Posts: 287 Arc User
Let me begin by saying that I like the direction the story is taking in Delta Rising. I like the gear and ship upgrades, I like the intel powers, and I like the ground combat missions. What I don't like is fighting the Vaadwaur in my ship.
Whenever I see more than one Vaadwaur ship, or even just a single one of those heavy artillery ships, I know instantly that it's going to be a long boring and tedious fight. I get that a main plot point is that the Vaadwaur suddenly have really advanced tech and are tough to kill from out of nowhere, and I get that one of the goals of this expansion was to make things more challenging, but those long fights against the Vaadwaur in space are just so boring. All they do is soak damage, fire off a volley of those tricobalt torpedo things, and use cannon rapid fire; unless of course it's a heavy artillery ship, in which case they also summon MORE ships to do that and drag the fight out longer. They don't do enough damage over time to be a real threat, and once you figure out their pattern they don't really bring anything interesting to the table other than what seems to be a ridiculous amount of hitpoints.
Surely I'm not alone in this. Is this really what more "challenging" gameplay is supposed to be in the single-player story? Because if so, I hate it.
Whenever I see more than one Vaadwaur ship, or even just a single one of those heavy artillery ships, I know instantly that it's going to be a long boring and tedious fight. I get that a main plot point is that the Vaadwaur suddenly have really advanced tech and are tough to kill from out of nowhere, and I get that one of the goals of this expansion was to make things more challenging, but those long fights against the Vaadwaur in space are just so boring. All they do is soak damage, fire off a volley of those tricobalt torpedo things, and use cannon rapid fire; unless of course it's a heavy artillery ship, in which case they also summon MORE ships to do that and drag the fight out longer. They don't do enough damage over time to be a real threat, and once you figure out their pattern they don't really bring anything interesting to the table other than what seems to be a ridiculous amount of hitpoints.
Surely I'm not alone in this. Is this really what more "challenging" gameplay is supposed to be in the single-player story? Because if so, I hate it.
Admiral Katrina Tokareva - U.S.S. Cosmos, Yorktown-class Star Cruiser
Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird
General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier
Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird
General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier
Post edited by terloki on
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Taking that into account, it seems the 50-and-up level scaling is over-inflated, especially at the higher ranks. But with the leveling system still not in a final state, there's time to look this over
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
The little ground that we do get the Vaadwaur are much more manageable than the space combat. A little bit more ground say maybe one or two of the patrol type sub-missions per the cluster of 5 would go a long way to break the monotony of doing them.
I don't have a problem with the Vaadwaur and I know a lot of players who can do a lot better than me.
The Vaadwaur can be killed faster if YOU do better. Even with Mark XII gear without specializations.
Don't forget we will also upgrade to Mk XIII and XIV and the Captain Specializations are also very powerful.
You can pick your daily patrol. Pick one without Vaadwaur if they are really too long and too tedious.
But pardon me if I cannot quite agree that the Kazon already take too much damage.
STO is a very easy MMO, the Vaadwaur ships give you an opportunity to hone your skills in taking out PvE targets quickly that are not absolute target drones.
I had a direct comparison in one of the latest patrols between a level 50 Vaadwuar cruiser and a level 59 (for some reason the game spawned each type in different parts of the map). The former had 77k health, the latter had 180k.
"Over-inflated" isn't the half of it and I don't think its too much given how extreme this situation is to demand flat out that this problem be addressed (because otherwise DR is not going to be playable. Each mission may be accomplishable but I doubt there will be many out there with the interest and equipment to make it through to the end.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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Which advances faster, gear upgrades and specializations or experience based leveling?
Sure, one fanciful day people might have the gear and stats to get through normal DR combat like they were able to get through any other piece of STO, including elite PVE's, but to reach that point of mere consistency you have an incredibly long road of grinding through badly balanced content.
That's not a reasonable position.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Not having battled the Vaadwaur (on the Tribble server) yet, I wonder if certain T5 builds can handle them (in a prolonged battle), or if the player must utilize T5-U or T6 to succeed.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Damage_type is a good starting point, although it hasn't been updated with "Delta Rising" details yet. (And I wish STO Academy could provide a database to capture specific builds vs. specific factions, e.g. ship builds to combat Vaadwaur, etc.)
(Apologies if something like this exists; I'm not aware of it.) :P
For starters, it sounds like FED/KDF/ROM ships need kinetic shield protection against the Vaadwaur's tricobalt weapons.
Any thoughts on what weapon types are working best against the Vaadwaur ships?
Shield penetrating (thanks to doffs) beam overload followed by a quantum torp volley (with +4 spire quantum torp consoles) works very well. The Vaadwuar generally employ big single targets with only a little frigate/escort support and are very capable of regenerating and redistributing their shields (which is why you want to try to find a way around them and so you can worry about their massive hull points.)
Their weaponry just requires you to worry about point defense. Just be quick selecting mines and torps and you shouldn't have to invest in any special aspect of defence (so you can focus on offense which helps again to try to overcome their massive scaling HP.)
However, even fighting the Vaadwuar in a competent way isn't at all enjoyable. It just takes too much firepower to bring one down (not specifically because they're vaadwuar but because they're [about] level 60 NPC's) and any speculation as to "its just the player's build" seems to me just a cheap forum jab that ignores a critical problem with DR gameplay [and the consequences for release be damned] in favor of scoring a squalid number of points for the ego.
It's not something to be taken seriously.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
After reading some posts this morning, I had to add to this...
Something we players tend to forget: There are areas within STO where, for example, a level 50 player can jump in (e.g. Sirius Sector "Deep Space Encounters") and mop the floor with lower-tier NPCs.
But most missions/instances involve NPCs which are matched to our current level. It's about the skills, consoles and setup that give the player the edge to win.
Although that doesn't mean a FED Tier 2 Oberth class ship stands a chance at Level 60 against the Vaadwaur, even with the right layout/setup. Maybe in a very prolonged battle with the right skills... and a masochistic streak. <g>
Has normal ever required that? Has it ever balanced gameplay in such a way that the player must have selected the best skills, consoles, and setup just to have a winning edge? Absolutely not, STO has been a hell of a lot more accommodating (even on elite) and the issues we're seeing with dull, tedious, and protracted ~60 combat have been (where the builds have been posted) on the higher end of the player spectrum (which shouldn't need any adjustments to simply get through DR on normal.)
Now keep in mind that cryptic has presented T5-U and gear upgrades as options for players who are interested in the new top end of STO (ie. the new elite.) However as it stands normal story content essentially requires it to have any semblance of a good time simply because of how unjustifably much enemy health scales with level.
That's not something you can fault players for. Its cryptic's mess and they'll have to address it (or not have a very playable game come october.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I have played through on Elite Difficulty and the Hit Point differences don't seem to change between Elite and Normal, it doesn't happen on every mission either but most of them it does. On Elite you expect a light show of weapons and powers for a longer period of time, but on normal its not supposed to be like that. The problem is a bug so far as I can tell.
Still over-inflated, and needs changing, but there's a good reason for it
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
For elite, th values aren't really a problem ,even expected. But for normal not.
Edit: As for possible bug, I doubt it have checked normal and elite version of a patrol and the scaling works:
Vad assault cruiser on normal 230k HP, 721k HP on elite. The ticobalt mines pretty much alway crit on elite and deal 25-45k to you, half of that on normal.
So no its not bugged in that regard.
I have taken the Oberth Challenge. Not in an ESTF or anything, but in mission replays I have run that build. It works well to keep your skills and tactics sharp. Helps you identify what enemy tactics are (mostly what powers each NPC ship runs).
I think that really would be a good PVP type of challenge: Oberth only.
just pay attention and get out of the depth charges and shoot down the torpedoes
Though somewhat i can understand some peoples frustration.
Also, didn't in one of the priority one podcasts that had one of the devs on it? didn't that say their goal with level 50 - 60 was to "take the training wheels off" because they believe people have it too easy in leveling from 1 - 50, and wanted a bit more of a challenge come 50 - 60.
If that is true, well OP, welcome to having your training wheels taken off
Which also explains why the Skill Points for only ten levels equal the number of Skill Points for the first fifty levels. lol
By no means am I saying keep them at the current Holodeck levels, but you want to make sure that when people fight these things, it's an actual challenge and not simply tedious/frustrating.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Challenging does not equal boring. When I get into a challenging fight I expect to get out of it with some seriously lost hull, no shields, and a "whew that was fun" coming out.
Instead I find it a yawn fest to the extreme, and this is in a upgraded fleet long range science vessel, arguably not exactly the best ship for hull strength and mk VII Dyson Rep gear.
It seems to me that they uped the HPs on the ships, but their damage stays pretty much consistant. Not much of a challenge in that, just boring.
What's worses is that the devs keep saying that the game isn't centered around DPS, then they release the Vaadwaur that require no tank and all dps to beat. Kind of proves the not-dps centered concept false.
Indeed
I can understand people's frustration, but then again I also think this.
Levels 50 - 60, welcome to the really bug captains chair
Maybe another thing we could say is "This isnt your grandfathers pre-Delta rising STO kiddies" I have no idea what made me think of that
Sadly it seems like Cryptic tried to make the game "harder" with just more HP. It is not harder, it is more boring. But that is a general problem with the game. All is about DPS. So a high crit (in my opinion crit chance and damage are way out of any balance) escorts might still melt through the NPCs (and if they are to much like glass cannons they might die trying very often) but with my survival/counter/CC (all teams, transfere shield strengh, torpedo spread and high yield, grav well and tyken, RSP, TBR, PolHull, Hazard Emitter) Vesta it is just a long and boring fight. Using the Voth weapons space set with the adapted maco set and oll other stuff is mk12 too).
Against some enemys i have to switch to my Delta Flyer pets because my litte rom fighters die fast.
And then i see a massive HP wall in front of me with my shields allways being up and my hull damaged through my shield. But with all my healing my ships just takes the damage while shooting down the HPs slowly.
Neither is it fun nore is it challanging in any way. I just died 2 times because of massive 30+k damage through shield hits followed by some 10k hits right after that. Faster then i could react my ship was gone and bad pictures from old SFTs came to my mind...
Being instandgibed is not challanging too.
In my opinion the style of "making it harder" uses the wrong direction because it is not challenging or "hard" at all. Shure, many will fail to the new "challenge" but they failed to the mushromheads too as roms..
In my opinion making it "harder" should not come from just more HP (why on earth a small Kazon vessel should have the HP of a borgsphere?) but from the abilitys.
I enjoyed fighting the herachy, even if they got to many HPs too. Just because they where using specials on me and not only DPS. Still, a traktor that has a faster cooldown then PolHull is sometimes frustrating.
I think ANY NPC ship should get all teams (tac, engi, sci), transfere shield strengh, Hazard Emitter, 2 weapon abilitys (torp spread, scatter volley, beam overload and all the other stuff), RSP, PolHul.
On normal the CD on this abilitys could be the cooldown like if you don't put any points into them on elite like the one of a player.
Then the ships should get some "profession" abilitys and boffabilitys depending on the type of ship. A strong cruiser could get miracle workers, eject warp plasma, Aux to Bat and some more abilitys.
And then some ships could get some specials that ships from lockboxes or from the zenstore to get and some realy special things.
In other words i don't want to "attack" a pillbox with a spon but I realy want a fight. A fight against an enemy that can hit me hard as i can hit him but that won't take much more then i do.
Even if the fight would would have the same duration in both fights it would be more fun to fight a ship that is simply healing its damage from time to time then just shooting down HP. And if the NPCs can realy use some nasty specials you allways have to think about having a counter to them in your lineup. And for shure the NPCs should not waste their heals just at the start. RSP comes into play if the shieldarcs next to gone or even gone.
This way fighting one ship with 200hp can be more intense then fighting 2 Apex Battleships with 600k HP at once.
But i think that would need a bigger remap of the whole game...
And it would force the players to use their brains instead of just brute DPS. Anyway, i think the majority of the playerbase is mising both.
Meh, focusing on giving the AI's more heals and other shield buffs when protracted space combat is the problem doesn't seem like the best solution. As it is the Vaadwuar can redistribute their shield power and heal themselves (if allowed to get away from combat) but more importantly they use different tactics to other AI (they setup attack runs, they try to retreat, they do quite a few things that other AI's don't in this game.)
And I think that's the key to making enemies more challenging without gutting combat of its entertainment value. Make their behavior more responsive and only supplement that with more powers as those abilities directly factor into their AI routine. It doesn't make much sense to give EVERY NPC the standard team abilities, but tac team for Vaadwuar escorts does (since they'll often only leave one or two shield faces exposed for their major attack runs).
But this is a separate issue. Whatever the AI does is being completely overshadowed by how much time single-ship combat is taking because of extreme health scaling. That may attempt to add more "challenge" but practically its just streatching out single ship combat time. That's too long, it needs to be fixed, and once that happens we can let cryptic worry about what the AI is or isn't doing besides.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Oddly enough, many of the Vaadwaur I fought had at least some of those powers. Heck I forget if it was the Vaadwaur or something else that had two frigates using TSS on each other. The problem isn't that they have them, they use them at either very weird times or they're underpowered when they use them.
I don't think the issue here is BO abilities, they all have them and all use them. I darn well know the Hierarchy uses them. The issue is, you now have an imbalance of NPC dps vs NPC hps. Oddly enough I was fighting the Vaadwaur the other day and discovered an interesting thing. If you can spike DPS them they're gone, all except those artillery ships, but the moment you need to go into sustained dps on the Vaaadwaur it gets sluggishly boring.
So they're using BOff abilities, I just think the scripting is a bit off on when they use them. But the real issue is that the Vaadwaur aren't scary. I'm more scared of the Hierarchy then I am of the Vaadwaur. Hierarchy has a bit more balance of DPS and HPs making them sometimes a beast. Vaadwaur is all about dps spikes, and once that spike is done it's just nothing more then a HP sponge with no fangs.
Are the Vaadwaur that annyoing? (Havent tested it yet)
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They're not annoying, just boring. At level 56 I was fighting one with 186,000 hp and a huge amount of shields, with some self-heals thrown in. Otherwise they're pretty much a few tricks. A nice torp spread, cannon spread, and a jam sensors on some. That's it really. They're just damage sponges.
If anything is "annoying" it's the Hierarchy. EMP Probes, Jam Sensors, tractor beams, energy siphons all kinds of tricks with a decent amount of HPs and DPS to follow. I don't find them annoying, actually they're more of a challenge then the Vaaadwaur are.
186k HP? :eek:
I can imagine that will be a pain in the butt for Science Characters in Science Ships...
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