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The right way to ballence Surgical Strikes
pwstolemyname
Member Posts: 1,417 Arc User
The Issue.
Surgical Strikes on its own is not a gamebraker. But it is a large part of a simple game braking method:
Large amounts of Critical Severity + Override Subsystems 3 + Surgical Strikes.
It is also important to specify which game this method brakes. It is not the PVE game. Its the PVP game.
Now we have been told by borticus that within the PVE Meta Surgical Strikes is working as intended and this seems correct as surgical strikes is a single target ability and AoE damage builds, which are the bread and butter of PVE surpass its damage potential.
In PvP Surgical strikes is undeniably broken. Now any one with a clue and an Intel ship can vape any one else. And any one without an Intel ship feels penalized.
But now their are rumors that a nurf to surgical strikes is on the way. It is my contention that this is the wrong way to deal with this issue.
Depending upon the magnitude of this nurf people will be upset. Too little and only fed and klink engineers and sci's will be effected, while tacs and romulans keep vaping. Too much and all those people who actualy spend money on the game and bought Intel ships feel that they have been victims of a bait and switch. I do not belive there is a middle ground.
We have had damage nurfs before. There is a very common trend. Things that over perform to the point of extremely unbalancing PvP most often do so through the enhancement of crits. And when the nerfs come they rebalance abilities around the extremes achievable by a tac or a romulan. Resulting in a game that persecutes characters without innate damage boosting capabilities.
The Solution.
Its actualy quite simple. Target Crit Severity. Not a single ability. And target it in a way that dose not effect PvE to any grate degree.
I propose a console. The Vulnerability Mitigater. It takes an engineering slot. Is available through level 10 engineering R&D and reduces the effectiveness of critical hits against the ship to which it is equipped.
Ideally it would provide a blanket % reduction to incoming critical hits. But this may not be possible within the engine. If so there is a way to achieve this result with existing mechanics. A passive buff provided to the equipped ship which places a very short duration critical severity debuff to an attacker. Sort of like a reverse attack pattern Beta. This is not an ideal way to implement it. But it would work and certainly can be implemented within the engine.
This solution, unlike directly nurfing surgical strikes. has far less collateral damage.
PvE is almost completely unaffected, unless cryptic chose to provide crit mitigation to new enemies in future. Vapers can still vape any one who choses not to use a console slot on the crit counter and future imbalances caused by critical hits are pre-emptively dealt with. Engineering console slots and the much maligned DMG mod also receive a small boost to their desirability.
So my question is. What nasty consequence have I not foreseen? Or is this really as good a solution as I believe it to be?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Just thinking aloud, but what if they incorporated Defense as a sort of anticrit attribute somehow, accounting for 'glancing blows' and 'near misses'? I've no clue where the balance point would be, particularly with the high Defense PVPers run with, but since right now its kind of an all-or-nothing stat, maybe give it a proportional secondary function? Side bonus might even bring Acc and Dmg mods back to having some value maybe.
I largely agree with The Issue as you put it, since right now SS seems to be either useful for PVE and OP in PVP, or else balanced in PVP but TRIBBLE for PVE, and increasing build variety would be a wonderful thing, but I don't know if an item-based solution is the way to go. Working off something we already have, just given greater emphasis, might be more of a net benefit to everybody.
Absent of that official stand, changing powers for the sake of 400 players out of 2.5M accounts is just wrong though. PvP population is a minority even if you base it on the DPS channel population 3.3k+.
Cause balance is a very flexible word that is being used by players in this forum. Balance can mean in STO "I cannot compete with it, I refuse to adapt and be better, therefore nerf it." disguised as balance.
I was thinking R&D so that this could be easily accessible on the exchange for EC. I thought this might be more accessible for those people with something against getting a starbase invite. But honestly the method of obtaining isn't too important. Fleet store is certainly a good way for most of us, myself included.
I actually like the idea of opportunity cost. Lets face it, pvp without a trade-off is just rock paper scissors. Do I gamble my opponent will have a tractor beam and slot polarize hull, or do I gamble he wont have polarize hull and use a tractor beam myself? Being a basic example of the kind of build choice that I like. This would be the same concept. Do I gamble that I wont face extreme crits and go all in with my flowcap or crit build? Or do I gamble that I will face them and sacrifice a console slot to defend?
What I don't want to do is kill of playstyles. I think vaping is an acceptable strategy that people should be able to perform. I just want there to be a counter strategy available so that the result of the conflict isn't a forgone conclusion. I know many would like vaping stratergies removed entirely. Maybe that would result in more enjoyable PvP. I don't know. But I am not sure that it would.
Your right that the degree of effect the console should have is a sticky issue. Which is why I was not so brave as to present a specific % myself. I think a fair bit of math and testing should go into finding the sweet spot, and I don't have enough free time to work it out myself just now.
I tried to propose a solution that I know can be implemented with existing mechanics in the game. I know that cryptic's manpower is spread thin and simply nurfing surgical strikes is a less resource intensive project then creating a counter. So I hoped my solution would allow cryptic to copy and past as much as possible if they weren't inclined to give it much development time.
Borticus cleared this up for us in a post somewhere. Maybe you missed it or interpreted it differently. Hear is the quote:
There is a lot of context there so taken as a whole he could be saying that its not WAI. But He specifically says that it is. As we have no inflection or body language to read I took it to be as stated.
I do agree that the majority are PvE focused and that nurfing the majority for the benefit of the minority is not smart. However if the PvE and PvP communities could learn to co-exist the PvP comunity could help to support this game. I would no more want us to ignore their problems then I would the problems of the role players or the DPS Monkeys. What we need are solutions to the problems of our different 'player factions' that don't negatively impact the others.
Borticus said that getting an ability to behave differently in PvP and PvE is not possible. That's not necessarily a problem. We don't need abilities to behave differently, the PvPers are already prepared to build their ships and fly them differently to the PvEers. They just need to be provided tools, with which to impose the balance themselves. Hence my surgestion of a console.
What Solutions do you want? favorable to a certain player?
Bort should stop listening to PvP folks because there is nothing to nerf. The only time that the devs should listen is when a certain power is not WAI.
This continued whining about an OP power in PvP can be patterned to be spoiled brat whining about how that player cannot even kill a single sphere in PvE in another thread with the most powerful fed ship. It sums up to one, refusal to adapt. The only difference between the PvE and PvP is the community. PvE community has more attraction and recruitment. While the PvP community or whoever is left are not attracting new players to play pvp.
I use to be a pvp player but because certain elements the PvP community starting asking for nerfs. I stop playing. You can say its the community that turned me off not what players thinks are new power creep. Like I keep on saying on another game, Player A brings a marauder and group of players brings battlecruisers and those players with battlecruisers got pawned with a single marauder. These group players whines to dev to nerf the marauder rather than bringing a counter for the marauder. kinda like what is happening in STO, Nerf strategy.
To sum it up, the PvP has an aweful community. It needs fresh leaders and the current Pvp community expelled.
I always used it with disruptor weapons and it didn't was OP at all in my opinion.
In my opinion Antiproton CRDX4+SS3 was the problem in game not SS3 by itself.
After nerf PVP will be only for T5U ships again like :
Sci with TBR+GW+EWP+FPB3 and tacs with CRF+APO+5fore escorts
As a kdf player without acces to reciprocity using a 5fore escort against the same ship with reciprocity slotted is a big NO for me.
That is why i bought and used a T6 Faeht because for me it was a alternative way to counter reciprocity by avoiding direct fight with superior fed escorts.
In my opinion T6 intel ships are being nerfed hard to the benefit of people using T5U and make way to new Pilot T6 ships that probably will come.
EDIT : I am a PVP player btw
I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
Thanks for showing me the right way cryptic, I won't be giving you any of my money again.
Gotta love the hyperbole flying around these boards. :rolleyes:
I fly a phantom, all I do is single target damage. This nerf is huge for my ship since I'm running ss exclusively. Fyi you don't want bfaw on a phantom, you want it to dish out single target damage, hence my ship being worthless soon.
All because some non existent pvpers complained...
I guess he was referring to your "worthless" statement. So a possible dmg reduction of 10-15% will make your phantom "worthless"?
I can understand your anger especially if real money is involved, but if i check the stats intels are still one of the best weapon platforms out there.
PS: I also don't see that this "nerf" will fix any PvP related issue, since the dmg scaling is still way off.
No, because Cryptic found SS was overperforming compared to contemporary powers.
CRF and BO still exist and are still extremely powerful abilities.
Especially when combined with things like OSS3 and the other powers intel ships have full access to.
Honestly if the SS nerf is such a big deal breaker for you then that is entirely on you, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the Phantom or any other intel ship other than that they are butt ugly to look at.
It's an interesting idea. I like your proactive approach rather than naming and shaming like others have been doing
Bort also mentioned maybe a critD cap in pvp zones, but he was just throwing out ideas. IDK how that would be implemented. Others like dontdrunkimshoot brought up the idea of making weapons and gear levelless in pvp zones and maybe setting all gear to mk x or mk xii. That would allow people to use the same gear in pvp and pve but allow the devs to reign in some of the power creep for PvP. With the new item system coming in season 10 that would be extremely possible since the tech would exist to do so.
you have issues man...
I guess I shall go back to AoE builds. It was fun while it lasted.
As a matter of fact I do PvP and I do believe that surgical strikes was part of a problem.
I would be very interested in hearing your critique of my solution to the surgical strikes problem as I outlined it in the original post and of my position toward it which I further explained in my second post in this thread.
I do not believe that a direct nurf to surgical strikes was the proper solution to this issue. As I have already made clear.
I believe that as long as there is no direct counter to critical damage PvP will continue to be damaged by the latest and greatest way to do large amounts of damage quickly. For the last few months it has been surgical strikes, but there will be something else equivalent bleeding over from PvE soon enough.
If you believe that tackling surgical strikes directly is a better solution then tackling critical severity that's fine. I would like to hear your case for that, you may sway me if you present it rationaly.
I do think I must have hit the middle ground quite squarely as I have now been called a winey baby in this thread by both a PvEer who thinks I am a PvPer and a PvPer who thinks I am a PvEer. I like that.
25% or even more went away from my Phantom too, didn't even test the engineer chars that run the Eclipse. Have to start using Phantoms with those chars too to even have close to the single target damage I used to have with the Eclipse.
And I'm just bored with fawing all the time so I'll stick with my Phantom with Surgical Strikes. (Fleet Phantom would be nice too.)
"Use Temporal Skills to NERF EVERYTHING before it happened!" -Unknown source.
In PvE SS helped the new player out the most giving them decent DPS with just the sole purchase of a ship
This reduction has hit them the most when any reduction wasn't even called for
Beam users in PvE only have one tactical skill for DPS BfaW BO is a complete joke as a skill in PvE its a PvP only skill
SS had given PvE players another skill they could use and a choice on BfaW boats.. Now that is reduced taking away from one target targeting
Beam users do not have CRF or CSV type of attacks its BfaW or nothing
Any changes to SS should have been and should be verses player
And why I am on the subject Beam overload should be boosted so it does the same amount of DPS as CSV and CRF averaged while the current setting of BO is slated as verses player
All abilitys should have 2 settings PvE/verses player that should be the normal setting for every ability in the game
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Nerfing Intel ships (2 nerf's to ionic turbulence when the second was redundant in my opinion,nerf to SS3) is something personally I don't like.
I say wait a little because very soon Pilot new ships will be launched and they will be as OP as Intel were at launch.
People running T5u ships will start again complaining how OP are pilot ships and another cycle will start.
Personally I start to find it boring.I didn't even queue for a PVP match after the last SS nerf and that a new thing for me.I played once the new mission on my main once and that is all.
I am waiting to see what new will bring the Delta recruit thing but I don't have big hopes.
I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
All you have to do is give the same percentages of defense to an existing ability that can be triggered as often as SS can be triggered as SS grants accuracy.
Like giving plus defense to polarize hull, or Aux2ID. Just kidding. Putting it on Aux2ID would be silly. But you get the idea.
But, in short, any ability that grants at least as much defense will counter SS.
Have a sparkly day.
I'd say for something nifty that grants that much extra defense and uptime as SS, it needs to be an expensive ranked ability. SS starts at LtCdr, and an equivalent defensive ability needs to be ranked accordingly so.
Otherwise we're going to go back to things like the highest ranked, most expensive in terms of high tiered skillboxed science abilities being completely negated by a mere ensign rank skill requiring nothing to be effective.
And good to see you again. You disappeared for a while.
Nice to see you and to be seen!
Yes, the ability would have to be at LtCmdr. Just like Omega, but available to....well you'd need one for sci, and one for eng. This is something we kicked around for a while back along with passive consoles. What we ended up with were passive consoles and...ROMULANS!
But yah, countering the Acc bonus of SS would take a lot of the sting away.
Most likely by the same people who proposed the change in the first place.
P.S.: Not my original, but someone already proposed simply taking away Acc from SS, so PvE would still have a big bang while on PvP you would miss more likely.
Planned obsolescence is one of the worst things in modern day capitalism.
Pvp community doesn't have the population size of RPers nor the marketing,recruiting, shared knowledge ethos of DPS community.
Why would it be obsolete? I haven't seen the best t5us go obsolete yet.