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Seeking Balence: When the phasers hit the metal.
ensignfreekill
Member Posts: 43 Arc User
I seek balance. Admittedly I seek it by pulling the beam all the way out and jumping on the end till it breaks, but true balance cannot be achieved if we are all clustered in the middle.
Anyhow In the course of our recent discussions three things were brought up.
1. Torpedoes have an innate 75% resist when hitting shields .
2. The vast majority use all energy weapons /science damage.
3. Canon (as in lore not as in projectile weapons) has most ships using torpedoes and beams.
I had to ask myself. Why. The answer was probably because torpedoes give a much better visual exploding into hull, and the special effects crew loved to show the approach and impact. A beam suddenly hitting is less impressive graphically. But the lore sorta stuck. Energy weapons to take down their shields or do pinpoint attacks to cause secondary effects, torpedoes to blow $%#& up. It kind of makes sense too. Focused energy weapons are just that. Focused. Unless you specifically targeted the warp core or the bridge you don't really see a beam of light (with the notable exception of the borg cutting beam) slicing huge hunks out of the hull. You occasionally see the secondary explosions when the beam hits something critical, like a warp core, but other than that, they just weren't as effective as a torpedo.
From a game play perspective it sort of comes down to ok I got their shields down. Now. Do I switch to torpedoes and make them go boom or try to give them the death of 1000 pinpricks of light. In the game however, when the phazer meets hull... it is perfectly effective. There is no reason to switch to torpedoes to start doing massive damage. Your energy weapons don't lose any of their effectiveness. There is no equivalent penalty on energy damage to hull.
In fact, because with torpedoes you just have to worry about kinetic resist... and there are tons of different energy resists, its actually easier to defend against torpedoes on the hull than against the myriad of energy types.
So players are faced with the fact: I can use energy weapons that are 100% effective 100% of the time or I can use torpedoes which lose 75% effect off the top for half the fight.
The equation has one glaring imbalance. There is no reason to carry a torpedo if energy weapons are perfectly effective against hull and shield.
Now, the 75% reduction of effectiveness for torpedo's against shields is probably a bit harsh. After all these are powerful energy weapons we are dealing with, but cutting through thick metal with light is no easy feat, and when you do make it through, you are left with a small hole, not a gaping blast crater.
Knowing full well that I am about to "break the board" by jumping on the end and be buried in the massive flaming wreck to follow (I beg you hear me out knowing I'm running a FAW/beam boat right now too) what if a penalty were applied to energy weapons when dealing hull damage.
This would give me a reason to carry a torpedo or have something like the borg cutting beam, or a weapon or trait with a kinetic proc, to make my energy weapons more effective against the hull. It would restore the balance of the weapons. No longer would engery be king in all situations. Energy takes out shields best, Torps take out hull best.
I would say a 50% off the top penalty for energy weapons vs hull, and lowering the torp penalty to 50% vs shields, would balance the game well. You could still be pure one or the other without losing all effectiveness, but there would be reason to want to carry both and use them appropriately again.
A torpedo boat should have a really rough time against a good shield tank, unless the torp boat has shield stripping or bypassing procs or better yet has a beam/shield stripping friend to clear the road.
But equally so a beam boat should have a rough time against a heavy hull tank, unless they are using hull damaging procs and kinetic beams. and right now that's just not the case.
So to conclude, before you roast me alive over a flaming nerf pit.. ask yourself.. do you want a return to the days of strategically beating down their shields and cheering as you slam torps into their unprotected hulls... or just the massive beam fest of todays game.
I'm not saying it should be impossible to be pure beam or pure torp, I would prefer for both to be reasonably effective. I'm just saying that pure beam shouldn't be king of all situations.
Anyhow In the course of our recent discussions three things were brought up.
1. Torpedoes have an innate 75% resist when hitting shields .
2. The vast majority use all energy weapons /science damage.
3. Canon (as in lore not as in projectile weapons) has most ships using torpedoes and beams.
I had to ask myself. Why. The answer was probably because torpedoes give a much better visual exploding into hull, and the special effects crew loved to show the approach and impact. A beam suddenly hitting is less impressive graphically. But the lore sorta stuck. Energy weapons to take down their shields or do pinpoint attacks to cause secondary effects, torpedoes to blow $%#& up. It kind of makes sense too. Focused energy weapons are just that. Focused. Unless you specifically targeted the warp core or the bridge you don't really see a beam of light (with the notable exception of the borg cutting beam) slicing huge hunks out of the hull. You occasionally see the secondary explosions when the beam hits something critical, like a warp core, but other than that, they just weren't as effective as a torpedo.
From a game play perspective it sort of comes down to ok I got their shields down. Now. Do I switch to torpedoes and make them go boom or try to give them the death of 1000 pinpricks of light. In the game however, when the phazer meets hull... it is perfectly effective. There is no reason to switch to torpedoes to start doing massive damage. Your energy weapons don't lose any of their effectiveness. There is no equivalent penalty on energy damage to hull.
In fact, because with torpedoes you just have to worry about kinetic resist... and there are tons of different energy resists, its actually easier to defend against torpedoes on the hull than against the myriad of energy types.
So players are faced with the fact: I can use energy weapons that are 100% effective 100% of the time or I can use torpedoes which lose 75% effect off the top for half the fight.
The equation has one glaring imbalance. There is no reason to carry a torpedo if energy weapons are perfectly effective against hull and shield.
Now, the 75% reduction of effectiveness for torpedo's against shields is probably a bit harsh. After all these are powerful energy weapons we are dealing with, but cutting through thick metal with light is no easy feat, and when you do make it through, you are left with a small hole, not a gaping blast crater.
Knowing full well that I am about to "break the board" by jumping on the end and be buried in the massive flaming wreck to follow (I beg you hear me out knowing I'm running a FAW/beam boat right now too) what if a penalty were applied to energy weapons when dealing hull damage.
This would give me a reason to carry a torpedo or have something like the borg cutting beam, or a weapon or trait with a kinetic proc, to make my energy weapons more effective against the hull. It would restore the balance of the weapons. No longer would engery be king in all situations. Energy takes out shields best, Torps take out hull best.
I would say a 50% off the top penalty for energy weapons vs hull, and lowering the torp penalty to 50% vs shields, would balance the game well. You could still be pure one or the other without losing all effectiveness, but there would be reason to want to carry both and use them appropriately again.
A torpedo boat should have a really rough time against a good shield tank, unless the torp boat has shield stripping or bypassing procs or better yet has a beam/shield stripping friend to clear the road.
But equally so a beam boat should have a rough time against a heavy hull tank, unless they are using hull damaging procs and kinetic beams. and right now that's just not the case.
So to conclude, before you roast me alive over a flaming nerf pit.. ask yourself.. do you want a return to the days of strategically beating down their shields and cheering as you slam torps into their unprotected hulls... or just the massive beam fest of todays game.
I'm not saying it should be impossible to be pure beam or pure torp, I would prefer for both to be reasonably effective. I'm just saying that pure beam shouldn't be king of all situations.
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Comments
Common Issue Photon Torpedo: 208 DPS
Common Issue Phaser Beam: 87 DPS
Mark XIV Photon Torpedo: 760 DPS
Mark XIV Phaser Beam: 270 DPS
Torpedoes already do more damage to hull than energy weapons do.
But of course, there are some "complications" - energy levels raise the energy weapon to up to 250 %.
Obviously the game was designed under the assumption you cannot always retain 125 weapon power. (Quite possibly even that you wouldn't always try to max out weapon power).
The thing that could use fixing is energy management.
Those numbers as "base" are of course way off. The real question is what do they scale to at the high end.
For me the base damage of my beams with 5 energy weapon consoles.
MK XIV Plasma Dual Beams: 2032 DPS
With 5 torpedo consoles:
MK XIV Plasma Particulate Torpedo: 719 DPS
Although using DPS numbers to balance torps is a fallacy all its own. Torps are for spike damage for the most part, and the abilities that speed them up are hard to measure in the dps tool tip accurately.
Those beams are fairly decent but I'm not able to get my torps buffed well. I don't have an accurate way of judging "real" torp DPS .. maybe odenknight could help the conversation here. For the sake of the conversation, oden what do real torps do?
The numbers you see on the ground don't take any power into account as you say, they also don't take consoles, skills and other buffs into account. It may be as you say that beams scale too well with power. But arguing that their base is lower so the inate "off the top" penalty to torps is fair when the engery scales so much higher is not very valid.
@lagunad As to becoming 75 % less effective, that would be catastrophic I agree.
What I was suggesting is that for half of the fight they become 50% less effective. (effectively 25% less effective overall)
I was also suggesting that for the shield half of the fight torps should become more effective ( 50% penalty instead of 75%)
It really was designed with the idea that maxxing weapon power wasn't going to be the norm.
But fixing that? That would be complicated and cause a ton of negative backlash from the players. It would harken back to things like Enhancement Diversification. I'm wary of exploring that idea. But it does have merit on the surface. The idea of having a gameplay setup where you had more choices in energy management, would seem like it would be more fun. But this far into the system being this way? Eh, that's scary.
I don't think we'll ever go to a game play where constantly switching the energy level dials will be a critical part of gameplay.
But what probably needs to be adressed is all the overcapping potential, energy bonuses and energy drain reductions that allow people to stay at 125 weapon or very close to it at all times. That can probably be addressed in some way, but isn't trivial, either.
Of course, there might be a simpler alternative. Just buff the effective damage output for all torpedoes and be done with it. Then all-energy-bfaw boats wouldn't lose anything, but any build with torps will gain something.
Just saying.
That said, for sheer DPS, compare with photons. For spike damage, compare with quantums.
Ex-PWI player (Dawnglory): Ulsyr (BM 104/104/103)
Now on STO. More fun there.