Here you're touching upon an even deeper issue: namely, that the whole Trinity is a great notion, but ultimately fail for an MMO. Why, you ask? Because having different roles is a fantastic team concept, but, at the end of the day, the marketing model is set up in such a way, that *everyone* can be completely self-sufficient. And here's the sadder part: you can readily see, from running your average PUG, and the usual dismal teamwork therein, that people really *do* need to be self-reliant too, or they'd all quit in frustration.
Tl;dr: Tacts can survive on their own just fine: Engineers aren't really needed. Not saying we can't be useful, but Tacts can live without us. If you have a solution to this problem, I'll gladly hear it, cuz I'm stumped for the moment.
Alas, if I had a good solution, I probably would have provided it as part of my post. As is, there isn't really much I could think of. When you need damage output, you traditionally turn to tacticals. When you need crowd control and space magic fun (cmon, what else could you possibly call a GW3 combined with TBR and a Tykens?), you turn to scis. When you need tanking, that's where engis came in. But where do you need tanking in space anymore? Nowhere.
So then my thought processes turned away from the fact that the trinity is no longer applicable since all three classes can survive just fine on BOff abilities and piloting alone, and instead turned to the "what ifs". What if the engi was overhauled completely in space? What if it was given the role it has on ground (which is insanely fun fire support and close combat CC and mortars etc), which @sophlogimo touched upon (interesting post btw, was very intrigued by what you put, however at the end, stating that maybe just boost the tanking abilities doesn't solve the problem of tanking just being completely unnecessary in space). But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that again, that's also already in game (you want AoE damage around a target, GW combined with TS or something along those lines, and lots of destructible torps already have AoE (ie plasma congo line, beach ball of death, etc), and for turrets and drones, that's what pets and deployable turrets are for). And again, I hit a dead end.
Then I remembered something my parents told me (both of them are engineers IRL). They told me that any project, big or small, needs it's own engineer. When you build a building, an architect is necessary of course, to give the concept, come up with the design, and create the idea. Then you bring in the contractor to actually build the thing. But when you hit a snag, when you run into an unexpected issue or problem, whom do you call? The project engineer. They solve the problem and the thing moves forwards. So I began to think more along the lines of real life engineers. They are the problem solvers. They are the ones that take those little twists of fate, and make them go away.
Now how to put that into the game? That's the real question. Maybe they could be entirely situational based. When outnumbered, your engineer can do this, this and this. When faced with a single obscenely powerful enemy (IE a dreadnought on elite), the engi can do this, this, and this. When your team is in need of healing or a breather, your engineer can do something else. When you're just roflstomping everything in your path, your engineer can somehow boost that as well. Make them problem solvers.
BUT. Herein lies the rub. Tacs can solve most problems with pure dakka. They are only really vulnerable to mass subnucs (which anyone who has faced large numbers of jem'hadar battleships can attest to). But then all they need to do is hit a quick sci team, hit EM, get the hell out of dodge, wait 30 seconds, then wade back in and murder everything. Scis have it even easier. Hit scattering field, sci fleet, and then go back to space magic.
Which brings us back to square one. Sorry about another long post. I tend to have rather verbose thought processes.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
TBh the only way i can see them fixing the issue is to cap DPS so no build no matter how good only does a certain amount of damage and buff the hulls of enemy ships or buff their dps.
Then give engies a passive that either boots their hull or gives them a higher resistance to all energy types or do what many other mmos do for tanks and give them captain abilities that actually taunt or generate a high amount of threat.
that way no tactical no matter how good could not last in harder modes.
But that would cause havoc as the problem has gone on for so long many would not like this at all (hell im not fond of the idea but its the only thing i can think of that would help)
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
TBh the only way i can see them fixing the issue is to cap DPS
That would probably not work, since it will remove the player desire to improve their build, buy new ships or open lockboxes and that would really dent the game's income.
Maybe they should just make NPC's more difficult to the point where you actually would need a healer or tank? I dunno
That could work (like how the old Hive Onslaught Elite was) but it might not sit well with the casual base (see the threads complaining about x NPC doing y to them here). Also, even with more difficult NPCs, Tacticals will still be able to tank better than an Engineer (via RIF, Energy Refrequencer, Agent Nerul and Valdore to name a few) if nothing is done to address Miracle Worker.
IMO, Engineers could use something to buff their damage output (on energy weapons at least), or lower NPC's damage output along with a spammable Taunt.
TBh the only way i can see them fixing the issue is to cap DPS
That would probably not work, since it will remove the player desire to improve their build, buy new ships or open lockboxes and that would really dent the game's income.
Maybe they should just make NPC's more difficult to the point where you actually would need a healer or tank? I dunno
That could work (like how the old Hive Onslaught Elite was) but it might not sit well with the casual base (see the threads complaining about x NPC doing y to them here). Also, even with more difficult NPCs, Tacticals will still be able to tank better than an Engineer (via RIF, Energy Refrequencer, Agent Nerul and Valdore to name a few) if nothing is done to address Miracle Worker.
IMO, Engineers could use something to buff their damage output (on energy weapons at least), or lower NPC's damage output along with a spammable Taunt.
Yeah I would be fine with some of the engineering captain abilities being damage related. I just don't want to loose RSF and MW. Those could be really solid abilities if Cryptic buffs them correctly. Maybe Nadion Inversion and EPS Power Transfer could be replaced/reworked to either reduce enemy damage or something like that. Like you said, a taunt would be nice. (like the strategist thing)
Lots of posts about buffing engineers offense ability since tactical and science have better ones. Instead of buffing offensive abilities why not make engineers tanky instead? For that matter why not balance all 3 to the classic "holy trinity" mmo roles of tank, dps and healer?
Lots of posts about buffing engineers offense ability since tactical and science have better ones. Instead of buffing offensive abilities why not make engineers tanky instead? For that matter why not balance all 3 to the classic "holy trinity" mmo roles of tank, dps and healer?
I agree that Engineer's tanky powers definitely need to be boosted. Maybe even the innate traits that engineers get. EPS Manifold Efficiency seems kinda under powered now.
I mean, it's pathetic that Rally Point Marker (a boff ability) out heals Miracle Worker (Engineering's supposed king ability). Same with Rotate Shield Frequency, I'm pretty sure Transfer Shield Strength out heals it.
Lots of posts about buffing engineers offense ability since tactical and science have better ones. Instead of buffing offensive abilities why not make engineers tanky instead? For that matter why not balance all 3 to the classic "holy trinity" mmo roles of tank, dps and healer?
I agree that Engineer's tanky powers definitely need to be boosted. Maybe even the innate traits that engineers get. EPS Manifold Efficiency seems kinda under powered now.
I mean, it's pathetic that Rally Point Marker (a boff ability) out heals Miracle Worker (Engineering's supposed king ability). Same with Rotate Shield Frequency, I'm pretty sure Transfer Shield Strength out heals it.
I'm just gonna stop both of you right there. They tried the holy trinity, and it didn't do squat, so they took it away. And as for boosting engi tanking powers? Their ability to soak damage isn't the issue here at all. It's the simple fact that there is no need for dedicated damage tanks in the current game!
The current damage output of 90% of the NPCs (in space) is laughable at best. Honestly I can go entire missions on adv and even elite in some cases, and win easily using only TT EPtS for damage mitigation. Outside of one shots and occasional bugs/glitches, the NPCs will never break my shields, much less kill me.
And in the event an NPC can get through your shields, the sheer number of easily obtainable hull heals in the game provide so much sustain, that engi captain powers are borderline pointless. Since they aren't even necessary.
And that 10% that isn't laughable is still easily dealt with without a dedicated tank outside of some of the nastier dreadnoughts. And that triple dread battle in BDE, it sometimes helps having someone distract all 3 of them from killing each other. But outside of that singular situation, there really isn't a need for an NPC punching bag, especially since tacs will usually vape everything before they can get off a second salvo.
Also going to point out that you don't use RSF for heals. You use it for shield hardness boost and base regen boost. But again, EPtS does that and more.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Because making them more tanky won't help them much when all of the classes are already currently over-tanking the game. My Tactical captain can and has survived over 60% atks-in in an Escort. My Science character regularly takes in that amount of threat as well and survives a bit better due to him flying high-shield Science vessels. Both were not setup to even attract, nor take that threat in the first place (I am not using aggro builds). Even dedicated "threat builds" do not run as many active heals on their BOffs.
Unless there is a substantial increase in NPC difficulty and DPS, making Engineers "more tanky" will only result in them becoming even bigger "turtles". While some of us would want more difficult content, it's safe to say that the majority of players would not.
For that matter why not balance all 3 to the classic "holy trinity" mmo roles of tank, dps and healer?
Cryptic has already stated that they don't want the holy trinity because of how the game's PVE is based off random PUG queues. I am inclined to agree with them that the concept does not fit this game. A trinity-based system would make those queues harder to fill, and would probably finally kill them.
Lots of posts about buffing engineers offense ability since tactical and science have better ones. Instead of buffing offensive abilities why not make engineers tanky instead? For that matter why not balance all 3 to the classic "holy trinity" mmo roles of tank, dps and healer?
I agree that Engineer's tanky powers definitely need to be boosted. Maybe even the innate traits that engineers get. EPS Manifold Efficiency seems kinda under powered now.
I mean, it's pathetic that Rally Point Marker (a boff ability) out heals Miracle Worker (Engineering's supposed king ability). Same with Rotate Shield Frequency, I'm pretty sure Transfer Shield Strength out heals it.
I'm just gonna stop both of you right there. They tried the holy trinity, and it didn't do squat, so they took it away. And as for boosting engi tanking powers? Their ability to soak damage isn't the issue here at all. It's the simple fact that there is no need for dedicated damage tanks in the current game!
The current damage output of 90% of the NPCs (in space) is laughable at best. Honestly I can go entire missions on adv and even elite in some cases, and win easily using only TT EPtS for damage mitigation. Outside of one shots and occasional bugs/glitches, the NPCs will never break my shields, much less kill me.
And in the event an NPC can get through your shields, the sheer number of easily obtainable hull heals in the game provide so much sustain, that engi captain powers are borderline pointless. Since they aren't even necessary.
And that 10% that isn't laughable is still easily dealt with without a dedicated tank outside of some of the nastier dreadnoughts. And that triple dread battle in BDE, it sometimes helps having someone distract all 3 of them from killing each other. But outside of that singular situation, there really isn't a need for an NPC punching bag, especially since tacs will usually vape everything before they can get off a second salvo.
Also going to point out that you don't use RSF for heals. You use it for shield hardness boost and base regen boost. But again, EPtS does that and more.
At this point in the game, I don't need more shield hardness. My RSF heals around 400 shields per second (per facing) for 30 seconds, so I do use it for the heal.
The fact that most of the players in game don't want NPC's to be any harder means that most players think that NPC's are difficult enough. That could mean that many players do rely on engineer's defensive abilities as life savers. So these abilities might seem redundant or not good enough in current PvE missions to us, but to a lot of people they could be the reason someone sticks to engineering.
Also, (yes I'm going to say it) more defensive power would help with the "balance" in PvP. Since some people still do it, and apparently a so called "PvP revamp" was mentioned and now there's a new PvP queue on tribble, an engineering defensive ability buff could tie into that "revamp."
The fact is that if people want the extra defensive abilities that engineering provides (like me), why change it? People who want to do major damage have tactical and science. There may be no need for you to have to soak up additional damage using engineering abilities, but for a lot of people there might be (whether they PvE or PvP). Let's just not turn engineering into a DPS oriented class. Engineering is about defense. Tactical is about offense.
Can you tell Engineering is my life in this game? I honestly don't know what I would do if Engineering was changed away from what it is now. I just don't "synergize" well with Tactical and Science as well as I do Engineering.
EDIT: I'm glad engineering is receiving the attention it is on the forums though, I wouldn't have thought most people cared about Engineering.
Lots of posts about buffing engineers offense ability since tactical and science have better ones. Instead of buffing offensive abilities why not make engineers tanky instead? For that matter why not balance all 3 to the classic "holy trinity" mmo roles of tank, dps and healer?
I agree that Engineer's tanky powers definitely need to be boosted. Maybe even the innate traits that engineers get. EPS Manifold Efficiency seems kinda under powered now.
I mean, it's pathetic that Rally Point Marker (a boff ability) out heals Miracle Worker (Engineering's supposed king ability). Same with Rotate Shield Frequency, I'm pretty sure Transfer Shield Strength out heals it.
I'm just gonna stop both of you right there. They tried the holy trinity, and it didn't do squat, so they took it away. And as for boosting engi tanking powers? Their ability to soak damage isn't the issue here at all. It's the simple fact that there is no need for dedicated damage tanks in the current game!
The current damage output of 90% of the NPCs (in space) is laughable at best. Honestly I can go entire missions on adv and even elite in some cases, and win easily using only TT EPtS for damage mitigation. Outside of one shots and occasional bugs/glitches, the NPCs will never break my shields, much less kill me.
And in the event an NPC can get through your shields, the sheer number of easily obtainable hull heals in the game provide so much sustain, that engi captain powers are borderline pointless. Since they aren't even necessary.
And that 10% that isn't laughable is still easily dealt with without a dedicated tank outside of some of the nastier dreadnoughts. And that triple dread battle in BDE, it sometimes helps having someone distract all 3 of them from killing each other. But outside of that singular situation, there really isn't a need for an NPC punching bag, especially since tacs will usually vape everything before they can get off a second salvo.
Also going to point out that you don't use RSF for heals. You use it for shield hardness boost and base regen boost. But again, EPtS does that and more.
^^ Listen to this man, he knows whereof he speaks!
The easiest way to make Engineer captains more desirable in space combat has always been make the enemies more dangerous. The DPS-focused profession always has and always should have the upper hand in a shooting gallery, which is all the challenge most enemies present lest we disturb the fragile egos of a playerbase that would be considered really, really bad at almost any game by any rational measure.
And to have more scenarios where 'winning' is based on endurance, not DPS. Those are good fun, not only for the challenge but for the salty tears of people who wander in thinking it's another pew-pew-pew festival.
Class design and content design are two halves the same thing - most MMO studios make a dreadful mistake in acting like they're two separate departments.
The easiest way to make Engineer captains more desirable in space combat has always been make the enemies more dangerous. The DPS-focused profession always has and always should have the upper hand in a shooting gallery, which is all the challenge most enemies present lest we disturb the fragile egos of a playerbase that would be considered really, really bad at almost any game by any rational measure.
And to have more scenarios where 'winning' is based on endurance, not DPS. Those are good fun, not only for the challenge but for the salty tears of people who wander in thinking it's another pew-pew-pew festival.
Class design and content design are two halves the same thing - most MMO studios make a dreadful mistake in acting like they're two separate departments.
How may times did your character die last time you played the Ragnarok mission on Elite difficulty?
Well, last time I was in there it was only Advanced... but we cleared it with two people instead of five and I only died once. The other player also died only once.
I'd nuke anything that had PBAoE, aggro the rest, and he'd slip in cloaked and close the portal. Was actually a ton of fun. I was flying the Command Assault Cruiser with all XIV, mostly purple, some Ultra rare (ship gear from the Reputations with the free rarity bump for a temporal agent) and no Epic gear. He was in that "fat owl" looking Romulan ship, no idea about his gear quality, but his ninjutsu was friken phenomenal.
I see all these claims about the enemies not being dangerous enough, and looking at the more recent things the devs created, I just don't see how that is something the enemies lack.
Sure, you can identify scenarios that border on masochism. That's not a sign the game's on kilter in its normal use cases. And Ragnarok is actually one of many I was pointing to as being more than pew-pew-pew shooting galleries. I'm one of the people that thinks the Engineer is not wildly off the mark. It could use a little love, and that love could be in the form of more scenarios that aren't shooting galleries. Me? I loved the Na'kuhl Red Alert because there were smart tanking opportunities there. There was also a chance for skilled DPS to shine focus firing ships actively threatening the freighters.
Sure, if you insist on doing a, what, seven? year old anti-Borg queue designed for level 50 on Advanced difficulty, well, that will be too easy.
I don't insist on any such thing. But it would be nice if say, the Star Base defense, had a little more teeth.
But these days, there are other options.
Yeah. I could unequip my shields. But I don't. Options are in turn tied to rewards and the options that do put up a fight don't offer anything extra proportionate to the effort.
That is the thing when you are talking about ques, or even story missions is that the reward payout for the different missions is too close. When I can run something like ISA/CCA type content that will give me the same rewards for much less effort an chance for failure, compared to running the harder/challenging/difficult content that might be more suitable for engineers to do yet getting less rewards for it. If you made the harder/higher/challenging/difficult content had some unique rewards that could be gotten thru doing those ques would be interesting, and give the player-base would find more reason to not pool into doing only the easiest content (since the rewards would be more varied). Having content that engineers excel in is good, but if that content is just not used or rewards equal or less than what to some is easier content, well that defeats having that content an the possible use of engineers.
An I can agree it would be nice to have a type of rotating que setup, though which would need to give us 1-2 ques from each reputation, so that we can have access to a que to get marks for each rep. I mean seeing so many empty ques can be daunting to try other ques, and give player a sense of the game being dead even if it is not, but also giving a rotation would allow for getting us out of the mindset of just doing the highest payout-to-time investment missions. I would do the rotation of the ques on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule, with maybe if we do a weekly rotation the ques that rotate out are on a short lockout before being able to slide back into rotation.
Here you're touching upon an even deeper issue: namely, that the whole Trinity is a great notion, but ultimately fail for an MMO. Why, you ask? Because having different roles is a fantastic team concept, but, at the end of the day, the marketing model is set up in such a way, that *everyone* can be completely self-sufficient. And here's the sadder part: you can readily see, from running your average PUG, and the usual dismal teamwork therein, that people really *do* need to be self-reliant too, or they'd all quit in frustration.
Tl;dr: Tacts can survive on their own just fine: Engineers aren't really needed. Not saying we can't be useful, but Tacts can live without us. If you have a solution to this problem, I'll gladly hear it, cuz I'm stumped for the moment.
Alas, if I had a good solution, I probably would have provided it as part of my post. As is, there isn't really much I could think of. When you need damage output, you traditionally turn to tacticals. When you need crowd control and space magic fun (cmon, what else could you possibly call a GW3 combined with TBR and a Tykens?), you turn to scis. When you need tanking, that's where engis came in. But where do you need tanking in space anymore? Nowhere.
So then my thought processes turned away from the fact that the trinity is no longer applicable since all three classes can survive just fine on BOff abilities and piloting alone, and instead turned to the "what ifs". What if the engi was overhauled completely in space? What if it was given the role it has on ground (which is insanely fun fire support and close combat CC and mortars etc), which @sophlogimo touched upon (interesting post btw, was very intrigued by what you put, however at the end, stating that maybe just boost the tanking abilities doesn't solve the problem of tanking just being completely unnecessary in space). But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that again, that's also already in game (you want AoE damage around a target, GW combined with TS or something along those lines, and lots of destructible torps already have AoE (ie plasma congo line, beach ball of death, etc), and for turrets and drones, that's what pets and deployable turrets are for). And again, I hit a dead end.
Then I remembered something my parents told me (both of them are engineers IRL). They told me that any project, big or small, needs it's own engineer. When you build a building, an architect is necessary of course, to give the concept, come up with the design, and create the idea. Then you bring in the contractor to actually build the thing. But when you hit a snag, when you run into an unexpected issue or problem, whom do you call? The project engineer. They solve the problem and the thing moves forwards. So I began to think more along the lines of real life engineers. They are the problem solvers. They are the ones that take those little twists of fate, and make them go away.
Now how to put that into the game? That's the real question. Maybe they could be entirely situational based. When outnumbered, your engineer can do this, this and this. When faced with a single obscenely powerful enemy (IE a dreadnought on elite), the engi can do this, this, and this. When your team is in need of healing or a breather, your engineer can do something else. When you're just roflstomping everything in your path, your engineer can somehow boost that as well. Make them problem solvers.
BUT. Herein lies the rub. Tacs can solve most problems with pure dakka. They are only really vulnerable to mass subnucs (which anyone who has faced large numbers of jem'hadar battleships can attest to). But then all they need to do is hit a quick sci team, hit EM, get the hell out of dodge, wait 30 seconds, then wade back in and murder everything. Scis have it even easier. Hit scattering field, sci fleet, and then go back to space magic.
Which brings us back to square one. Sorry about another long post. I tend to have rather verbose thought processes.
Engineer needs more Combat Engineer flavor. Combat Engineers predominately emplace obstacles (counter Mobility), handle demolitions, breach obstacles (mobility) and harden/emplace defensive positions (survivability). If anything they should receive an OSS type enhancement that enhances EPSPT. They could add drain immunity to to RSF as well or add an ability that bumps projectile shield penetration to 50-60% along with an additional 20-30% Hull penetration.
The rewards discussion is rather offtopic, in't it?
It seems the argument that engineers had no place in the game because there was no content that required them has been demonstrated to be false. It is just that almost nobody plays at that place. So in other words: The players dont want environments where engineers are needed.
I don't see anything cryptic can do about that.
Actually, looking over everything they've been putting in the game rcently, I'd say the devs are making a pretty big push for Engineers. Such as the lockbox traits discussed earlier, and the new consoles and boffs you can get from K-13. If you haven't checked those out, you should. There's some pretty major buffs for tanks you can unlock right there.
The rewards discussion is rather offtopic, in't it?
It seems the argument that engineers had no place in the game because there was no content that required them has been demonstrated to be false. It is just that almost nobody plays at that place. So in other words: The players dont want environments where engineers are needed.
I don't see anything cryptic can do about that.
Actually, looking over everything they've been putting in the game rcently, I'd say the devs are making a pretty big push for Engineers. Such as the lockbox traits discussed earlier, and the new consoles and boffs you can get from K-13. If you haven't checked those out, you should. There's some pretty major buffs for tanks you can unlock right there.
They're decent, but not good tbh. The lockbox traits are still sub par to the other options available right now.
Maybe. I've actulaly worked EPS overload into my current DPS build. Still have yet to pick up Nadion Bypass, but mainly because I've picked up a couple of other engineering traits along the way such as Fleet Technician. Still trying to gather together everything I need and make out a plan (was going to stay DPS-traited, but after seeing the K-13 stuff...). I've half a notion the meta is about to change again. I'd also really like to remake a tanking build using at least some of this new stuff just to see how well it actually does.
The rewards discussion is rather offtopic, in't it?
It seems the argument that engineers had no place in the game because there was no content that required them has been demonstrated to be false. It is just that almost nobody plays at that place. So in other words: The players dont want environments where engineers are needed.
I don't see anything cryptic can do about that.
No it is not really off-topic as the rewards gained influences what content is actively done. By the fact that the reward payout is so skewed towards the quick/easy ques like ISA/CCA the players naturally gravitate towards these ques types, and says more that they don't want to spend time in harder/challenging/longer ques that will give them a lower payout of the rewards. Which does not speak to them not wanting other types of content like kind that an engineer would excel in, but that they do not want to waste time as they see it in harder/challenging content. Now if all of the content payouts were equalized, and we still see a discrepancy than we could say that the playerbase did not want content that engineers could excel in, also by equalized I mean that all content roughly took about the same time to complete with a similar amount of reward payout give or take a minute or two.
I am hoping that in ground we might see some doffs that might give mines a bit of interesting play options, and some more interesting mechanic based modules that affect your fabrications. Like a doff that allows you to lay/transport your minefield under your main target rather than at your character's feet. I always liked the idea of a mechanic module that gave your fabrications two modes (like a siege mode or a mobility mode) you could switch them between giving them different bonuses/reductions. Then there is a mechanic module that might at the cost of some of your fabrication's duration boost their affect's output, or use an ability like a rapid fire function.
perhaps make it where Engineers have an easier time of completing in game/mission specific goals?
To quote 'The Martian' - we're going to Engineer the S--T out of it'
Perhaps if you are a Tac/Sci officer you need to wade through more NPCs but if you're an Engineer, you're able to create a warp jump (in space) or able to unlock doors that take you to your end goal (ground) quicker but a Tac/Sci may need to fight through NPC's.
It may be a bit too much as whole missions/arcs would need to be reworked.. I picked an Engineer simply because it seemed so 'Star Trek' to me-and because I thought Kirk was an Engineer
I'm currently happy with my choice, if and when I play a new character I'd probably run an Engineer again or try out a Klingon Sci officer.
Jeisun
StarFleet Engineer U.S.S. Diana
Alita Heavy Escort
I'm currently happy with my choice, if and when I play a new character I'd probably run an Engineer again or try out a Klingon Sci officer.
Scis with Battle Cloak are super fun. Uncloak and BAM some space magic in there.
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perhaps make it where Engineers have an easier time of completing in game/mission specific goals?
To quote 'The Martian' - we're going to Engineer the S--T out of it'
Perhaps if you are a Tac/Sci officer you need to wade through more NPCs but if you're an Engineer, you're able to create a warp jump (in space) or able to unlock doors that take you to your end goal (ground) quicker but a Tac/Sci may need to fight through NPC's.
It may be a bit too much as whole missions/arcs would need to be reworked.. I picked an Engineer simply because it seemed so 'Star Trek' to me-and because I thought Kirk was an Engineer
I'm currently happy with my choice, if and when I play a new character I'd probably run an Engineer again or try out a Klingon Sci officer.
This wouldn't really address the fact that engineering captain abilities are near useless in space right now, though.
At this point in the game, I don't need more shield hardness. My RSF heals around 400 shields per second (per facing) for 30 seconds, so I do use it for the heal.
The fact that most of the players in game don't want NPC's to be any harder means that most players think that NPC's are difficult enough. That could mean that many players do rely on engineer's defensive abilities as life savers. So these abilities might seem redundant or not good enough in current PvE missions to us, but to a lot of people they could be the reason someone sticks to engineering.
But again, there's already so many heals in game, that the engi captain abilities are almost a null point.
You have ET (chunk hull heal, SS restore, low cooldown), Aux2SIF (chunk hull heal, very VERY low cooldown, hull res boost), HE (HoT, hull debuff cleanse, hull res boost, low cooldown). That's all you ever need for hull. As shields go? EPtS (medium shield chunk heal, boost to shield SS power levels (which boosts regen and hardness), cyclable cooldown), TSS (small shield chunk heal, large boost to shield regen, low cooldown), ST (small shield chunk heal, debuff cleanse, low cooldown), ES (large shield hardness boost to target, med cooldown), RSP (massive potential shield heal, long cooldown, ie the "oh TRIBBLE" button of the game).
Now compare those BOff abilities to the engi captain abilities.
EPS. Bonus SS power, boost to transfer rate. NI. Massive bonus to SS power drain resistance (even that generated by firing weapons). RSF. Shield hardness and regen boost, small chunk shield heal. MW. Large chunk shield and hull heal, SS restore). Now all of them are great. Except for LONG COOLDOWN. Very long. Even with AHoD, they still take a while to come back up.
And as I pointed out in my first post, there's a way to do exactly the same thing as engi captain abilities with just some basic consoles and BOff setups.
EPS? Plasmonic Leech (before you comment on expense, the leech is actually very cheap now), EPtX, skills (as in skillpoints, not L2P skills. Not that much of an elitest TRIBBLE).
NI? Cruiser command: weapons efficiency (I figure most engi captains fly cruisers anyways, even though engscorts were a thing for a while), Spire/Breen warp core, EPtW.
RSF? EPtS and TSS.
MW? ET/Aux2SIF, EPtS/RSP.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Also, (yes I'm going to say it) more defensive power would help with the "balance" in PvP. Since some people still do it, and apparently a so called "PvP revamp" was mentioned and now there's a new PvP queue on tribble, an engineering defensive ability buff could tie into that "revamp."
Except that now most people speed tank. Last time I was in PvP, I actually got physically sick trying to track a target because it was zooming around at warp speeds. Combine that with all the cheese, for starters it almost crashed my comp, and secondly it almost crashed my brain. They do speed tanking and vapes. It's all fine and dandy if you can heal from dead to full in 3 seconds, but that's not going to do you much good if you get vaped in under a second.
The fact is that if people want the extra defensive abilities that engineering provides (like me), why change it? People who want to do major damage have tactical and science. There may be no need for you to have to soak up additional damage using engineering abilities, but for a lot of people there might be (whether they PvE or PvP). Let's just not turn engineering into a DPS oriented class. Engineering is about defense. Tactical is about offense.
It's not a matter of engi not doing it's job. It does it's job just fine. The problem is that it's job isn't necessary. Don't turn it into a DPS oriented class? Ok fine. But you're in a DPS oriented game. Yes. Tactical is about offensive. But when my tac captain can have almost equivalent durability and tanking capability as my engi (~90%), all without engi captain abilities, and do almost double the DPS from it's massively DPS oriented captain layout, then you know something's wrong, and if not wrong, then something needs to change.
Can you tell Engineering is my life in this game? I honestly don't know what I would do if Engineering was changed away from what it is now. I just don't "synergize" well with Tactical and Science as well as I do Engineering.
EDIT: I'm glad engineering is receiving the attention it is on the forums though, I wouldn't have thought most people cared about Engineering.
My first captain in this game was an engineer. I ran cruisers from lvl 10 to lvl 50, then later to 60. To my friends in game, I was "that guy in the cruiser". My favorite ship has always been the Tac Oddy, then later the Tac Oddy T5U. Yeah, now I fly a Chronos/Presidio, but I will always love my big fat space whale.
Don't get me wrong, I get the love for engi. I've always had a thing for mine. And before S7 came out, it actually had a use. I was the punching bag for the Borg. I did my job well, and I did it with pride. But as the game has evolved (and after much whining from all the tacscorts about being too squishy), sustain became stronger and easier. Passive and active durability has increased exponentially (I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not), regardless of class. Tacs have gained the ability to deal even MORE damage. Scis have even more CC at their disposal. And engis? Well yeah, we can tank more, but the other classes can now tank almost as well.
When the survivability of a class is only 10% greater than the others, and it's damage output is 20-100% less, that's really not a fair trade-off, esp when the stronger survivability isn't a necessity.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
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Alas, if I had a good solution, I probably would have provided it as part of my post. As is, there isn't really much I could think of. When you need damage output, you traditionally turn to tacticals. When you need crowd control and space magic fun (cmon, what else could you possibly call a GW3 combined with TBR and a Tykens?), you turn to scis. When you need tanking, that's where engis came in. But where do you need tanking in space anymore? Nowhere.
So then my thought processes turned away from the fact that the trinity is no longer applicable since all three classes can survive just fine on BOff abilities and piloting alone, and instead turned to the "what ifs". What if the engi was overhauled completely in space? What if it was given the role it has on ground (which is insanely fun fire support and close combat CC and mortars etc), which @sophlogimo touched upon (interesting post btw, was very intrigued by what you put, however at the end, stating that maybe just boost the tanking abilities doesn't solve the problem of tanking just being completely unnecessary in space). But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that again, that's also already in game (you want AoE damage around a target, GW combined with TS or something along those lines, and lots of destructible torps already have AoE (ie plasma congo line, beach ball of death, etc), and for turrets and drones, that's what pets and deployable turrets are for). And again, I hit a dead end.
Then I remembered something my parents told me (both of them are engineers IRL). They told me that any project, big or small, needs it's own engineer. When you build a building, an architect is necessary of course, to give the concept, come up with the design, and create the idea. Then you bring in the contractor to actually build the thing. But when you hit a snag, when you run into an unexpected issue or problem, whom do you call? The project engineer. They solve the problem and the thing moves forwards. So I began to think more along the lines of real life engineers. They are the problem solvers. They are the ones that take those little twists of fate, and make them go away.
Now how to put that into the game? That's the real question. Maybe they could be entirely situational based. When outnumbered, your engineer can do this, this and this. When faced with a single obscenely powerful enemy (IE a dreadnought on elite), the engi can do this, this, and this. When your team is in need of healing or a breather, your engineer can do something else. When you're just roflstomping everything in your path, your engineer can somehow boost that as well. Make them problem solvers.
BUT. Herein lies the rub. Tacs can solve most problems with pure dakka. They are only really vulnerable to mass subnucs (which anyone who has faced large numbers of jem'hadar battleships can attest to). But then all they need to do is hit a quick sci team, hit EM, get the hell out of dodge, wait 30 seconds, then wade back in and murder everything. Scis have it even easier. Hit scattering field, sci fleet, and then go back to space magic.
Which brings us back to square one. Sorry about another long post. I tend to have rather verbose thought processes.
Then give engies a passive that either boots their hull or gives them a higher resistance to all energy types or do what many other mmos do for tanks and give them captain abilities that actually taunt or generate a high amount of threat.
that way no tactical no matter how good could not last in harder modes.
But that would cause havoc as the problem has gone on for so long many would not like this at all (hell im not fond of the idea but its the only thing i can think of that would help)
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
That would probably not work, since it will remove the player desire to improve their build, buy new ships or open lockboxes and that would really dent the game's income.
That could work (like how the old Hive Onslaught Elite was) but it might not sit well with the casual base (see the threads complaining about x NPC doing y to them here). Also, even with more difficult NPCs, Tacticals will still be able to tank better than an Engineer (via RIF, Energy Refrequencer, Agent Nerul and Valdore to name a few) if nothing is done to address Miracle Worker.
IMO, Engineers could use something to buff their damage output (on energy weapons at least), or lower NPC's damage output along with a spammable Taunt.
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Yeah I would be fine with some of the engineering captain abilities being damage related. I just don't want to loose RSF and MW. Those could be really solid abilities if Cryptic buffs them correctly. Maybe Nadion Inversion and EPS Power Transfer could be replaced/reworked to either reduce enemy damage or something like that. Like you said, a taunt would be nice. (like the strategist thing)
I agree that Engineer's tanky powers definitely need to be boosted. Maybe even the innate traits that engineers get. EPS Manifold Efficiency seems kinda under powered now.
I mean, it's pathetic that Rally Point Marker (a boff ability) out heals Miracle Worker (Engineering's supposed king ability). Same with Rotate Shield Frequency, I'm pretty sure Transfer Shield Strength out heals it.
I'm just gonna stop both of you right there. They tried the holy trinity, and it didn't do squat, so they took it away. And as for boosting engi tanking powers? Their ability to soak damage isn't the issue here at all. It's the simple fact that there is no need for dedicated damage tanks in the current game!
The current damage output of 90% of the NPCs (in space) is laughable at best. Honestly I can go entire missions on adv and even elite in some cases, and win easily using only TT EPtS for damage mitigation. Outside of one shots and occasional bugs/glitches, the NPCs will never break my shields, much less kill me.
And in the event an NPC can get through your shields, the sheer number of easily obtainable hull heals in the game provide so much sustain, that engi captain powers are borderline pointless. Since they aren't even necessary.
And that 10% that isn't laughable is still easily dealt with without a dedicated tank outside of some of the nastier dreadnoughts. And that triple dread battle in BDE, it sometimes helps having someone distract all 3 of them from killing each other. But outside of that singular situation, there really isn't a need for an NPC punching bag, especially since tacs will usually vape everything before they can get off a second salvo.
Also going to point out that you don't use RSF for heals. You use it for shield hardness boost and base regen boost. But again, EPtS does that and more.
Because making them more tanky won't help them much when all of the classes are already currently over-tanking the game. My Tactical captain can and has survived over 60% atks-in in an Escort. My Science character regularly takes in that amount of threat as well and survives a bit better due to him flying high-shield Science vessels. Both were not setup to even attract, nor take that threat in the first place (I am not using aggro builds). Even dedicated "threat builds" do not run as many active heals on their BOffs.
Unless there is a substantial increase in NPC difficulty and DPS, making Engineers "more tanky" will only result in them becoming even bigger "turtles". While some of us would want more difficult content, it's safe to say that the majority of players would not.
Cryptic has already stated that they don't want the holy trinity because of how the game's PVE is based off random PUG queues. I am inclined to agree with them that the concept does not fit this game. A trinity-based system would make those queues harder to fill, and would probably finally kill them.
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At this point in the game, I don't need more shield hardness. My RSF heals around 400 shields per second (per facing) for 30 seconds, so I do use it for the heal.
The fact that most of the players in game don't want NPC's to be any harder means that most players think that NPC's are difficult enough. That could mean that many players do rely on engineer's defensive abilities as life savers. So these abilities might seem redundant or not good enough in current PvE missions to us, but to a lot of people they could be the reason someone sticks to engineering.
Also, (yes I'm going to say it) more defensive power would help with the "balance" in PvP. Since some people still do it, and apparently a so called "PvP revamp" was mentioned and now there's a new PvP queue on tribble, an engineering defensive ability buff could tie into that "revamp."
The fact is that if people want the extra defensive abilities that engineering provides (like me), why change it? People who want to do major damage have tactical and science. There may be no need for you to have to soak up additional damage using engineering abilities, but for a lot of people there might be (whether they PvE or PvP). Let's just not turn engineering into a DPS oriented class. Engineering is about defense. Tactical is about offense.
EDIT: I'm glad engineering is receiving the attention it is on the forums though, I wouldn't have thought most people cared about Engineering.
^^ Listen to this man, he knows whereof he speaks!
Class design and content design are two halves the same thing - most MMO studios make a dreadful mistake in acting like they're two separate departments.
Well, last time I was in there it was only Advanced... but we cleared it with two people instead of five and I only died once. The other player also died only once.
I'd nuke anything that had PBAoE, aggro the rest, and he'd slip in cloaked and close the portal. Was actually a ton of fun. I was flying the Command Assault Cruiser with all XIV, mostly purple, some Ultra rare (ship gear from the Reputations with the free rarity bump for a temporal agent) and no Epic gear. He was in that "fat owl" looking Romulan ship, no idea about his gear quality, but his ninjutsu was friken phenomenal.
Sure, you can identify scenarios that border on masochism. That's not a sign the game's on kilter in its normal use cases. And Ragnarok is actually one of many I was pointing to as being more than pew-pew-pew shooting galleries. I'm one of the people that thinks the Engineer is not wildly off the mark. It could use a little love, and that love could be in the form of more scenarios that aren't shooting galleries. Me? I loved the Na'kuhl Red Alert because there were smart tanking opportunities there. There was also a chance for skilled DPS to shine focus firing ships actively threatening the freighters.
I don't insist on any such thing. But it would be nice if say, the Star Base defense, had a little more teeth.
Yeah. I could unequip my shields. But I don't. Options are in turn tied to rewards and the options that do put up a fight don't offer anything extra proportionate to the effort.
An I can agree it would be nice to have a type of rotating que setup, though which would need to give us 1-2 ques from each reputation, so that we can have access to a que to get marks for each rep. I mean seeing so many empty ques can be daunting to try other ques, and give player a sense of the game being dead even if it is not, but also giving a rotation would allow for getting us out of the mindset of just doing the highest payout-to-time investment missions. I would do the rotation of the ques on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule, with maybe if we do a weekly rotation the ques that rotate out are on a short lockout before being able to slide back into rotation.
Engineer needs more Combat Engineer flavor. Combat Engineers predominately emplace obstacles (counter Mobility), handle demolitions, breach obstacles (mobility) and harden/emplace defensive positions (survivability). If anything they should receive an OSS type enhancement that enhances EPSPT. They could add drain immunity to to RSF as well or add an ability that bumps projectile shield penetration to 50-60% along with an additional 20-30% Hull penetration.
Actually, looking over everything they've been putting in the game rcently, I'd say the devs are making a pretty big push for Engineers. Such as the lockbox traits discussed earlier, and the new consoles and boffs you can get from K-13. If you haven't checked those out, you should. There's some pretty major buffs for tanks you can unlock right there.
They're decent, but not good tbh. The lockbox traits are still sub par to the other options available right now.
No it is not really off-topic as the rewards gained influences what content is actively done. By the fact that the reward payout is so skewed towards the quick/easy ques like ISA/CCA the players naturally gravitate towards these ques types, and says more that they don't want to spend time in harder/challenging/longer ques that will give them a lower payout of the rewards. Which does not speak to them not wanting other types of content like kind that an engineer would excel in, but that they do not want to waste time as they see it in harder/challenging content. Now if all of the content payouts were equalized, and we still see a discrepancy than we could say that the playerbase did not want content that engineers could excel in, also by equalized I mean that all content roughly took about the same time to complete with a similar amount of reward payout give or take a minute or two.
I am hoping that in ground we might see some doffs that might give mines a bit of interesting play options, and some more interesting mechanic based modules that affect your fabrications. Like a doff that allows you to lay/transport your minefield under your main target rather than at your character's feet. I always liked the idea of a mechanic module that gave your fabrications two modes (like a siege mode or a mobility mode) you could switch them between giving them different bonuses/reductions. Then there is a mechanic module that might at the cost of some of your fabrication's duration boost their affect's output, or use an ability like a rapid fire function.
To quote 'The Martian' - we're going to Engineer the S--T out of it'
Perhaps if you are a Tac/Sci officer you need to wade through more NPCs but if you're an Engineer, you're able to create a warp jump (in space) or able to unlock doors that take you to your end goal (ground) quicker but a Tac/Sci may need to fight through NPC's.
It may be a bit too much as whole missions/arcs would need to be reworked.. I picked an Engineer simply because it seemed so 'Star Trek' to me-and because I thought Kirk was an Engineer
I'm currently happy with my choice, if and when I play a new character I'd probably run an Engineer again or try out a Klingon Sci officer.
StarFleet Engineer
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Alita Heavy Escort
Scis with Battle Cloak are super fun. Uncloak and BAM some space magic in there.
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This wouldn't really address the fact that engineering captain abilities are near useless in space right now, though.
But again, there's already so many heals in game, that the engi captain abilities are almost a null point.
You have ET (chunk hull heal, SS restore, low cooldown), Aux2SIF (chunk hull heal, very VERY low cooldown, hull res boost), HE (HoT, hull debuff cleanse, hull res boost, low cooldown). That's all you ever need for hull. As shields go? EPtS (medium shield chunk heal, boost to shield SS power levels (which boosts regen and hardness), cyclable cooldown), TSS (small shield chunk heal, large boost to shield regen, low cooldown), ST (small shield chunk heal, debuff cleanse, low cooldown), ES (large shield hardness boost to target, med cooldown), RSP (massive potential shield heal, long cooldown, ie the "oh TRIBBLE" button of the game).
Now compare those BOff abilities to the engi captain abilities.
EPS. Bonus SS power, boost to transfer rate. NI. Massive bonus to SS power drain resistance (even that generated by firing weapons). RSF. Shield hardness and regen boost, small chunk shield heal. MW. Large chunk shield and hull heal, SS restore). Now all of them are great. Except for LONG COOLDOWN. Very long. Even with AHoD, they still take a while to come back up.
And as I pointed out in my first post, there's a way to do exactly the same thing as engi captain abilities with just some basic consoles and BOff setups.
EPS? Plasmonic Leech (before you comment on expense, the leech is actually very cheap now), EPtX, skills (as in skillpoints, not L2P skills. Not that much of an elitest TRIBBLE).
NI? Cruiser command: weapons efficiency (I figure most engi captains fly cruisers anyways, even though engscorts were a thing for a while), Spire/Breen warp core, EPtW.
RSF? EPtS and TSS.
MW? ET/Aux2SIF, EPtS/RSP.
Except that now most people speed tank. Last time I was in PvP, I actually got physically sick trying to track a target because it was zooming around at warp speeds. Combine that with all the cheese, for starters it almost crashed my comp, and secondly it almost crashed my brain. They do speed tanking and vapes. It's all fine and dandy if you can heal from dead to full in 3 seconds, but that's not going to do you much good if you get vaped in under a second.
It's not a matter of engi not doing it's job. It does it's job just fine. The problem is that it's job isn't necessary. Don't turn it into a DPS oriented class? Ok fine. But you're in a DPS oriented game. Yes. Tactical is about offensive. But when my tac captain can have almost equivalent durability and tanking capability as my engi (~90%), all without engi captain abilities, and do almost double the DPS from it's massively DPS oriented captain layout, then you know something's wrong, and if not wrong, then something needs to change.
My first captain in this game was an engineer. I ran cruisers from lvl 10 to lvl 50, then later to 60. To my friends in game, I was "that guy in the cruiser". My favorite ship has always been the Tac Oddy, then later the Tac Oddy T5U. Yeah, now I fly a Chronos/Presidio, but I will always love my big fat space whale.
Don't get me wrong, I get the love for engi. I've always had a thing for mine. And before S7 came out, it actually had a use. I was the punching bag for the Borg. I did my job well, and I did it with pride. But as the game has evolved (and after much whining from all the tacscorts about being too squishy), sustain became stronger and easier. Passive and active durability has increased exponentially (I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not), regardless of class. Tacs have gained the ability to deal even MORE damage. Scis have even more CC at their disposal. And engis? Well yeah, we can tank more, but the other classes can now tank almost as well.
When the survivability of a class is only 10% greater than the others, and it's damage output is 20-100% less, that's really not a fair trade-off, esp when the stronger survivability isn't a necessity.