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Ultimate Ability for Engineers (Feedback, Observation & Idea)
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Member Posts: 13 Arc User
--- Introduction ---
Last night live-stream inspired me to help out with the upcoming skilltree. I'm ok with the Ultimates for the Science & Tactical. You can influence the outcome by using the right equipment. And if you activate such ability, you see directly the result of it in the amount of damage output you create.
However the Engineering ability not so much. It is basicly a plasma proc which you cannot influence and it has a damage over time. You won't really notice the effect that much. An Ultimate in my mind is something that has an worthwhile effect that does something visually and feels different. It should have a risk vs reward feeling to it, and something you can influence!
--- General Observations ---
So I'm going to take a look at what kind of player the engineer is; If a engineer spends so many points into engineering, you can probably expect that:
- He is going to fly a cruiser to make the most out of his skills.
- He is going to be able to hull tank, really really good.
- He is going to have a very very high base energy.
So he wants an Ultimate ability that makes the best out of these skills he invested in. Borticus already mentioned in the livestream itself that he would hope more players would take a defensive role (I AGREE). Engineer is going to shine in that, but I also know that STO isn't a classical trinity (it also something they mentioned before). So how are we going to create an ultimate ability that can act as defence but also help the cruiser offensively (even if it is indirectly) while keep it unique, worthwhile, but not overpowered?
--- THE Ultimate Ability for Engineers ---
I don't want people to focus on numbers too much, please take them with a grain of salt and that a look at the core mechanics of the idea. Some figures should be changed/adjusted depending on testing.
MAIN EFFECT: - Command & Control -
Discription; Your captain now has the ability to fool the enemy sensors. It flows energy from the warpcore to the hull to generate waves that fools the enemy thinking the ship has a massive building energy output. In reality, the hull of the ship itself is reinforced for the incoming damage and inertia + turnrate is reduced ("flying brick syndrome"). Part off the incoming damage is converted into energy which is stored and used after.
Ability duration; aprox 15 sec
-- Reduce subsystem powers by -13 (negating all the bonus from skills basicly, but it doesn't cripple)
-- Reduce Turnrate & Innertia
-- Reset all treat of other players for 5sec within 10km radius
-- After Ability has been used; use converted energy into hull heal over time (aprox 15 sec) depending on the amount of damage received.
-- Increase 100%+ hull amount - OR - 200%+ Temp hitpoints
3 additional options to make the ultimate ability stronger. Which add the offensive aspect that is lacking
1. During Command & Control - All incoming heals are doubled (good synergy with science ultimate) - OR - Increase effectiveness of hull amount/temp hitpoints.
2. Converted Energy is now also used to increase Crit Severity by (amount of damage recieved)% for 15sec
3. Converted Energy is now also used to increase proc chance of weapons to (amount of damage recieved)% for 15sec.
--- Closing thoughts ---
This Ultimate ability, has a high risk vs reward. You will catch attention from all NPC's, reduce your mobility and reduce energy amount. In that small time period you neeed to survive, and you want to take a lot of damage, ones you survived you get a very very good bonus to your potential damage output. Which can be customized and adjusted to your liking by using the guns with your favorite proc.
Last night live-stream inspired me to help out with the upcoming skilltree. I'm ok with the Ultimates for the Science & Tactical. You can influence the outcome by using the right equipment. And if you activate such ability, you see directly the result of it in the amount of damage output you create.
However the Engineering ability not so much. It is basicly a plasma proc which you cannot influence and it has a damage over time. You won't really notice the effect that much. An Ultimate in my mind is something that has an worthwhile effect that does something visually and feels different. It should have a risk vs reward feeling to it, and something you can influence!
--- General Observations ---
So I'm going to take a look at what kind of player the engineer is; If a engineer spends so many points into engineering, you can probably expect that:
- He is going to fly a cruiser to make the most out of his skills.
- He is going to be able to hull tank, really really good.
- He is going to have a very very high base energy.
So he wants an Ultimate ability that makes the best out of these skills he invested in. Borticus already mentioned in the livestream itself that he would hope more players would take a defensive role (I AGREE). Engineer is going to shine in that, but I also know that STO isn't a classical trinity (it also something they mentioned before). So how are we going to create an ultimate ability that can act as defence but also help the cruiser offensively (even if it is indirectly) while keep it unique, worthwhile, but not overpowered?
--- THE Ultimate Ability for Engineers ---
I don't want people to focus on numbers too much, please take them with a grain of salt and that a look at the core mechanics of the idea. Some figures should be changed/adjusted depending on testing.
MAIN EFFECT: - Command & Control -
Discription; Your captain now has the ability to fool the enemy sensors. It flows energy from the warpcore to the hull to generate waves that fools the enemy thinking the ship has a massive building energy output. In reality, the hull of the ship itself is reinforced for the incoming damage and inertia + turnrate is reduced ("flying brick syndrome"). Part off the incoming damage is converted into energy which is stored and used after.
Ability duration; aprox 15 sec
-- Reduce subsystem powers by -13 (negating all the bonus from skills basicly, but it doesn't cripple)
-- Reduce Turnrate & Innertia
-- Reset all treat of other players for 5sec within 10km radius
-- After Ability has been used; use converted energy into hull heal over time (aprox 15 sec) depending on the amount of damage received.
-- Increase 100%+ hull amount - OR - 200%+ Temp hitpoints
3 additional options to make the ultimate ability stronger. Which add the offensive aspect that is lacking
1. During Command & Control - All incoming heals are doubled (good synergy with science ultimate) - OR - Increase effectiveness of hull amount/temp hitpoints.
2. Converted Energy is now also used to increase Crit Severity by (amount of damage recieved)% for 15sec
3. Converted Energy is now also used to increase proc chance of weapons to (amount of damage recieved)% for 15sec.
--- Closing thoughts ---
This Ultimate ability, has a high risk vs reward. You will catch attention from all NPC's, reduce your mobility and reduce energy amount. In that small time period you neeed to survive, and you want to take a lot of damage, ones you survived you get a very very good bonus to your potential damage output. Which can be customized and adjusted to your liking by using the guns with your favorite proc.
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Comments
But first let me ask you this: Would you honestly pursue such an investment in a single track of Skills, for an ability that didn't deal damage?
I know the 'gut reaction' might be to say yes, as that feels like better balance, better design, and more interesting gameplay. But... honestly think about it. Right now, the game's content and meta-game primarily revolve around destroying enemies as quickly/efficiently as possible.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
The challenge is of course to give us a reason to tank...
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
If you got a Gravity Well, you'll have all the crowd control you will ever really need, more will just not really add to it.
Healing? You don't need that much anymore, especially with all the free healing sources the game has, and the short life span NPCs usually have.
So I think you're right, the Ultimate ability has to add somehow to damage output. Directly dealing damage, debuffing enemies resists or increasing bleedthroughs or armor penetration, that kind of stuff.
Now, maybe if you gave me pilot maneuvers (or something equivalent) as a Ultimate ability, I could be persuaded. You don't need them probably, but they are just cool. (Not suggesting that this is a realistic option, just an example of something that would feel like a gameplay changer without being DPS.)
Maybe something that would be interesting and fit the realm of the engineering supporter/healer/tank would be something you could apply to someone else, and at least has a good potential to add damage.
Optimized Shield Harmonics
Your engineering training allows you to analyze shield deflection patterns to analyze enemy weapon frequencies, allowing you to optimize your shield use.
Targets self or ally, the effect lasts for 20 seconds. For the duration, the target has perfect shields, suffering no bleed through damage.
OSH: Harmonic Interference Predictions
Knowing the enemies weapon frequencies also allows you to predict the enemy shield frequencies
When enemy attacks the target, the attacker suffers a "Predicted Shield Frequencies" debuff for 10 seconds. While this debuff applies, the target suffers increased bleed through damage.
OSH: Radiating Shield Harmonics
10 % of the energy damage the target suffers while under the effect of this ability is released as radiation damage in a 3km radius.
OSH: Extended Harmonics
The duration extends to 30 seconds.
I, for one, do not give a flaming flying targs posterior about the DPS race. It is just another symptom of an underlying problem within the very meta you ask us to consider. Your team, it seems, has allowed the very small, yet overly vocal, group that just wants to kill stuff drive you away from the very mechanic that keeps a lot of individuals playing MMOs in general.
I understand you have to go where the money is, and I can appreciate that.
However, I prefer making a support build.
I still to this day dream of having a Tholian Recluse that I can set up for a "Nanny" build. Do I understand that it will lower MY DPS? Of course. BUT, I also understand how it will help out the other members of my team with aggro mitigation, enemy resistance reduction, and a few other nifties that I have yet to be able quantify as I have not been able to even afford the T5 (T5-U) ship that is required to make such a build even possible.
I play one of the single hardest class/race combos in the game. The oft overlooked and much maligned Klingon Scientist. Do I love playing that toon? Undoubtedly YES. Do I feel that that toon is unfairly overlooked with the new ship designs? Again, YES. Do I openly complain about said feelings of disproportionate disdain as it appears to be so prevalent within the game. Sadly, YES, and with an even greater feeling of futility as the game moves further into the future with things progressing as they have been.
But I stray from the proffered discussion at hand.
Would I invest heavily into a skill path that does not add to the ever increasing DPS race if offered? Quite possibly. If that ability was made as strongly to help with damage mitigation and overall survivability of the party as a whole.
As I stated previously, I am NOT one of the masses that look to just kill things quickly. I like looking for weakness, and exploiting it for the TEAMS benefit, not just mine.
You said you'd like the ultimate to be offensive so in thinking of something I think the best thing for that track would be a weapon proc power like Kemocite Laced Weaponry. I'l be brainstorming some ideas.
Everyone always says they want more non-combat stuff, then complains when you guys release things that don't directly increase their damage. See the [CtlDur] kit frames, which people were whining about from day one despite us having plenty of DPS-centric kit frames already. (Those frames do have issues with not applying to the secondary control effects of many abilities, however!)
Engineering Ultimate (name To Be Determined)
After activating this Ultimate you can apply any of your single target Engineering Captain Abilities to an Ally with 10 km. Using an Engineering Captain Ability on an Ally during this time span will cause the Captain Ability to also be applied to self simultaneously. Duration: 5 seconds. Cooldown: (To Be Determined by @borticuscryptic )
Engineering Ultimate (name To Be Determined)
Activating this Ultimate will cause the Global and Shared Cooldowns (but not "own" Cooldown) on Emergency Power to X Bridge Officer Skills activated while this Ultimate is in effect to be reduced to 1 second. Duration: 5 seconds. Cooldown: (To Be Determined by @borticuscryptic )
Engineering Ultimate (name To Be Determined)
Rather than being an "active" clickable Ultimate, what about a "passive" Ultimate that is activated by something else? I'm thinking specifically of something that activates a boost to EPS Transfer during Full Impulse. Perhaps something like +100 EPS Transfer for 3 seconds (max stack 3) each second Full Impulse is toggled on. This would then allow Engineering oriented Captains to routinely come out of Full Impulse at very near full Power in all systems much more quickly than is typical. The purpose would be to reduce/combat (negate?) the "power penalty" of charging into battle at Full Impulse. This Ultimate wouldn't have a Cooldown, per se, but it would be restricted by use of Full Impulse, which is a Not Red Alert only function, making this Ultimate a non-combat only effect which enables both "jousting" alpha strikes and surprise attacks not available to other Captains.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
As well as it needs to apply some sort of debuff perhaps increase weapons power drain, as well as lower max power levels ? This would allow such build to exist better in the current meta.
Science one should be a resistance+defense debuff and increase crit severity/crit hit that helps both their science ability damage as well as weapons fire.
Also how about a large increase to passive regeneration and armor rating? Allow the armor boost (say +20) to apply outside the damage resistance curve. So if you have 70% resists you would have 90% while this was active for example.
Also consider having different duration for the ultimate as some might work better as a long term buff. A 90 second recharge would also be nice as two minutes is rather annoying. It just occurred to me that it might be interesting for it to remove the power cap entirely and just let you boost it as high as you can while the ability is active... but that may be overkill.
Having an Ultimate Ability to make gun/torp procs increased OR work 100% for a short period of time would be amazing. It will still fit into the "support" role but also a part of damage.
Bort, I know you said it was game breaking if this was had a replacement for torpedo skill, that proc chances would be increased. However this as a ultimate ability should be ok no?
Click: LOOK. AT. ME.
This is a really interesting angle to examine. Thanks for basing a suggestion on it.
I'm not certain that every Engineering-heavy ship will want to Taunt, though. They might just be players that REALLY hate exploding.
But then there's also this:
... which justifies keeping this ability as a damage-dealer.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Plasma Damage, and even Plasma Consoles do nothing for me.... I very much Prefer items like the Krenim Science Consoles, but thats another can of worms.
For Example: (This is something I just came up with on the spot, completely open for adjustment if other have better ideas.
EPS Overload
Repeated Attacks by Enemies have caused the subsystem stabilizers on your starship to Overload, your best option is to quickly Transfer that Power to your Teamates in order to prevent an Explosion.
Applies to Up to 5 Friendly Starships within 10 KM
+30 All Subsytem Power for 15 Seconds
+2 Power Transfer Rate for 15 Seconds
+10% Energy Weapon Haste for 15 Seconds
+10 Flight Speed for 15 Seconds
+10 Shield Regen for 15 Seconds
Activates Global Cooldown for These Abilities: (to Team. no double Dipping)
If we stay within EPS Corruption as it is:
EPS Corruption could probably made such if it did something like damage resist debuffs. Something less straightforward could be a Plasmonic Leech like effect for all attackers, e.g. granting some energy buff to them, or maybe granting temporary shield points or hull healing - the EPS "corruption" be not just a broken EPS system, but transferring energy to the target's attackers.
Whether they meant to or not, they've built a tank. Nobody else on the map is likely to be able to absorb as much punishment. But that durability only really advances the mission if people are shooting at you. And since you probably don't have substantial DPS to draw attention with, you need a way to get that to happen.
But if not ever player wants it... make the forced taunt one of the 3 add-ons. I don't think anyone will get to 28+ engineering nodes by accident
Don't get me wrong - I love that it's a damage dealer. I'm just saying instead of all the suggestions to increase its damage ten-fold or whatever, you could just slap a +5000% threat multiplier on the damage it does now and suddenly you have a powerful tool to not only clear junk in solo play but to look like a hero in group play. The question is more do you want it intrinsic or as one of the 3 possible upgrades?
I'm playing a fairly tanky Engineer captain in a Fleet Eclipse right now and I love that I can sprint in ahead of my team while cloaked and pop Structural Integrity Leech right in the middle of a formation and secure compelling aggro on the whole mass in the first instant of the fight allowing my teammates to pull things off one at a time as they're ready for them while I roll though a whole array of 'no, I'm not even close to dying' antics in the midst of the swarm.
So maybe if EPS corruption had an upgrade than made it AoE with a partial reduction in damage... you could again use it to sweep up the attention of a whole squadron and laugh maniacally as they scrabble ineffectually trying to hurt the almighty brick. (...maniacal laughing not required but strongly encouraged for health reasons).
I really like the idea of making it a team ability and I like the idea of adding power, EPS, Haste, etc, but a lot of players rely on EPTx and A2B cycles to be consistent.
I can get damage very easily in any number of ways, I want something that is unique. That's my opinion.
If so, would it be theoretically possible to debuff a single target with an EPS "inversion" ... so that +100 EPS becomes -100 EPS ... and +200 EPS becomes -200 EPS ... temporarily ... as an Engineering Ultimate? It would be a "shutdown" Ultimate that doesn't rely on Disables (per se) but rather on "crashing" the power network on the target, which then knocks systems offline due to lack of power. Hot restarting a system with zero power is a bit difficult.
Really ... er ... powerful ... but also a an Engineering styled spin on a "drain" ability that could yield extreme vulnerability, making damage throughput rather dramatic during the window of vulnerability.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
So... tie it into "Threatening Stance" then...?
Globloads of +Taunt if Stance is on (and maybe a little Temporary HP), or a little -Taunt and +Damage if stance is off. Simples!
EPS just reduces the time between subsystem power "pulses". (e.g. after turning off full impulse, with the base 100 EPS your ship will transfer 5 energy every second back into each subsystem until you hit whatever your normal settings are. With 200 EPS you'd get 5 energy every 0.5 seconds). So I'm fairly sure that lowering EPS enough would make that pulse simply take longer - e.g. 2 seconds between pulses, 4 seconds, etc, up to infinity.
In other words, your enemies wouldn't technically get their power drained with sufficiently low levels of eps, however once drained they'd be unable to raise their power levels back to normal.
That said, what you're talking about seems to be something more like a Single-target version of Tyken's Rift - where all power levels are drained by X amount every Y seconds. As long as this stacks and X/Y is greater than 5 then this will eventually drain normal PVE targets (e.g. those with no +EPS or Drain resistance) dry.