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nikeix
Member Posts: 3,972 Arc User
So a while back Borticus mentioned that they might be able to combine some of the parallel directed energy/projectile trees if there were suitable replacements offered for the resulting gaps.
I feel it's EXTREMELY desirable for the Lieutenant Tier directed energy damage and projectile damage skill-lines to be combined. This is pretty much the first choice aggressive new captains have to make and as it stands it's immediately teaching them that lore-appropriate beam-and-torp hybrids are stupid and cost twice as many points as going purely one way or the other. Combining them brings up the performance of hybrid builds without giving major gains to beam boats or science-y torpedo boats. It teaches that hybrids are reasonable when the player is most open to being taught, moving emergent gameplay towards what's seen in the established setting.
I would insert a new 3-point line into the gap to promote our less used weapons in a QoL/utility way rather than direct bonus to DPS...
Projectile Speed: Your cannon fire, torpedoes, and actively seeking mines gain +25%/+40%/+50% speed.
(I've rounded the middle point down slightly from the 50/85/100 pattern just to present more human readable numbers and to make the 3rd point seem slightly more appealing.)
I feel it's EXTREMELY desirable for the Lieutenant Tier directed energy damage and projectile damage skill-lines to be combined. This is pretty much the first choice aggressive new captains have to make and as it stands it's immediately teaching them that lore-appropriate beam-and-torp hybrids are stupid and cost twice as many points as going purely one way or the other. Combining them brings up the performance of hybrid builds without giving major gains to beam boats or science-y torpedo boats. It teaches that hybrids are reasonable when the player is most open to being taught, moving emergent gameplay towards what's seen in the established setting.
I would insert a new 3-point line into the gap to promote our less used weapons in a QoL/utility way rather than direct bonus to DPS...
Projectile Speed: Your cannon fire, torpedoes, and actively seeking mines gain +25%/+40%/+50% speed.
(I've rounded the middle point down slightly from the 50/85/100 pattern just to present more human readable numbers and to make the 3rd point seem slightly more appealing.)
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i'll add my post from the feedback thread here too, so the ideas are all in one place. maybe it'll spawn an idea that allows the merging of the first two tactical unlock path perks, and replace one of them)
The idea was to increase the proc rate for weapons. I think the first rank would double the rate of proc up to 10% and I do not remember what the other two parts were. I do like the idea of increasing the proc rate so maybe.
Level 1: Doubles Proc Rates to a cap of 10%
Level 2: Increases duration of proc
Level 3: Increase the effect of the proc
This would not affect normal AP weapons, but it would make some other weapon types more desirable.
Like I said, not my idea, but I do like it.
What if we "moved" a tactical skill or two down a level, slid the "science" range enhancers to tactical (the ones that remove weapon falloff), and split the offensive and defensive aspects of drain apart?
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]
"Projectile Speed"
This doesn't solve issues. It's still a Projectile-specific skill, being proposed as a solution to the Energy/Projectile split. You included Cannon bolts in your write-up, but even that would leave Beams out in the cold.
"Firing Cycle Haste"
Same as above, as it only affects Energy Weapons. Also, in order to make the Skill feel worthwhile, would require an amount of Haste that causes itemizations issues, and balance concerns. The actual suggestion written above is wordy enough to be a concern on its own, and behaves differently on different ships, or with different abilities. "Does X to Y" - that's what we're after in the new system, instead of "does this, and this, and this, and this, and this other thing to this but in a slightly different way." (This was one of the reasons Attack Patterns got left behind)
"Improved Proc Rate"
Technically possible, but would require a complete re-build of how Procs work, and possibly some new technology. Furthermore, probably not a great idea. Even pumping a 2.5% chance up to 5% causes a drastic swing in the number of times the effect activates in a ~10-minute piece of content. And in the case of some really devastating procs (like Shields Offline from Phasers) would cause some serious metagame challenges and balance concerns.
Split Drain X again? What about it's counterpart - Control X? And one of the main motivations we had for combining the Offensive and Defensive components of these skills is that those defenses were vastly underutilized by the huge majority of players. That is, our database crawls should something like 1.2% of players had ANY of those skills purchased. Let alone heavily invested or maxed. That's not a problem in the new system, and not one that I'm anxious to re-invent.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
What about adding a new category for mines? I remember when mines were considered an acceptable part of most combat builds, but they have lost favor in recent years. Keep the mine boost as part of the combined projectile skill, but add a new level.
Level 1: Increased damage to mines (X%)
Level 2: Further increased damage (Y%)
Level 3: Increase mine tracking distance or Improved Accuracy with Mine Dispersal Patterns.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Do this, but not split the control abilities. Instead, add a debuff enhancement of sorts.
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.
Something like a "Debuff Expertise" set of Skill nodes?
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
If balance is the concern in terms of weapons procing to much, then Why in the world is it okay for a Anit Porton Beam allowed to proc extra CritD everytime you land a CritH. And this CritH rate (proc rate) can be greatly improved past 2.5%
I would like to clarify one thing Bort. I was not suggesting splitting projectiles weapons, but making an additional node that boosts mines only. If you combined the energy/torp abilities, you could add a new node that only boosts mine damage. This might increase interest in using these weapons since they have fallen out of favor in my experience except the tractor/Nukara mines.
Maybe call it "General Enhancements", and add a small firing arc bonus to all weapons. Maybe make the top tier give standard beams 270* rather than 250*, which is 8%, suggesting a progression of 2% / 5% / 8%. Cannons and torpedos, with generally more limited arcs, get less benefit from that arc expansion BUT still get the cannon bolt / projectile speed bonus. Seems equitable.
@borticuscryptic He has a good idea with the Cannon projectile speed. The reason cannons are falling behind beams so bad right now is the fact that it takes forever for cannon fire to actually hit the target. Beams are just there. Cannon bolts take awhile to travel to their targets. lets get a skill to fix this.
I don't think such a skill would need as high of a level as you think to be useful, after all increasing the rate of fire would also inherently increase the number of procs over time by creating more opportunities for the procs to occur, so in a way this would also provide minor a proc increase without actually increasing the overall chance. Crits would be similarly affected. So a small buff, with a full explanation of everything that is indirectly affected by this, should be more than enough to make it an attractive skill. Another option would be for it to be a trade-off, an actual significant rate-of-fire increase, in exchange for a lower proc and/or crit rate (this would also make [DMG] modifiers attractive for builds with this specific skill and may allow for builds that forego high crit numbers for more consistent, sustained DPS).
Also, would it be out of the question for a "Firing Cycle Haste" or other rate of fire buff to also provide a minor decrease to torpedo cooldowns? It's essentially the same concept, in that a lower cooldown means an increased rate of fire for the torps.
Anything that only works with one weapon type or needs convoluted mechanics to work with multiple weapon types should just be out by default, since it's no better than what we have here. And I'd rather see things that open up interesting build potential rather than just being MOAR POWWAH for the sake of it. We really don't need that.
And no, don't separate Drain Expertise again. That's one of my favorite changes in this revamp, I wanted the defensive skills but the opportunity cost was too high
-edit-
I do like the projectile/cannon pulse speed increase idea, though. Those would make neat starship traits, I think. Tying them to your ship ("High Velocity Torpedo Launchers" or something along that line) makes a lot more sense than a skill to me, too.
Subsystem Offline isn't currently a 'devastating' proc, and hasn't been ever since that 30 second Disable Immunity was added to it (though if the duration scales off ControlX, it might very well become one again)
you want a REAL davastating proc? the one off Elachi Disruptors fits the bill perfectly with full shield penetration AND a 50% resist debuff
and Antiproton is even worse, because that can scale anywhere from 2.5% all the way up to 50% (and possibly even higher for Romulans), plus its effect scales off Critical Severity, which even the average player tends to have in rather high numbers
all this doesn't mean an increased proc chance/duration/effect skill shouldn't be considered, just that it has to be done CAREFULLY, and would likely require reducing outlier procs to more reasonable levels (which, as you pointed out, isn't something you'll be doing for the skill revamp, so maybe this could be considered for Season 12 or Xpac 3 if you have the time?)
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
My one suggestion of significantly increased rate of fire for all weapons (projectiles included), with significantly reduced crit rate would open up a new build style, as it would allow you to trade out RNG dependant high spike damage for higher sustained DPS. Ideally both high crit and high rate of fire builds would provide the same overall DPS if they sat parked in one spot blasting a single target for ten minutes, one would just be very spikey while the other was a relatively flat line of consistent damage.
Another idea I like that I forgot to mention earlier is an increase to weapon arcs. This one is nice because it doesn't -directly- impact DPS, is applicable to all players and all weapon types (could even open it up to Sci abilities if you wanted), and while certainly very useful wouldn't be a must have.
The thing about Antiproton, since that comes up a lot, is that while a lot of people see that its proc rate goes up as you make a build stronger (which is true, and part of why it's popular), the amount you actually gain each time it procs goes down as your build gets stronger, which is unlike most other procs. Plasma fire, for example, scales up with most of the buffs that scale up energy weapons, and also benefits from your critical hit chance (as the plasma fire can crit). Polaron and tetryon scale up with drains skills, most of the one-off damaging procs (such as phased biomatter, voth ap, fluidic ap, and withering disruptor) scale up with damage buffs much like plasma does. Antiproton, on the other hand, scales down its relative impact with your crit severity and other damage bonuses, because the difference between 420/400 and 220/200 is a 5% increase to the damage of a critical hit vs a 10% increase to the damage of a critical hit. In both cases, it gains the 20 damage, but the impact that you see lessens.
I mean, I'm not trying to call it weak; I use it, and advocate it still, but it doesn't just scale endlessly with no downside.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
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Ok, let's bring beams "in from the cold".
Weapon Speed: Your beams, cannon fire, torpedoes, and actively seeking mines gain +25%/+40%/+50% speed.
...thought most players perceive beam travel time as being instantaneous. Hard to buff perfection
OTOH you've already demonstrated a willingness to buff other weapon types compared to beams and even actively nerfed beams in absolute terms when you normalized drop off at long range on beams vs. cannon from 40%/60% to 50%/50%. Your argument against introducing a Projectile Speed skill option is just not entirely convincing in that light
"Weapon Speed" (including beams now, not that they care) is nice because it doesn't increase raw DPS, instead it makes lesser used weapons more fluid in real play rather than test dummy parsing, destructible torpedoes become more of a thing, and it largely uses tech we know the engine supports because there are a handful of Projectile Speed buffs for torpedoes and active Mines already available.
Actually, I was the one who proposed the idea a week or so ago on this forum and the numbers I put out were a 20%/40%/60% of the current base, making 2.5% proc chances upgrade to 3%/3.5%/4% and proportionately larger benefits for base 5% procs, base 10% procs, etc. I recognize a 100% increase in procs would be HUGE. "Drastic" even
Either way, thanks for getting directly involved
Debuffs have a lot of potential forms and effects, but they do all have ONE thing in common...
Duration.
Maybe a 3-point skill line that makes non-Drain, non-Control debuffs last longer?
(This would definitely require a bit more shuffling than something that could be plopped directly into the Lieutenant-tier Tactical, but maybe it's got potential....?)
Berserker: You gain a .5N/.85N/N bonus to accuracy and defense for each enemy ship within 3km (max 5 ships).
I like sniper gameplay, but there's something to be said for enabling those captains that just love to dive headlong into the middle of the fur ball. A potential counterpart to the damage drop off reduction 3-point chain.
I'm gonna go re-read the game's space trait genetic resequencers for inspiration. There's a TON of specialized mechanics locked up in those that could be used to generate a new 3-point chain and get us the energy/projectile merge.
because having to wait 10 seconds after combat ends to gain access to full impulse or cloaking sucks
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
While the trigger (activating Evasive maneuvers) is the important thing, here's one possible example of a new effect it might provide~
Now or Never: Activating Evasive Maneuvers immediately reduces the remaining cooldown on all Bridge Officer abilities by 1second/2 seconds/3 seconds.
That seems like that could give you some great clutch gameplay moments and with Evasive Maneuvers being on a base 60ssecond cooldown max investment and spamming EM still only has an average boost of 5% to all three types of skills compared to the +20% to one type available in the Admiral tier.
That... is AMAZING.
OMG, I would dump every point possible into that.
Forget moar deeps. Forget more survivability. I'll pay anything for LESS BOREDOM.
Advanced Maneuvering - Either an increasing percent chance to completely avoid AOEs, or it could be similar to Shield Mastery in that you can avoid one AOE every 20 seconds at rank one, 17.5 seconds at rank two, and 15 seconds at rank three.
Edited to add: Though I suppose keeping to the way the rest of the system works, Rank Two should probably be something like 17 or 16.5 seconds.
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
1) I would really like to see ships with the built in torp only weapon slot, something like the Tempest Tail Gun on the patrol escort refit or the Solanae Dual Heavy Proton Cannon on the Dyson Science Destroyer.
2) Make new tactical consoles that boost both general beams or cannons and general torps (at a reduced rate that of the general beam consoles, maybe around 85percent so that the a basic beam/torp vulnerability locator mk XII would have Stats: +23.7% to beam & torp +1.6% CritH.
3) I understand why kemocite was nerfed on torps, but I think it went to far. Before the kemocite torp nerf I could run a hybrid build without putting any points into torp skills. So either readjusting kemocite or adding a new ensign level tactical ability that boosts torps on top spread and high yield would be useful.
None of these ideas will make lore consistent builds common place. In fact fixing the skill tree wont fix the problem entirely. To be fair I have noticed that the developers have been trying to boost torpedo effectiveness a great a deal, with various traits, consoles, and new torps, but for the most part these innovations have tended to support builds that are basically torp boats with a beam or two slapped on just to get a set piece bonus.
I think some of the suggestions posted here to the problem of the missing tactical skills are workable if difficult to implement. I hope that serious consideration is given to trying to get these skills merged and moving the game in the direction of more mixed builds.
A 100% negation with an internal cooldown might be stepping a little to hard on the toes of Scratched the Paint in the Pilot specialization. But something specifically anti-AoE for Tacical nodes could be very handy.
That Was Too Close: You gain +.5N/.85N/N resistance to all incoming AoE damage (both Energy and Kinetic).
That would give us a very thematic and flavorful form of mitigation that still counts towards the Tactical path and the Frenzy capstone.
Weapons hits now convert a portion of the damaged shield or hull into additional damage but of the opposite damage type.
Energy weapons: On hit converts to mass causing additional % kinetic damage (e.g. 10,17,20%) based on the initial damage.
Projectiles: On hit converts to energy causing additional % energy damage (e.g. 10,17,20%) based on the initial damage.
So effectively the additional kinetic damage by energy weapons to shields will face the kinetic penalty, but still do some damage. However hitting hull directly should cause additional damage based on kinetic resists. As for projectiles the additional energy damage would not face a kinetic penalty to shields, but still be subject to hull energy resists.
What energy type the additional projectile damage is as far as resists are concerned, I'm not so sure, but it might not matter for npcs anyway. But for other players it would.
The synergy with hull and shield pen could be interesting.
To say nothing of why a theoretical 'debuff expertise' would only split offensive/defensive parts of drain apart. I mean doesn't that sort of defeat the whole purpose of consolidation? Does that suggest we should take all combined skills and split them apart too? Doesn't that take us back to where we started?
I'm disappointed but not surprised to learn that firing cycle haste doesn't affect torpedoes, though, as a predominantly torpedo focused player. A node that improves weapon flight speed would be interesting, boosted proc rate- if possible- seems like it would be mandatory if you aren't using antiprotons. Perhaps some sort of 'proc magnitude' node? Increase the duration of effects with duration, increase the number values of stuff without it. So plasma fire lasts longer, but tetryons strip more shields. If it could apply to torps (most of which have 100% proc rate, not sure if they're coded differently under the hood) it'd be great.
Heh, didn't know there was already something like that, haven't gotten very far in Specialization yet.
I do think it would be better to have a unique skill based on Defense rather than Resistance, since that better fits what's already in the Tac Tree.
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!" - Agatha Heterodyne
EMP Release: Your weapons have a 1%/2%/3% chance to placate your enemy for 3 seconds.
Destabilizing Shots: Your weapons give a 20% debuff to enemy shield regeneration that lasts 2/4/6 seconds.
Blinding Shots: Your weapons give a 20% debuff to enemy accuracy and perception that lasts 2/4/6 seconds.
Brownout Conduits: When activating energy weapons when your weapon subsystem power is above 125, you gain 10%/20%/30% firing cycle haste and your weapons drain all subsystems. (Plenty of variation on this theme is possible.)
Tactical Reserve Power: Your energy weapons drain 90%/80%/70% of their normal weapons subsystem power and instead draw 10%/20%/30% from auxiliary subsystem. (This could also be used in the other direction, from weapons to shields/engines/aux.)
Return Fire Coordination: When being struck by energy weapons, the enemy hitting you loses 10%/20%/30% defense and 5%/10%/15% shield hardness against you.
Fleet Combat Coordination: You, your hangar pets, and your teammates gain 1%/2%/3% firing cycle haste and 2%/4%/6% bonus accuracy.
ECM Mastery: Gain 10%/20%/30% defense and a 10%/20%/30% chance to confuse against destructible torpedoes, mines, and hangar pets.
Ordnance Coordination Network: Your mines gain 20%/40%/60% tracking distance and speed, and triggering one of your active mines has a 10%/20%/30% chance to cause your other mines to converge on the target.
Platform Control Mastery: All your deployable assets (torpedo launchers, Sensor Interference, command battleship platforms, Aceton Assimilator, etc.) gain 10%/20%/30% increase to all effects.