BFAW looks awesome and should stay awesome. It's Star Trek.
Torpedoes should get a buff. I love the idea that "Fire All Weapons" should get a damage buff.
Canons fire projectiles. That's what makes them cannons. There are no cannons in canon.
Rename them pulse beam banks and give CRF the same punch as BFAW.
BO should get a buff. Beams and torps are Star Trek and should be front and center in any Star Trek Game.
As far as balance is concerned, the enemies are NPCs.
Balance is irrelevant.
I'd stop playing if they nerf'd BFAW. Sorry but the game is broken and has been way before BFAW became king. If they nerf it they need to nerf the HP of NPC ships. Sorry but no way in hell should they have HP 5+ times more than players. HP should be the same as players... just give em better AI. They can nerf the stacking of traits and consoles...
In regards to BFAW, if anybody is able to explain why for whatever reason a AoE ability is supposed to have a higher singe-target damage output than single-target abilities I might chime in to say it's "okay", but so far nobody was able to give a logical explanation for that.
Cause the single target version is plain suck that's why. BO is a 1 shot effect, while BFAW lasts for how long? 15 seconds?
Umm...yeah...no. When a skill is SO freaking high above EVERYTHING else, you HAVE to nerf it. You should power up the other stuff too, but to make EVERYTHING broken is not a valid solution either. You need to unbreak the broken stuff.
Nerfs are bad. If, for nothing else, because of the wickedly costly Upgrade system: if I pay thru my nose to get stuff upgraded, I don't want others to take it away (all in the name of 'balance,' of course). Buff instead of nerf. And, as I've said before, live and let live. Personally I've never felt the impulse to try and take other people's toys away.
If everything gets as broken as BFAW and the devs in reply then make everything (even normal critters) have 10x the HP to compensate for this state of game, then effectively your toy is getting taken away...and so is EVERYONE ELSE. What you want is to have EVERYONE'S toy taken away because your's will be. Like I keep saying fix the ONE broken stuff over BREAKING EVERYTHING ELSE the fixing it by doing another DR pass is going to hurt EVERYONE...even you who are so against nerfing your precious BFAW (and yes, my serious DPS ships use BFAW). So yeah, I never understood the impulse to make EVERYONE suffer, just because you will.
So what you have right now is a standard where nothing other then Fire At Will can compete. The core complaint of most players is that the way the game is right now, you either FAW or you suck.
Somehow, in your mind, putting people who use non-FAW builds on equal ground through buffing their massively under powered abilities ruins the game. You just don't get it, bringing other abilities up to the current standard DOES NOT mean that all enemies need to be buffed. All it does is make it so that builds that currently can't compete are now on equal ground. The only proposal that requires a re-balance of the game is yours.
Luckily, most people seem to get this, and I believe Cryptic does too. BFAW has worked the way it's worked for years. Simply put, it's too late now to just make such a sweeping global change knowing it would have such an effect on such a large portion of the player base. Argue all you want, but it's clear that Cryptic doesn't want to nerf FAW, and it's good that they don't.
The only one that wants to make everyone suffer for them is you. You're unhappy because you don't like what everyone else is doing so you want them punished. @meimeitoo is going for balance, you're just trying to handicap anyone that doesn't play your way.
BFAW is NOT broken.
It makes the largest segment of the player base effective when damaging the enemy.
Nerfing an iconic attack would anger the majority of the games population.
That would be silly.
If space battles in this game were single target encounters then BO would and should then be king.
They are not so BFAW is and should be king.
I really doubt they did what they did to Kemocite lightly. They probably had lockbox ability credibility and preserving lockbox value on their minds the entire time. But it was freezing/crashing players out of the game. They finally came to the realization that keeping Kemocite as powerful as steroids for those who "paid" for it was not worth letting the game be that excessively unplayable for far too many others. People continue to refuse to realize that this fix had to happen.
Really? What I gathered from the most recent change of Kemocite is that it was "designed" as a once-per-volley effect, with correspondingly high damage due to it's design to only go off once every 4 shots, but because BFaW (and possibly to a lesser extent Torp Spread) generates a "volley check" every time it selects a new random target - it was spawning multiple "high strength once per volley effects" within "a single volley"...
Therefore, Kemocite had it's damage adjusted to a "once per shot" level - and, more importantly, it was changed to a "once per shot" effect so that it was checking "every shot", whether said shots are done under the effects of BFaW, CSV, BO, no BOff effect, whatever.
This would "partially" be what Meimeitoo's been looking for - bringing the rest of the world up to the level of the OP. However, while Meimietoo would "believe" that the numbers didn't need to change, Cryptic has said that said number is "too high" for a once-per-shot effect, and therefore "nerfed" it to be within the Cryptic-desired strengths, not left completely alone so that all the other procs could be increased to Kemocite levels...
None of what you said is in dispute, or at least not one I'm disputing. The problem is that when you used the Kemo-torp spread, someone likely got removed from the game. That is not fair. Throwing people out of the game is not an acceptable price to assign someone else to have to pay so you can get your Kemo-torp spread hits.
8x Beams + Hitting BFAW and Space is just too suprior and boring Beam Overload should also maybe be overlooked that it should do Massive energy spikes for 5-10 seconds like the Romulan Singularity power does. But most the time singletarget abilities are worthless if there are always 10 enemys+....
I don't like this lets nerf it....sounds like whining. yes I use bfaw. its loads of fun. I was doing bfaw before I was chasing dps. u want to nerf it to uselessness? and the more I read in this thread the more it sounds like tasila wants to straight up eliminate bfaw. so lets look at it in a TV standpoint. many many times, ud see the ship firing from multiple points on the ship at the same time in some of the more pitched battle scenes, hitting multiple targets. turn the ship broadside and ur able to hit with multiple weapons. oh wait they have that in the game already with the current arcs, but ur wanting to nerf it because.....idk....because u want to whine about something.
BFAW not needs a nerf. The same prob lem was with a2b. Buff cannons and torpedes is the right way. F.e.terran reputation gives an option to play as used to be on pvp- torp with sci. Stop buffing BFAW. Stop making the game boring. After about two years, i picked back my escort with cannons and torpedo and yes, she has about 20% less dmg than bfaw build, but she is more entertaining
8x Beams + Hitting BFAW and Space is just too suprior and boring Beam Overload should also maybe be overlooked that it should do Massive energy spikes for 5-10 seconds like the Romulan Singularity power does. But most the time singletarget abilities are worthless if there are always 10 enemys+....
I don't like this lets nerf it....sounds like whining. yes I use bfaw. its loads of fun. I was doing bfaw before I was chasing dps. u want to nerf it to uselessness? and the more I read in this thread the more it sounds like tasila wants to straight up eliminate bfaw. so lets look at it in a TV standpoint. many many times, ud see the ship firing from multiple points on the ship at the same time in some of the more pitched battle scenes, hitting multiple targets. turn the ship broadside and ur able to hit with multiple weapons. oh wait they have that in the game already with the current arcs, but ur wanting to nerf it because.....idk....because u want to whine about something.
Though i normally run a mine on the back so when I bank off for another run they are normally destroyed by the mines that converged on them I had laid...
Is this a good time to ask for mines to get a buff as well? Most of them are... well, awful.
In particular, I would like the tethered quantum mines from the Lobi store to not suck.
There are times I think it is simpler to ask Cryptic to nerf one system, then ask them for all these other systems to be improved.
I'm a cannon user through and through but even I can agree that nerfing BFAW isn't a fix. As it stands CRF or cannons altogether need another look in terms of damage drop off and overall efficiency. They are high powered burst weapons and I understand the reasoning behind them having a damage drop off as opposed to a sustained effect beams have, but the distance of the falloff could be adjusted.
Ideally a FAW for cannons would be awesome as well, but that's me living in a dream world..
TL;DR No need to nerf BFAW+Cannons could use an overall buff/overhaul.
Somehow, in your mind, putting people who use non-FAW builds on equal ground through buffing their massively under powered abilities ruins the game. You just don't get it, bringing other abilities up to the current standard DOES NOT mean that all enemies need to be buffed. All it does is make it so that builds that currently can't compete are now on equal ground. The only proposal that requires a re-balance of the game is yours.
Do you remember when Cryptic started going through and buffing Science powers? At right around the same time, Technician Doffed A2B came into primary build use, usually/mainly to get near-100% uptime from a single copy of BFaW & TT.
The resulting floods of damage led to even "average" PuGs slaughtering queues, and the DPS-league "elites" crying about the lack of challenge (and posting 1:30 ISE solo times in sigs).
Faced with this "disparity" in ability to complete missions vs. desired time spent in missions, Cryptic "corrected" it with the "Delta Rising Experience" - aka the massive NPC Buffage and the creation of "elite" queues...
So, historically, the writing is on the wall. DPS levels "get out of hand again", a round of NPC Buffage will ensue to make sure that queue completion times remain "within desirable levels".
Now, the question is, is the "Delta Rising levels" balanced around BFaW, or around Cannons and Science? If it's balanced around BFaW, then the obvious buff everything else would work. However, this would also indicate that a lack of BFaW would mean "nigh incompletable missions".
If balanced around Cannons and Science, and BFaW is the "outlier", the resulting floods of DPS will trigger another change in NPCs. Historically proven, I might add...
Your call...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Somehow, in your mind, putting people who use non-FAW builds on equal ground through buffing their massively under powered abilities ruins the game. You just don't get it, bringing other abilities up to the current standard DOES NOT mean that all enemies need to be buffed. All it does is make it so that builds that currently can't compete are now on equal ground. The only proposal that requires a re-balance of the game is yours.
Do you remember when Cryptic started going through and buffing Science powers? At right around the same time, Technician Doffed A2B came into primary build use, usually/mainly to get near-100% uptime from a single copy of BFaW & TT.
The resulting floods of damage led to even "average" PuGs slaughtering queues, and the DPS-league "elites" crying about the lack of challenge (and posting 1:30 ISE solo times in sigs).
Faced with this "disparity" in ability to complete missions vs. desired time spent in missions, Cryptic "corrected" it with the "Delta Rising Experience" - aka the massive NPC Buffage and the creation of "elite" queues...
So, historically, the writing is on the wall. DPS levels "get out of hand again", a round of NPC Buffage will ensue to make sure that queue completion times remain "within desirable levels".
Now, the question is, is the "Delta Rising levels" balanced around BFaW, or around Cannons and Science? If it's balanced around BFaW, then the obvious buff everything else would work. However, this would also indicate that a lack of BFaW would mean "nigh incompletable missions".
If balanced around Cannons and Science, and BFaW is the "outlier", the resulting floods of DPS will trigger another change in NPCs. Historically proven, I might add...
Your call...
This is exactly what I mean you do not want to allow the extremes (on ether side low or high) to be used for balancing an content creation like it was for delta rising. You want to bring them to a equilibrium somewhere higher than the low end that many abilities sit at, but lower than where Bfaw sits, which is doable by using a sequence of buffs an nerfs to both sides. If you do that than both sides win you still have a usable an viable bfaw, and now the other abilities are viable as well, but without causing a large scale bloat to the content npcs to off-set the large jump in play performence.
IMO, cannons have become lackluster as of late, because their abilities to buff them are lackluster since the great DR drop.
Their spam time is dismal, they have weaksauce aoe capability, very few traits granting them dmg gains specifically, power management & consumption is paultry compared to beams.
The game has always been a multi-target rich game, but since DR those targets have since increased dramatically in shield & hull strength, while timers needed to succeed remained the same.
Granted, power creep has increased dramatically, but that power creep doesn't effect most much in terms of base mkxii gear, with only base traits and inexpensive doffs to work with.
The most powerful of builds, require huge investments in time, and/or $.
Not that it is needed for the majority of content, but even the advanced content still tends to shoe horn people into limited options, or performance is slightly sub-par for the time given to complete the mission.
Hence the reason, why so many have turned to bfaw to boost performance, as it requires virtually no investment to improve performance in an increased shield & hull hp target rich environment.
Have 10, 20, 30 targets? Well, in the past even a basic cannon build could blow thru them with ease 1 by 1 if needed, now a days it becomes tougher for the average joe player(s), so out comes the multi-capable bfaw to cope with the issue.
A skill that was useful in the past, made only more noticable, and seemingly useful with the DR enemy bump!
Especially, when so many new traits, abilities, consoles, etc. keep boosting beam skills dramtically further.
Now, the question is, is the "Delta Rising levels" balanced around BFaW, or around Cannons and Science? If it's balanced around BFaW, then the obvious buff everything else would work. However, this would also indicate that a lack of BFaW would mean "nigh incompletable missions".
This is absolutely right. You have to break it down beyond 'missions' though.
Story missions can be completed by anything, you can generally use the most sub optimal build possible and fly through the story stuff. The things you want to use are things like Qued missions, Battle Zones, Red Alerts, etc.
As it stands now, these events are clearly geared toward the FAW 'meta.' When people say that buffing cannons would break the game, they're not accounting for the fact that everyone in the game currently uses FAW, it's the current 'standard' and simply bringing cannons up to a similar level would not change that 'standard.' Sure, there are a few people that still fly around with Cannons because it's what they enjoy and it's what they want to do. Those players however, are considerably less effective then those using FAW under the current system.
The assumption that buffing cannons would break the game would be true if you buffed Cannons to where they outdamaged FAW. That would be a disaster. The way it is right now, almost everyone is already using FAW. If you made cannons competitive, it would bring those currently using Cannons up to the FAW average. Of the massive majority of players using FAW, some of them would change over to Cannons now that they're effective. As long as Cannons weren't buffed to where they surpassed the current standard, things are fine. Some people would change from Beams to Cannons, some would stay with Beams, but as long as Cannons aren't pushed through the roof no one gets a DPS increase. People who stick with FAW stay where they are, it just creates options.
The assumption that buffing cannons would break the game would be true if you buffed Cannons to where they outdamaged FAW. That would be a disaster. The way it is right now, almost everyone is already using FAW. If you made cannons competitive, it would bring those currently using Cannons up to the FAW average. Of the massive majority of players using FAW, some of them would change over to Cannons now that they're effective. As long as Cannons weren't buffed to where they surpassed the current standard, things are fine. Some people would change from Beams to Cannons, some would stay with Beams, but as long as Cannons aren't pushed through the roof no one gets a DPS increase. People who stick with FAW stay where they are, it just creates options.
8x Beams + Hitting BFAW and Space is just too suprior and boring Beam Overload should also maybe be overlooked that it should do Massive energy spikes for 5-10 seconds like the Romulan Singularity power does. But most the time singletarget abilities are worthless if there are always 10 enemys+....
Stay in single player content. Why the hell ppl have the need to wreck the game for everyone else when it's their own TRIBBLE trap that's keeping them defeated.
There's also this one cool game you can play, By Yourself, with a deck of cards. It's called Solitaire. You like Apples? How about THOSE Apples.
Though i normally run a mine on the back so when I bank off for another run they are normally destroyed by the mines that converged on them I had laid...
Is this a good time to ask for mines to get a buff as well? Most of them are... well, awful.
In particular, I would like the tethered quantum mines from the Lobi store to not suck.
There are times I think it is simpler to ask Cryptic to nerf one system, then ask them for all these other systems to be improved.
Mines are awesome... check my link at the top of the page.
Mines are awesome... check my link at the top of the page.
Well, you had me sold until you got to the tac cube. Over ten minutes to kill it, and your teamies were dropping over and over. You would have been better off killing it with Shield Scraping and Ramming Speed than mines. After 6 minutes of riveting dive-bombing, I was wondering why you did not have plasma mines.
Once upon a time, Tri-cobalt mines were the killer thing, and those got made less effective due to complaints they were over powered. Then cannons were the bees knees, till faw got fixed. Which I may add, never critted, always missed and people moaned because it was broke. So, Faw got fixed, mines got broke and we moved on from escorts online to tac cruisers online.
So, we've come full circle, now people are moaning about Faw, and want that made less effective. And the arguments as to why it needs to be changed are rather weak to say the least. Instead of shouting "Let's nerf this!" why not be productive and ask, "Can we buff these abilities?"
With the continual asking for nerfs, the game will eventually come to a point that the new ability of the year will get hit by another nerf. I admit, I use FAW. I even used it when it was broke way back when. I have alts that use cannons, some that use torpedoes and cannons, some with beams and torpedoes. Some say torpedoes suck, which they don't if you build right.
And to be honest, the pilot tree is perfect for cannon builds. Due to needing to be 2km's away to get the danger zone buffs. So, rather than looking to break something, look at what is already in the game to make something work. Gosh, my badly outfitted cannon escort manages well enough on STF's.
Don't ask for nerfs because someone does not like it, instead ask for the things that can be improved.
Once upon a time, Tri-cobalt mines were the killer thing, and those got made less effective due to complaints they were over powered. Then cannons were the bees knees, till faw got fixed. Which I may add, never critted, always missed and people moaned because it was broke. So, Faw got fixed, mines got broke and we moved on from escorts online to tac cruisers online.
So, we've come full circle, now people are moaning about Faw, and want that made less effective. And the arguments as to why it needs to be changed are rather weak to say the least. Instead of shouting "Let's nerf this!" why not be productive and ask, "Can we buff these abilities?"
With the continual asking for nerfs, the game will eventually come to a point that the new ability of the year will get hit by another nerf. I admit, I use FAW. I even used it when it was broke way back when. I have alts that use cannons, some that use torpedoes and cannons, some with beams and torpedoes. Some say torpedoes suck, which they don't if you build right.
And to be honest, the pilot tree is perfect for cannon builds. Due to needing to be 2km's away to get the danger zone buffs. So, rather than looking to break something, look at what is already in the game to make something work. Gosh, my badly outfitted cannon escort manages well enough on STF's.
Don't ask for nerfs because someone does not like it, instead ask for the things that can be improved.
Answer this, what question is BFAW not the right answer to?
Works for AoE, works for single target, facing and/or piloting effectively don't matter.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It's almost like asking the question, "Why have these weapons been the go-to for these factions for over 200 years in the Star Trek universe?".
Well now you know.
Leave well enough alone.
Now, the question is, is the "Delta Rising levels" balanced around BFaW, or around Cannons and Science? If it's balanced around BFaW, then the obvious buff everything else would work. However, this would also indicate that a lack of BFaW would mean "nigh incompletable missions".
This is absolutely right. You have to break it down beyond 'missions' though.
Story missions can be completed by anything, you can generally use the most sub optimal build possible and fly through the story stuff. The things you want to use are things like Qued missions, Battle Zones, Red Alerts, etc.
As it stands now, these events are clearly geared toward the FAW 'meta.' When people say that buffing cannons would break the game, they're not accounting for the fact that everyone in the game currently uses FAW, it's the current 'standard' and simply bringing cannons up to a similar level would not change that 'standard.' Sure, there are a few people that still fly around with Cannons because it's what they enjoy and it's what they want to do. Those players however, are considerably less effective then those using FAW under the current system.
The assumption that buffing cannons would break the game would be true if you buffed Cannons to where they outdamaged FAW. That would be a disaster. The way it is right now, almost everyone is already using FAW. If you made cannons competitive, it would bring those currently using Cannons up to the FAW average. Of the massive majority of players using FAW, some of them would change over to Cannons now that they're effective. As long as Cannons weren't buffed to where they surpassed the current standard, things are fine. Some people would change from Beams to Cannons, some would stay with Beams, but as long as Cannons aren't pushed through the roof no one gets a DPS increase. People who stick with FAW stay where they are, it just creates options.
Here's the thing. Remember what one of our lovely devs have said. To paraphrase, instead of hunting up the actual quote:
We don't appreciate/want/enjoy players taking content we designed to be experienced as a 15 minute event and rushing through it in 5 minutes then asking "what else is there to do?"
So, let's believe that the final goal is going to be that most queues will be 15 minute "events". And no amount of forum fire, playerbase retirement threats, etc. is going to change this - the devs will ensure that, one way or another, the queues will tend more to be 15 minute "events", not 5 minute "run-and-guns for quick reward".
So, let's go hit up the "golden standard" of Playerbase (maybe just DPS league, but still playerbase) metric generation: ISA.
And ask a simple question: Is 5x copies of BFaW necessary to make ISA a "15 minute event", and lacking even one copy going to make said mission "fail the timed optional"?
If so, then mission is "balanced" around BFaW. If you only need 2x escorts 2x battlecruisers and a Vesta, in full cannon/turret/torp glory, to make this 15 minute timer, then the mission is "balanced" around Science and Cannons...
And consider our conversations from there...
Though, in all personal honesty, I see the road of "raise all boats to be BFaW-strong" will eventually lead to either another DR-esque "queue enhancement" so that the 15 minute goal is met - or more "Terran Incursions" that are hard-coded to be 15 minute events, and the players can suffer for 5 minutes if they're "too good" for the mission...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Comments
Torpedoes should get a buff. I love the idea that "Fire All Weapons" should get a damage buff.
Canons fire projectiles. That's what makes them cannons. There are no cannons in canon.
Rename them pulse beam banks and give CRF the same punch as BFAW.
BO should get a buff. Beams and torps are Star Trek and should be front and center in any Star Trek Game.
As far as balance is concerned, the enemies are NPCs.
Balance is irrelevant.
Cause the single target version is plain suck that's why. BO is a 1 shot effect, while BFAW lasts for how long? 15 seconds?
BO should last just as long then it wont suck.
So what you have right now is a standard where nothing other then Fire At Will can compete. The core complaint of most players is that the way the game is right now, you either FAW or you suck.
Somehow, in your mind, putting people who use non-FAW builds on equal ground through buffing their massively under powered abilities ruins the game. You just don't get it, bringing other abilities up to the current standard DOES NOT mean that all enemies need to be buffed. All it does is make it so that builds that currently can't compete are now on equal ground. The only proposal that requires a re-balance of the game is yours.
Luckily, most people seem to get this, and I believe Cryptic does too. BFAW has worked the way it's worked for years. Simply put, it's too late now to just make such a sweeping global change knowing it would have such an effect on such a large portion of the player base. Argue all you want, but it's clear that Cryptic doesn't want to nerf FAW, and it's good that they don't.
The only one that wants to make everyone suffer for them is you. You're unhappy because you don't like what everyone else is doing so you want them punished. @meimeitoo is going for balance, you're just trying to handicap anyone that doesn't play your way.
It makes the largest segment of the player base effective when damaging the enemy.
Nerfing an iconic attack would anger the majority of the games population.
That would be silly.
If space battles in this game were single target encounters then BO would and should then be king.
They are not so BFAW is and should be king.
Most unexpectedly, this turned into a flame-fest! Closed it goes!. /sigh What flamefestery is this? pwlaughingtrendy
None of what you said is in dispute, or at least not one I'm disputing. The problem is that when you used the Kemo-torp spread, someone likely got removed from the game. That is not fair. Throwing people out of the game is not an acceptable price to assign someone else to have to pay so you can get your Kemo-torp spread hits.
I don't like this lets nerf it....sounds like whining. yes I use bfaw. its loads of fun. I was doing bfaw before I was chasing dps. u want to nerf it to uselessness? and the more I read in this thread the more it sounds like tasila wants to straight up eliminate bfaw. so lets look at it in a TV standpoint. many many times, ud see the ship firing from multiple points on the ship at the same time in some of the more pitched battle scenes, hitting multiple targets. turn the ship broadside and ur able to hit with multiple weapons. oh wait they have that in the game already with the current arcs, but ur wanting to nerf it because.....idk....because u want to whine about something.
You'll notice that even the beam (or cannon) spam that's possible in STO without buffs already seems excessive to what we saw in TV.
And movies... I believe you need to wait for the JJ Movies to see extremely fast weapon firing.
First Contact:
Nemesis Battle:
Star Trek XI:
In particular, I would like the tethered quantum mines from the Lobi store to not suck.
There are times I think it is simpler to ask Cryptic to nerf one system, then ask them for all these other systems to be improved.
This clip is what you're looking for.
Watch every multiple target engagement.
STAR TREK !!!!!!
FIRE AT WILL BABY !!!!!!!
For the people that require BFAW to be broken fixing it would make it useless.
Ideally a FAW for cannons would be awesome as well, but that's me living in a dream world..
TL;DR No need to nerf BFAW+Cannons could use an overall buff/overhaul.
Do you remember when Cryptic started going through and buffing Science powers? At right around the same time, Technician Doffed A2B came into primary build use, usually/mainly to get near-100% uptime from a single copy of BFaW & TT.
The resulting floods of damage led to even "average" PuGs slaughtering queues, and the DPS-league "elites" crying about the lack of challenge (and posting 1:30 ISE solo times in sigs).
Faced with this "disparity" in ability to complete missions vs. desired time spent in missions, Cryptic "corrected" it with the "Delta Rising Experience" - aka the massive NPC Buffage and the creation of "elite" queues...
So, historically, the writing is on the wall. DPS levels "get out of hand again", a round of NPC Buffage will ensue to make sure that queue completion times remain "within desirable levels".
Now, the question is, is the "Delta Rising levels" balanced around BFaW, or around Cannons and Science? If it's balanced around BFaW, then the obvious buff everything else would work. However, this would also indicate that a lack of BFaW would mean "nigh incompletable missions".
If balanced around Cannons and Science, and BFaW is the "outlier", the resulting floods of DPS will trigger another change in NPCs. Historically proven, I might add...
Your call...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
This is exactly what I mean you do not want to allow the extremes (on ether side low or high) to be used for balancing an content creation like it was for delta rising. You want to bring them to a equilibrium somewhere higher than the low end that many abilities sit at, but lower than where Bfaw sits, which is doable by using a sequence of buffs an nerfs to both sides. If you do that than both sides win you still have a usable an viable bfaw, and now the other abilities are viable as well, but without causing a large scale bloat to the content npcs to off-set the large jump in play performence.
Their spam time is dismal, they have weaksauce aoe capability, very few traits granting them dmg gains specifically, power management & consumption is paultry compared to beams.
The game has always been a multi-target rich game, but since DR those targets have since increased dramatically in shield & hull strength, while timers needed to succeed remained the same.
Granted, power creep has increased dramatically, but that power creep doesn't effect most much in terms of base mkxii gear, with only base traits and inexpensive doffs to work with.
The most powerful of builds, require huge investments in time, and/or $.
Not that it is needed for the majority of content, but even the advanced content still tends to shoe horn people into limited options, or performance is slightly sub-par for the time given to complete the mission.
Hence the reason, why so many have turned to bfaw to boost performance, as it requires virtually no investment to improve performance in an increased shield & hull hp target rich environment.
Have 10, 20, 30 targets? Well, in the past even a basic cannon build could blow thru them with ease 1 by 1 if needed, now a days it becomes tougher for the average joe player(s), so out comes the multi-capable bfaw to cope with the issue.
A skill that was useful in the past, made only more noticable, and seemingly useful with the DR enemy bump!
Especially, when so many new traits, abilities, consoles, etc. keep boosting beam skills dramtically further.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
This is absolutely right. You have to break it down beyond 'missions' though.
Story missions can be completed by anything, you can generally use the most sub optimal build possible and fly through the story stuff. The things you want to use are things like Qued missions, Battle Zones, Red Alerts, etc.
As it stands now, these events are clearly geared toward the FAW 'meta.' When people say that buffing cannons would break the game, they're not accounting for the fact that everyone in the game currently uses FAW, it's the current 'standard' and simply bringing cannons up to a similar level would not change that 'standard.' Sure, there are a few people that still fly around with Cannons because it's what they enjoy and it's what they want to do. Those players however, are considerably less effective then those using FAW under the current system.
The assumption that buffing cannons would break the game would be true if you buffed Cannons to where they outdamaged FAW. That would be a disaster. The way it is right now, almost everyone is already using FAW. If you made cannons competitive, it would bring those currently using Cannons up to the FAW average. Of the massive majority of players using FAW, some of them would change over to Cannons now that they're effective. As long as Cannons weren't buffed to where they surpassed the current standard, things are fine. Some people would change from Beams to Cannons, some would stay with Beams, but as long as Cannons aren't pushed through the roof no one gets a DPS increase. People who stick with FAW stay where they are, it just creates options.
^^ This is absolutely right.
Stay in single player content. Why the hell ppl have the need to wreck the game for everyone else when it's their own TRIBBLE trap that's keeping them defeated.
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Beat It!
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So, we've come full circle, now people are moaning about Faw, and want that made less effective. And the arguments as to why it needs to be changed are rather weak to say the least. Instead of shouting "Let's nerf this!" why not be productive and ask, "Can we buff these abilities?"
With the continual asking for nerfs, the game will eventually come to a point that the new ability of the year will get hit by another nerf. I admit, I use FAW. I even used it when it was broke way back when. I have alts that use cannons, some that use torpedoes and cannons, some with beams and torpedoes. Some say torpedoes suck, which they don't if you build right.
And to be honest, the pilot tree is perfect for cannon builds. Due to needing to be 2km's away to get the danger zone buffs. So, rather than looking to break something, look at what is already in the game to make something work. Gosh, my badly outfitted cannon escort manages well enough on STF's.
Don't ask for nerfs because someone does not like it, instead ask for the things that can be improved.
Answer this, what question is BFAW not the right answer to?
Works for AoE, works for single target, facing and/or piloting effectively don't matter.
Well now you know.
Leave well enough alone.
Here's the thing. Remember what one of our lovely devs have said. To paraphrase, instead of hunting up the actual quote:
So, let's believe that the final goal is going to be that most queues will be 15 minute "events". And no amount of forum fire, playerbase retirement threats, etc. is going to change this - the devs will ensure that, one way or another, the queues will tend more to be 15 minute "events", not 5 minute "run-and-guns for quick reward".
So, let's go hit up the "golden standard" of Playerbase (maybe just DPS league, but still playerbase) metric generation: ISA.
And ask a simple question: Is 5x copies of BFaW necessary to make ISA a "15 minute event", and lacking even one copy going to make said mission "fail the timed optional"?
If so, then mission is "balanced" around BFaW. If you only need 2x escorts 2x battlecruisers and a Vesta, in full cannon/turret/torp glory, to make this 15 minute timer, then the mission is "balanced" around Science and Cannons...
And consider our conversations from there...
Though, in all personal honesty, I see the road of "raise all boats to be BFaW-strong" will eventually lead to either another DR-esque "queue enhancement" so that the 15 minute goal is met - or more "Terran Incursions" that are hard-coded to be 15 minute events, and the players can suffer for 5 minutes if they're "too good" for the mission...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]