Why all drain nerfs? Why did drain get kicked down hard and everything else nerfed much less by the new Aux scaling?
1) Energy siphon = Cut the slope in half. Before every 100 skill = double base drain, now every 200 skill = double base drain.
2) Plasmonic Leech = Also cut the slope in half. Before every 100 skill = +1 drain, now every 200 skill = +1 drain.
R.I.P Drain Boats. Let's all hop on part gens boats because it's what all the cool kids run.
New Boat - U.S.S. Mirror = Stack every damage reflection ability possible and the Nukara shield with high part gens. If I can buy an S'Golth and put the silent enemy set on it, even better.
The nerf to Drain abilities is unacceptable. There absolutely no justification for this. Drain abilities where already weak and needed a buff, especially against certain NPCs that where totally immune.
Time to put the aux scaling and science power normalization into the "failed ideas" folder, and return things to how they where.
Don't get defensive Bort, this was a Bad Idea, and you where wrong to touch science/aux scaling.
I've messed around with this new system a bit, so I'm just going to come right out and say it: this revamping of the skill system is an extremely bad idea.
The tree itself is an oversimplification that removes any subtle difference between players and the decision gates remove any option for people to be jack of all trades, instead forcing them to choose one style or ability over another.
Pets should not even be in the tree, as there are, to my knowledge, few if any ships with pets that aren't C-Store exclusive, and even if there are, why do tac officers need to have entire blocks dedicated to them?
I bought a LTS a few months ago after playing this game for over five years. Over the years I've seen some thing happen to this game that I've thought were bad decisions, but none of them, not even the removal of the Exploration clusters, were bad enough to make me want to drop this game. This one is. I don't like being railroaded and having my play options limited after having freedom to create for so long, and I suspect that a great many others feel the same.
Why all drain nerfs? Why did drain get kicked down hard and everything else nerfed much less by the new Aux scaling?
1) Energy siphon = Cut the slope in half. Before every 100 skill = double base drain, now every 200 skill = double base drain.
2) Plasmonic Leech = Also cut the slope in half. Before every 100 skill = +1 drain, now every 200 skill = +1 drain.
R.I.P Drain Boats. Let's all hop on part gens boats because it's what all the cool kids run.
New Boat - U.S.S. Mirror = Stack every damage reflection ability possible and the Nukara shield with high part gens. If I can buy an S'Golth and put the silent enemy set on it, even better.
The nerf to Drain abilities is unacceptable. There absolutely no justification for this. Drain abilities where already weak and needed a buff, especially against certain NPCs that where totally immune.
Time to put the aux scaling and science power normalization into the "failed ideas" folder, and return things to how they where.
Don't get defensive Bort, this was a Bad Idea, and you where wrong to touch science/aux scaling.
Unacceptable seems like the right word to me. The changes to plasmonic leech are so drastic that I doubt I will be flying any singularity core ships going forward. My drain build, well its as good as dead. So much for players seeing very little changes to their current setups.
The nerf to Drain abilities is unacceptable. There absolutely no justification for this. Drain abilities where already weak and needed a buff, especially against certain NPCs that where totally immune.
Time to put the aux scaling and science power normalization into the "failed ideas" folder, and return things to how they where.
Don't get defensive Bort, this was a Bad Idea, and you where wrong to touch science/aux scaling.
Sarcasm quoted me. I feel special today, lol.
Anyway, since complaining isn't getting me anywhere, 2 possible mutually exclusive suggestions for Energy Siphon since I think Borticus wants to put a cap on power level boosts based purely on skill level, he just doesn't want to say it. I'm not mentioning plasmonic leech as I don't think there are any consoles that scale with power levels.
1) Add Aux scaling to Energy Siphon. It's still the most nerfed skill compared to the old values, but the hit is less drastic.
OR
2) Keep the buff side of things with the new equation, but leave the drain portion untouched.
Either of these would work, specially since resistance levels will be higher in general with the new skill tree since you combined offense with defense.
@borticuscryptic You said that the Copy Character Transfer works but for some odd reason it doesn't work for me. In terms of the Tribble Patch Notes.
The Rising of the Delta is the best expansion ever, and people love it to death because it is a good day to die in the endless struggle for supremacy of your own conviction. (A spin off of the Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and all the players love it.)
Again, I am baffled by the drain nerf and agree with the others who have spoken on it. And according to Lucho's math if I'm reading it correctly, only part of that can be attributed to the equally baffling aux scaling. Bort, you've commented on a number of other issues, can we have an explanation on this? Is it a bug or WAI?
I've messed around with this new system a bit, so I'm just going to come right out and say it: this revamping of the skill system is an extremely bad idea.
The tree itself is an oversimplification that removes any subtle difference between players and the decision gates remove any option for people to be jack of all trades, instead forcing them to choose one style or ability over another.
Pets should not even be in the tree, as there are, to my knowledge, few if any ships with pets that aren't C-Store exclusive, and even if there are, why do tac officers need to have entire blocks dedicated to them?
You're contradicting yourself so much here. They're removing subtle distinctions while adding skills that only work on specific ships? They're oversimplifying things but you can't do everything? (Actually, you still can, and better than you could with the old setup...)
Very concerned about the drain nerf, as I stopped playing a particle gen science build a long time ago, despite ALREADY being much more effective, because it wasn't fun. It was too easy.
And now drain isn't even getting the much needed buff it deserves, but is having all its effectiveness cut in half?
Are you serious?
Also I made a suggestions thread, since Bort wanted all suggestions bumped over to another thread, and everyone ignored him. Splitting the conversation would make it easier for him and the other devs to find meaningful criticism and feedback in here, so I suggest you all move the suggestions over there.
The nerf to Drain abilities is unacceptable. There absolutely no justification for this. Drain abilities where already weak and needed a buff, especially against certain NPCs that where totally immune.
Time to put the aux scaling and science power normalization into the "failed ideas" folder, and return things to how they where.
Don't get defensive Bort, this was a Bad Idea, and you where wrong to touch science/aux scaling.
Sarcasm quoted me. I feel special today, lol.
Anyway, since complaining isn't getting me anywhere, 2 possible mutually exclusive suggestions for Energy Siphon since I think Borticus wants to put a cap on power level boosts based purely on skill level, he just doesn't want to say it. I'm not mentioning plasmonic leech as I don't think there are any consoles that scale with power levels.
1) Add Aux scaling to Energy Siphon. It's still the most nerfed skill compared to the old values, but the hit is less drastic.
OR
2) Keep the buff side of things with the new equation, but leave the drain portion untouched.
Either of these would work, specially since resistance levels will be higher in general with the new skill tree since you combined offense with defense.
By the way, I personally prefer #1 to #2.
You spoke about your control build in another post. Did you try it yet?
(PVE - haven't been able to test PVP)
GW3:
Holodeck: @0.32 Repel = Roughly 20k Sphere. Needs engine doff to really hold stuff. Is crowd control.
Tribble: @0.34 Repel = Roughly 7k Sphere. I tested with .32 also, and the pull within that 7k sphere does seems stronger and doesn't need the doff so much (although it still helps a lot). now does around 25-30% more damage with 1:1 Exotic gear. Is essentially single target control ability.
I messed around with Control/PG ratios and essentially, if there was a debate to be had before about whether to go High GG and secondary PG or vice versa and which was more effective, there is no debate now.
The disable side of controlly things seems to be much much better though. I don't do math and equation, but it all generally seems more effective, at least against NPCs.
TL:DR? a 200 GG GW1 now only loses about 500m of pull range (all directions) against a 540 CtrlX GW3. Both do moar damage.
Control related disables are better.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
So Borticus, given that the one thing that you keep repeating about this skill revamp is that one of the goals you consider very important is to entice players to explore outside of 'the most optimal' choices, to try new options-
What possible justification is there for the out of bounds nerf to energy drain abilities here? They aren't better than partigens or disables. They have never been better than partigens or disables. So they're already an inferior choice from the pure optimization stand point. There are loads of players to explore damaging space magic, but much fewer players who explore other types of science powers.
And with that in mind, the decision was... what... lets go take these powers we WANT people to go try out because they aren't currently...
and make them worse by cutting their effectiveness in half across the board?
I'm sorry but I just don't understand the thought process here.
Tactical 5 and Tactical 10 should be split differently:
Energy CritH / Projectile CritH
and
Energy CritD / Projectile CritD
Not sure how I can explain any more clearly that this is a non-choice, and that we won't be making that change. It does not support any of the design principles that we're trying to reinforce with these choices.
Additionally, I'd urge folks to think about the impact that 1% CritH -or- +5% CritD will actually have on their gameplay experience. I'm encouraged by the idea that you care so much, but many of the arguments here are making mountains from molehills.
You moved BOTH pet passives to the tac 20 point level? Are you out of your minds? You have gimped sci based carriers into the ground with this change. Want to use passives? well then TRIBBLE off and forget half your build. Of course its a change the tactical dps crowd wanted and got. I need to see no more of this revamp that most people didn't even want anyways. I saw this going in a positive direction of course that changed when everyone cried tactical............
After jumping on with 3 of my science captains and a tactical captain, it's a very definite nerf to sci and buff to tac. Not sure what the reasoning behind this is, other than trying to get people who play tac to do more science-with their tac captains.
The nerf to Drain abilities is unacceptable. There absolutely no justification for this. Drain abilities where already weak and needed a buff, especially against certain NPCs that where totally immune.
Time to put the aux scaling and science power normalization into the "failed ideas" folder, and return things to how they where.
Don't get defensive Bort, this was a Bad Idea, and you where wrong to touch science/aux scaling.
Didn't you say yesterday it's not time to panic quite yet? Is it time now?
Guys, guys, guys. The normalization is here to stay, but I've said many, many times that individual powers are subject to further tuning.
So please, stop with the dramatic cries of nerf, and let's approach this from a more civil angle -- how much do I need to increase the *base values* of these re-scaled abilities, in order for them to remain competitive and worthwhile in your current builds?
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Didn't you say yesterday it's not time to panic quite yet? Is it time now?
Nah, it's time to panic when they say it's working as intended
I will say on drains, I get that it must be tough balancing them since they can be used against players, but even on Holodeck they feel unimpressive on Elite level mobs. They definitely soften enemies, but it's disappointing throwing everything into drain skills, stacking drain consoles, running drain pets, and dropping every drain ability you have on an enemy at once under QSM and still only briefly knocking them offline at best. (Then you wait for all those cooldowns to do it again.)
Just something to consider, it might be worth letting these scale up more than they currently do on Holodeck, they certainly shouldn't be being made less effective. And again, I say that as someone opposed to more power for the sake of power. I just feel someone fully dedicating themselves to a build like that deserves to get better results out of it on the highest difficulty.
I've messed around with this new system a bit, so I'm just going to come right out and say it: this revamping of the skill system is an extremely bad idea.
The tree itself is an oversimplification that removes any subtle difference between players and the decision gates remove any option for people to be jack of all trades, instead forcing them to choose one style or ability over another.
Pets should not even be in the tree, as there are, to my knowledge, few if any ships with pets that aren't C-Store exclusive, and even if there are, why do tac officers need to have entire blocks dedicated to them?
You're contradicting yourself so much here. They're removing subtle distinctions while adding skills that only work on specific ships? They're oversimplifying things but you can't do everything? (Actually, you still can, and better than you could with the old setup...)
Okay, my first, knee-jerk response was to be rude, but upon reflection I re-read my post and realized that in my haste to post my conclusions I perhaps was not clear enough, so please, allow me to clarify.
The subtlety that I mention is that under the current system you don't have to fully commit to maxing out skills. You can put one point here, one there and still have enough points to follow a specific build. It's these little here and there points that make each player's build different, even when arriving at a common end. The new system eliminates the ability to be subtly different from other players by putting in yes or no skill blocks with overall less skill point resources and less overall choice. The decision gates in the path exacerbate this by offering only either/or choices, such as Science 1: Either have +25% sector travel speed OR have Transwarp recharge 50% faster, or Engineer 1: boost to Batteries or boost to Subsystem repair.
As for the comment about pets, that whole set of skills stuck out like a sore thumb for me. Currently, there is one ship that is available to players that has pets, without having to go to the C-Store. Why dedicate the Admiral Tac sub-tree and the decision gate at Tac 4 to that one ship? The Engineer and Science Admiral sub-trees at least are useful regardless of what class of ship you're flying.
As for being a jack of all trades, that doesn't mean that I can do everything the best or that I have every skill maxed.
My engies, for example, are centered around maxing my ships power via EPS Manifold, EPS Power Transfer and high general power levels. To do that I've sunk the majority of my points into Batteries (to extend the duration of EPS Manifold's effect), all four of the direct power skills, Starship EPS (to increase the effect of EPSPT) and Warpcore Potential to generally increase power levels. The remaining points I put into whatever takes my interest. One engie toon is science oriented, another is more tactical.
Do they out DPS a more dedicated build, or do better science/magic than a build dedicated to that? No, but it affords me a degree of flexibility that isn't there in the new skill tree. Look at Engie decision gate 3: Boost engines OR auxilary power. Engi 4: boost shields OR weapons. What if somebody wants to boost shields and weapons but not engines or aux, or vice-versa? Nope, can't do it, you're locked into the black and white choices the devs have left you. Under the current system you can. You can do whatever you want.
The decision gates at the end of each path reinforce this push away from generalizing. If you spread your points around so that you're a hybrid character (the way the devs profess to want) and you won't progress far enough to reach the end points, the really cool ones that require you to sink the majority of your points into one path.
Removing the decision gates in the path would be a good start to actually encouraging hybrid characters. As it stands now, the revamped system severely hampers flexibility, even more than the current system does.
Hopefully this extended post clarifies my position.
Also, point of note. Flying around at warp 10+? Immersion breaking.
As far as drain builds go, maybe boosting the effectiveness of drainX consoles would help? It rewards those who have several of these slotted (meaning science heavy ships). Maybe meet a buff to halved drain powers and a buff to drainX consoles halfway- 1.5x to each?
@borticuscryptic any opinions on thoughts about amalgamating the torpedo and energy damage lines together?
As I mentioned previously, we'd be willing to consider this if we had any fantastic ideas for Skills to take the place of the 3 that would be removed. We haven't come up with anything appropriate internally, nor seen any such suggestions from players.
As it stands, this separation isn't really that bad in the bigger picture. The issues that cause Torpedoes to be unpopular would not be solved by combining the skills. Different measures would need to be taken to really shift the meta significantly.
I think that there have been several good ideas that others have submitted in the past that would fit well in the system that you designed.
As to the issues that cause torpedoes (and mines) to be unpopular, some of them are due to legacy mechanics that were used to keep them in check, and others are bugs that have been plaguing them for 2+ years that have yet to be addressed in any of them except for the Anti-Proton torpedo. In this instance, it's not about shifting the meta, it's about fixing the bugs so that the intended operation and mechanics match reality. When we read the description for Concentrate Firepower or Weapon System Synergy, we expect ALL torpedoes to match the behavior described in the tooltip. As it stands right now, there's a list of what does and does NOT work properly with each of those powers.
So you are right, no new skill revamp or new ability will fix the above issues (and other unlisted issues) for torps and mines. At best, they'll serve as either band-aids or loopholes that last for a small window of time. Ultimately, that frustrates a lot of players who even want to try to slot a torpedo on an otherwise all-beam ship, let alone have a heavy kinetic build.
The foundations are there already, they just require proper development.
Guys, guys, guys. The normalization is here to stay, but I've said many, many times that individual powers are subject to further tuning.
So please, stop with the dramatic cries of nerf, and let's approach this from a more civil angle -- how much do I need to increase the *base values* of these re-scaled abilities, in order for them to remain competitive and worthwhile in your current builds?
Have you considered the effect increasing "base values" would have on our PvE experience? Remember, Delta Rising saw a drastic increase in NPC hitpoints and shields, meaning that a "base value" that would be reasonable for us to use on an NPC would be extremely imbalanced for an NPC to use on us (and probably worse still for us to use on each other)... while backing off from the normalization of science abilities would maintain the system whereby inflated NPC hitpoints and shields are countered by investment in Skills, consoles, power levels, etc. I do understand that there is a strong stance on your end of things towards this normalization, but would a "base value" increase be a solution or would it be the introduction of greater problems?
Otherwise, general impressions and perspective on other posts to date:
I'm still put off by the changes to the relative cost of Batteries and how this affects our Engineers, while our Tactical captains gain full-strength Attack Patterns for their captain abilities for free.
Science really need to be capable of buffing Science abilities... Exotic Particle Generators/Aux Power needs to apply to things like Drain Infection, etc. Remember, Conservtion of Energy is utterly useless on anything that isn't buffed by Exotic Particle Generators.
Right now it's looking more like Tactical = good, not Tactical = bad... and dang it, I want to play not Tactical sometimes.
The idea of splitting Engineering and Science abilities between defense and utility is a very good one; at this stage it is very hard to pull Skill Points out of Tactical because there just isn't anything that cries out for investment. Giving us low-level access to some abilities might make things more interesting along the leveling process.
The idea of simply choosing one of the passive Unlocks at each stage (in the same manner as the Ultimate improvement Unlocks) rather than having set progression options would be much better for making build options like Carrier specialists, tanks, etc. that simply aren't viable with set Unlock layouts. Yes, I really would like to take the hangar pet bonuses early on with at least one character so I can re-build around my Sarr Theln... well, maybe, it kind of depends on how Science fares going forward, but that's a different subject.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
on holodeck the engineer captain ability support drone 3 on engineers benefited from the turret and drone ground skill. now this skill is gone replaced with the kit expert skill which groups up all the individual power skills. this new skill does not boost the captain abilities at all.
on holodeck my support drone 3 does 42.3 x2 damage (31DPS) with 6 ticks in turret and drones skill (+84)
on tribble it's just 36.3 x2 damage (26.6DPS) as it's no longer getting the the benefit of the skill
on holodeck the engineer captain ability support drone 3 on engineers benefited from the turret and drone ground skill. now this skill is gone replaced with the kit expert skill which groups up all the individual power skills. this new skill does not boost the captain abilities at all.
on holodeck my support drone 3 does 42.3 x2 damage (31DPS) with 6 ticks in turret and drones skill (+84)
on tribble it's just 36.3 x2 damage (26.6DPS) as it's no longer getting the the benefit of the skill
Yeah, it's looking more and more like an unsubtle nerf to captain abilities across the board, especially the ground abilities.
Okay, my first, knee-jerk response was to be rude, but upon reflection I re-read my post and realized that in my haste to post my conclusions I perhaps was not clear enough, so please, allow me to clarify.
I appreciate the response! I understand where you're coming from, but I'll keep my reply brief rather than touching on everything. From the skill trees I've looked at over the years (and believe me, it's a lot, skills were a huge point of self-doubt for me until recently), you're in the minority when you talk about actually taking advantage of putting a lower number of pips in. Most trees go all or nothing. Better trees try to maximize the amount of skills they cover based on how much each pip applies, but they still tend to go with 3, 6, or 9. So I understand why Borticus designed the skill unlocks the way he did.
I still find myself disagreeing with you about going with a Jack of All Trades skill tree, too. All of my trees are that way, usually leaning towards damage but actually investing in fewer Tactical skills than Engineering, and I've been able to port them over to the new system, with about 8 points to spare (more than I was expecting) in most cases. Borticus has clarified several times now that the ultimate abilities are for players who want to dedicate themselves to a career like that, and that he expects most players won't. So that's creating build potential right there.
Guys, guys, guys. The normalization is here to stay, but I've said many, many times that individual powers are subject to further tuning.
So please, stop with the dramatic cries of nerf, and let's approach this from a more civil angle -- how much do I need to increase the *base values* of these re-scaled abilities, in order for them to remain competitive and worthwhile in your current builds?
Hi Bort.
Re: Gravity Well. Could you post some numbers on how you've scaled GW1 and GW3 effects with CtrlX and EPG? It would help if this was accompanied by current (holdeck) GG and PG values. A comparison of Range in Km and repel per 1 CtrlX/GG and dmg per 1 PG are the stats of interest.
Overall, I am seeing that there has been a (yet another) general rethink of the ability. I wouldn't call it a straight nerf, as other aspects seem to have increased in effectiveness, most notably the damage. On holodeck right now, it does damage, and I like that it does damage, but that's not my primary purpose for using it. If things stay more or less the way they are right this minute on Tribble, that will likely change, and as one of those 'crazy' Sci players who doesn't really bother (much) with PartGens, it makes me sad to see Science gradually become 'Tac-B'. But this viewpoint is very hard to express and explain without writing an even longer essay than this post already is. I also feel that this point applies to much more than just Gravity Well.
Being a long time Sci player, I, along with many others, can appreciate that it's a hard thing to balance. Get it wrong and Sci stuff is either way too effective (damage or otherwise) or, it's not effective at all and people stop playing it and then don't buy ships and other goodies aimed at Science fans, which in turn leads to the Dyson Destroyer. Yes, that's a dig, but a lighthearted one, and I totally get why that ship was made the way it was made, and ties in with issues like why KDF and RRF still don't have a (excluding Lock Box/Event) Fed comparable range of Science ships.
As a point of general feedback, I will say that in a game that doesn't officially have a trinity, and doesn't have really any (one or two maps, maybe) trinity friendly content, I find it odd that we still have what is essentially a DPS class. My two cents is that it's Tac that needs to be rethought (not nerfed), rather than trying to DPSify Science and Engineering stuff.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Having jumped onto Tribble and compared drain powers at 125 aux with my build, most of them are only slightly impeded, but there's a few weird variances that I don't quite understand what's happened. I don't run a 135+ aux power drain boat, so I'm not actually negatively affected at the moment by those super out of bounds slope changes.
Still, I'm noticing that actual drain effectiveness is way down because it's only two skill points for everyone to get +100% drain resist effectiveness, whereas offensively (I pvp), you only get +50% effectiveness from it. That's true of all the combined skills, but it does mean that drain is going to be way less effective. Not everyone had the points to invest in power insulators before- not with so few NPCs using drain, and drain boats being relatively scarce in pvp. Now it's virtually free :shrug:- and that's not to say I don't appreciate the effort that's gone into this, but I worry about all the work I've done to build something that isn't just a cookie cutter copy of the 90%. The sort of game play that, from what I've read, this revamp is aiming to encourage.
Anyways, Lucho's already touched on Energy Siphon being horribly affected by this. Tykens, at least at 125 aux, seems to get a minor boost to in-a-vacuum numbers, although obviously those are much worse when factoring in that 100% drain resist everyone gets for two points.
The one power that I see a major variance in between holodeck and tribble at 125 aux though is the Quantum Destabilizing Beam from the 'Quantum Phase Catalysts' space weapon set.
On holodeck, I have about 300-ish flowcaps, and that's with every possible boost excluding all gold consoles/deflectors. That power drains 9.5 'all power subsystems' per second.
On tribble, I have about 370-ish drainX, with the same setup and the two points in the skill. It drains 6.2 'all power subsystems' per second.
So it's lost 3.3 effective drain per second, or a reduction of almost exactly 1/3rd.
EDIT: Going through the math, I would need on the order of 800 Drain X to hit 9.5 pps drained via the quantum beam, and assuming I could hit that (some combination of QSM, fleet stat boosts doff assignment boosts, and the inspirational leader trait, probably) it would come at significant detriment to the rest of my build.
Also- the tooltip for the passive 'Drain Infection' doesn't list the damage it deals. That's a MAJOR consideration for me as a player when I want to use my one shot free respec and choose something. It lists the time and the cooldown, but not what the damage is, or whether it benefits from partigens.
The Captain trait "Techie" still has the description saying it boosts hull repair AND hull regen. As this was split into two separate skills, Techie now only boosts hull repair, NOT hull regen.
Okay, my first, knee-jerk response was to be rude, but upon reflection I re-read my post and realized that in my haste to post my conclusions I perhaps was not clear enough, so please, allow me to clarify.
I appreciate the response! I understand where you're coming from, but I'll keep my reply brief rather than touching on everything. From the skill trees I've looked at over the years (and believe me, it's a lot, skills were a huge point of self-doubt for me until recently), you're in the minority when you talk about actually taking advantage of putting a lower number of pips in. Most trees go all or nothing. Better trees try to maximize the amount of skills they cover based on how much each pip applies, but they still tend to go with 3, 6, or 9. So I understand why Borticus designed the skill unlocks the way he did.
I still find myself disagreeing with you about going with a Jack of All Trades skill tree, too. All of my trees are that way, usually leaning towards damage but actually investing in fewer Tactical skills than Engineering, and I've been able to port them over to the new system, with about 8 points to spare (more than I was expecting) in most cases. Borticus has clarified several times now that the ultimate abilities are for players who want to dedicate themselves to a career like that, and that he expects most players won't. So that's creating build potential right there.
I do see your points, however, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about generalizing in the current tree versus the new tree. It may not appeal or seem particularly viable to you, but I prefer a build that isn't tied to one particular ship or strategy.
As for the ultimate abilities, the fact that they exist and seem to be so potent are going to drive most players into one path just to get them, which is the opposite of what the devs have stated: to encourage hybrid characters.
I just don't want to have to toss five plus years and a fair whack of cash down the toilet because of a system revamp that really isn't needed and punishes certain playstyles even further.
The tool tips aren't really helping me on holodeck or tribble -- is there any skill I can take to improve the proc behavior of my Agony Phasers? I was thinking subspace decomplier might increase the duration of the shutdown/DoT, but I can't really tell...
Comments
The nerf to Drain abilities is unacceptable. There absolutely no justification for this. Drain abilities where already weak and needed a buff, especially against certain NPCs that where totally immune.
Time to put the aux scaling and science power normalization into the "failed ideas" folder, and return things to how they where.
Don't get defensive Bort, this was a Bad Idea, and you where wrong to touch science/aux scaling.
The tree itself is an oversimplification that removes any subtle difference between players and the decision gates remove any option for people to be jack of all trades, instead forcing them to choose one style or ability over another.
Pets should not even be in the tree, as there are, to my knowledge, few if any ships with pets that aren't C-Store exclusive, and even if there are, why do tac officers need to have entire blocks dedicated to them?
I bought a LTS a few months ago after playing this game for over five years. Over the years I've seen some thing happen to this game that I've thought were bad decisions, but none of them, not even the removal of the Exploration clusters, were bad enough to make me want to drop this game. This one is. I don't like being railroaded and having my play options limited after having freedom to create for so long, and I suspect that a great many others feel the same.
Unacceptable seems like the right word to me. The changes to plasmonic leech are so drastic that I doubt I will be flying any singularity core ships going forward. My drain build, well its as good as dead. So much for players seeing very little changes to their current setups.
Sarcasm quoted me. I feel special today, lol.
Anyway, since complaining isn't getting me anywhere, 2 possible mutually exclusive suggestions for Energy Siphon since I think Borticus wants to put a cap on power level boosts based purely on skill level, he just doesn't want to say it. I'm not mentioning plasmonic leech as I don't think there are any consoles that scale with power levels.
1) Add Aux scaling to Energy Siphon. It's still the most nerfed skill compared to the old values, but the hit is less drastic.
OR
2) Keep the buff side of things with the new equation, but leave the drain portion untouched.
Either of these would work, specially since resistance levels will be higher in general with the new skill tree since you combined offense with defense.
By the way, I personally prefer #1 to #2.
You're contradicting yourself so much here. They're removing subtle distinctions while adding skills that only work on specific ships? They're oversimplifying things but you can't do everything? (Actually, you still can, and better than you could with the old setup...)
And now drain isn't even getting the much needed buff it deserves, but is having all its effectiveness cut in half?
Are you serious?
Also I made a suggestions thread, since Bort wanted all suggestions bumped over to another thread, and everyone ignored him. Splitting the conversation would make it easier for him and the other devs to find meaningful criticism and feedback in here, so I suggest you all move the suggestions over there.
The patch noted, that tranfer page and old toons were disabled for a time - maybe they switched it back ?....
You spoke about your control build in another post. Did you try it yet?
(PVE - haven't been able to test PVP)
GW3:
Holodeck: @0.32 Repel = Roughly 20k Sphere. Needs engine doff to really hold stuff. Is crowd control.
Tribble: @0.34 Repel = Roughly 7k Sphere. I tested with .32 also, and the pull within that 7k sphere does seems stronger and doesn't need the doff so much (although it still helps a lot). now does around 25-30% more damage with 1:1 Exotic gear. Is essentially single target control ability.
I messed around with Control/PG ratios and essentially, if there was a debate to be had before about whether to go High GG and secondary PG or vice versa and which was more effective, there is no debate now.
The disable side of controlly things seems to be much much better though. I don't do math and equation, but it all generally seems more effective, at least against NPCs.
TL:DR? a 200 GG GW1 now only loses about 500m of pull range (all directions) against a 540 CtrlX GW3. Both do moar damage.
Control related disables are better.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
After reaching lvl 60 unlock ability to use specialization points to buy a reskill token.
What possible justification is there for the out of bounds nerf to energy drain abilities here? They aren't better than partigens or disables. They have never been better than partigens or disables. So they're already an inferior choice from the pure optimization stand point. There are loads of players to explore damaging space magic, but much fewer players who explore other types of science powers.
And with that in mind, the decision was... what... lets go take these powers we WANT people to go try out because they aren't currently...
and make them worse by cutting their effectiveness in half across the board?
I'm sorry but I just don't understand the thought process here.
What is your design philosophy and goals, please?
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Didn't you say yesterday it's not time to panic quite yet? Is it time now?
So please, stop with the dramatic cries of nerf, and let's approach this from a more civil angle -- how much do I need to increase the *base values* of these re-scaled abilities, in order for them to remain competitive and worthwhile in your current builds?
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Nah, it's time to panic when they say it's working as intended
I will say on drains, I get that it must be tough balancing them since they can be used against players, but even on Holodeck they feel unimpressive on Elite level mobs. They definitely soften enemies, but it's disappointing throwing everything into drain skills, stacking drain consoles, running drain pets, and dropping every drain ability you have on an enemy at once under QSM and still only briefly knocking them offline at best. (Then you wait for all those cooldowns to do it again.)
Just something to consider, it might be worth letting these scale up more than they currently do on Holodeck, they certainly shouldn't be being made less effective. And again, I say that as someone opposed to more power for the sake of power. I just feel someone fully dedicating themselves to a build like that deserves to get better results out of it on the highest difficulty.
The subtlety that I mention is that under the current system you don't have to fully commit to maxing out skills. You can put one point here, one there and still have enough points to follow a specific build. It's these little here and there points that make each player's build different, even when arriving at a common end. The new system eliminates the ability to be subtly different from other players by putting in yes or no skill blocks with overall less skill point resources and less overall choice. The decision gates in the path exacerbate this by offering only either/or choices, such as Science 1: Either have +25% sector travel speed OR have Transwarp recharge 50% faster, or Engineer 1: boost to Batteries or boost to Subsystem repair.
As for the comment about pets, that whole set of skills stuck out like a sore thumb for me. Currently, there is one ship that is available to players that has pets, without having to go to the C-Store. Why dedicate the Admiral Tac sub-tree and the decision gate at Tac 4 to that one ship? The Engineer and Science Admiral sub-trees at least are useful regardless of what class of ship you're flying.
As for being a jack of all trades, that doesn't mean that I can do everything the best or that I have every skill maxed.
My engies, for example, are centered around maxing my ships power via EPS Manifold, EPS Power Transfer and high general power levels. To do that I've sunk the majority of my points into Batteries (to extend the duration of EPS Manifold's effect), all four of the direct power skills, Starship EPS (to increase the effect of EPSPT) and Warpcore Potential to generally increase power levels. The remaining points I put into whatever takes my interest. One engie toon is science oriented, another is more tactical.
Do they out DPS a more dedicated build, or do better science/magic than a build dedicated to that? No, but it affords me a degree of flexibility that isn't there in the new skill tree. Look at Engie decision gate 3: Boost engines OR auxilary power. Engi 4: boost shields OR weapons. What if somebody wants to boost shields and weapons but not engines or aux, or vice-versa? Nope, can't do it, you're locked into the black and white choices the devs have left you. Under the current system you can. You can do whatever you want.
The decision gates at the end of each path reinforce this push away from generalizing. If you spread your points around so that you're a hybrid character (the way the devs profess to want) and you won't progress far enough to reach the end points, the really cool ones that require you to sink the majority of your points into one path.
Removing the decision gates in the path would be a good start to actually encouraging hybrid characters. As it stands now, the revamped system severely hampers flexibility, even more than the current system does.
Hopefully this extended post clarifies my position.
Also, point of note. Flying around at warp 10+? Immersion breaking.
As far as drain builds go, maybe boosting the effectiveness of drainX consoles would help? It rewards those who have several of these slotted (meaning science heavy ships). Maybe meet a buff to halved drain powers and a buff to drainX consoles halfway- 1.5x to each?
I think that there have been several good ideas that others have submitted in the past that would fit well in the system that you designed.
As to the issues that cause torpedoes (and mines) to be unpopular, some of them are due to legacy mechanics that were used to keep them in check, and others are bugs that have been plaguing them for 2+ years that have yet to be addressed in any of them except for the Anti-Proton torpedo. In this instance, it's not about shifting the meta, it's about fixing the bugs so that the intended operation and mechanics match reality. When we read the description for Concentrate Firepower or Weapon System Synergy, we expect ALL torpedoes to match the behavior described in the tooltip. As it stands right now, there's a list of what does and does NOT work properly with each of those powers.
So you are right, no new skill revamp or new ability will fix the above issues (and other unlisted issues) for torps and mines. At best, they'll serve as either band-aids or loopholes that last for a small window of time. Ultimately, that frustrates a lot of players who even want to try to slot a torpedo on an otherwise all-beam ship, let alone have a heavy kinetic build.
The foundations are there already, they just require proper development.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Have you considered the effect increasing "base values" would have on our PvE experience? Remember, Delta Rising saw a drastic increase in NPC hitpoints and shields, meaning that a "base value" that would be reasonable for us to use on an NPC would be extremely imbalanced for an NPC to use on us (and probably worse still for us to use on each other)... while backing off from the normalization of science abilities would maintain the system whereby inflated NPC hitpoints and shields are countered by investment in Skills, consoles, power levels, etc. I do understand that there is a strong stance on your end of things towards this normalization, but would a "base value" increase be a solution or would it be the introduction of greater problems?
Otherwise, general impressions and perspective on other posts to date:
on holodeck the engineer captain ability support drone 3 on engineers benefited from the turret and drone ground skill. now this skill is gone replaced with the kit expert skill which groups up all the individual power skills. this new skill does not boost the captain abilities at all.
on holodeck my support drone 3 does 42.3 x2 damage (31DPS) with 6 ticks in turret and drones skill (+84)
on tribble it's just 36.3 x2 damage (26.6DPS) as it's no longer getting the the benefit of the skill
Yeah, it's looking more and more like an unsubtle nerf to captain abilities across the board, especially the ground abilities.
I appreciate the response! I understand where you're coming from, but I'll keep my reply brief rather than touching on everything. From the skill trees I've looked at over the years (and believe me, it's a lot, skills were a huge point of self-doubt for me until recently), you're in the minority when you talk about actually taking advantage of putting a lower number of pips in. Most trees go all or nothing. Better trees try to maximize the amount of skills they cover based on how much each pip applies, but they still tend to go with 3, 6, or 9. So I understand why Borticus designed the skill unlocks the way he did.
I still find myself disagreeing with you about going with a Jack of All Trades skill tree, too. All of my trees are that way, usually leaning towards damage but actually investing in fewer Tactical skills than Engineering, and I've been able to port them over to the new system, with about 8 points to spare (more than I was expecting) in most cases. Borticus has clarified several times now that the ultimate abilities are for players who want to dedicate themselves to a career like that, and that he expects most players won't. So that's creating build potential right there.
Hi Bort.
Re: Gravity Well. Could you post some numbers on how you've scaled GW1 and GW3 effects with CtrlX and EPG? It would help if this was accompanied by current (holdeck) GG and PG values. A comparison of Range in Km and repel per 1 CtrlX/GG and dmg per 1 PG are the stats of interest.
Overall, I am seeing that there has been a (yet another) general rethink of the ability. I wouldn't call it a straight nerf, as other aspects seem to have increased in effectiveness, most notably the damage. On holodeck right now, it does damage, and I like that it does damage, but that's not my primary purpose for using it. If things stay more or less the way they are right this minute on Tribble, that will likely change, and as one of those 'crazy' Sci players who doesn't really bother (much) with PartGens, it makes me sad to see Science gradually become 'Tac-B'. But this viewpoint is very hard to express and explain without writing an even longer essay than this post already is. I also feel that this point applies to much more than just Gravity Well.
Being a long time Sci player, I, along with many others, can appreciate that it's a hard thing to balance. Get it wrong and Sci stuff is either way too effective (damage or otherwise) or, it's not effective at all and people stop playing it and then don't buy ships and other goodies aimed at Science fans, which in turn leads to the Dyson Destroyer. Yes, that's a dig, but a lighthearted one, and I totally get why that ship was made the way it was made, and ties in with issues like why KDF and RRF still don't have a (excluding Lock Box/Event) Fed comparable range of Science ships.
As a point of general feedback, I will say that in a game that doesn't officially have a trinity, and doesn't have really any (one or two maps, maybe) trinity friendly content, I find it odd that we still have what is essentially a DPS class. My two cents is that it's Tac that needs to be rethought (not nerfed), rather than trying to DPSify Science and Engineering stuff.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Still, I'm noticing that actual drain effectiveness is way down because it's only two skill points for everyone to get +100% drain resist effectiveness, whereas offensively (I pvp), you only get +50% effectiveness from it. That's true of all the combined skills, but it does mean that drain is going to be way less effective. Not everyone had the points to invest in power insulators before- not with so few NPCs using drain, and drain boats being relatively scarce in pvp. Now it's virtually free :shrug:- and that's not to say I don't appreciate the effort that's gone into this, but I worry about all the work I've done to build something that isn't just a cookie cutter copy of the 90%. The sort of game play that, from what I've read, this revamp is aiming to encourage.
Anyways, Lucho's already touched on Energy Siphon being horribly affected by this. Tykens, at least at 125 aux, seems to get a minor boost to in-a-vacuum numbers, although obviously those are much worse when factoring in that 100% drain resist everyone gets for two points.
The one power that I see a major variance in between holodeck and tribble at 125 aux though is the Quantum Destabilizing Beam from the 'Quantum Phase Catalysts' space weapon set.
On holodeck, I have about 300-ish flowcaps, and that's with every possible boost excluding all gold consoles/deflectors. That power drains 9.5 'all power subsystems' per second.
On tribble, I have about 370-ish drainX, with the same setup and the two points in the skill. It drains 6.2 'all power subsystems' per second.
So it's lost 3.3 effective drain per second, or a reduction of almost exactly 1/3rd.
EDIT: Going through the math, I would need on the order of 800 Drain X to hit 9.5 pps drained via the quantum beam, and assuming I could hit that (some combination of QSM, fleet stat boosts doff assignment boosts, and the inspirational leader trait, probably) it would come at significant detriment to the rest of my build.
Also- the tooltip for the passive 'Drain Infection' doesn't list the damage it deals. That's a MAJOR consideration for me as a player when I want to use my one shot free respec and choose something. It lists the time and the cooldown, but not what the damage is, or whether it benefits from partigens.
The Captain trait "Techie" still has the description saying it boosts hull repair AND hull regen. As this was split into two separate skills, Techie now only boosts hull repair, NOT hull regen.
I do see your points, however, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about generalizing in the current tree versus the new tree. It may not appeal or seem particularly viable to you, but I prefer a build that isn't tied to one particular ship or strategy.
As for the ultimate abilities, the fact that they exist and seem to be so potent are going to drive most players into one path just to get them, which is the opposite of what the devs have stated: to encourage hybrid characters.
I just don't want to have to toss five plus years and a fair whack of cash down the toilet because of a system revamp that really isn't needed and punishes certain playstyles even further.