The goals boil down to these:
•Increase the fun – Games are about having fun, and players should not be made to feel that their fun is “wrong.”
•Player investment retains value – While things need to be adjusted, a setup that was optimized before should still be useful and effective afterwards.
•Choices should be meaningful – Anywhere the game gives you a choice, there should be no choice that you always take nor one you never take.
You can almost hear BFAW getting a much needed poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
That there will be a new "what people say is best" in inevitable. Getting rid of that is not the goal, so don't think for a second "there's always a meta" is gonna save the current one. That the next best is less far behind and the average is much closer to the best are the real goals.
This ought to be significantly more entertaining than the skill revamp. Time to fire up the barbeque and grill some of them sacred cows!
Other than the security escort, they sound like buffs.
It's not the first time something like this has happened. Cryptic has been consistent in it's methodology over the years, 'balance changes' always just means blanket nerfs.
The last "global" balancing act was the uber Buff's of the BORG STF Trinity and Delta Rising release. So much so, some "elites" were removed from the game, and the DPSePeeners now have to play the RA's and "Advanced" STF's for thier ego's..
A more recent "balance" was to the Miner Instability.. Again, a buff to the NPC's that kicked 90% of the player base from elite to Advance, just to complete it. Funny thing is, those same folks that can't do the Elite now, may have been challenged during the "event" period, but afterwards, just a mega-respawn-adventure on elite.
Any one been here long enough to remember the SCI skill "balance" about 3, maybe 4 years ago ?? That balance just about killed the SCI speciality.
For my fellow TAC family members, remember the FAW "balance" and the subsequent cannon nerf ?? Go to a STF with cannons and be prepared for the attacks, and not from the NPC's
In my 7 years of observation and game play, IMHO, a "Balance" generally means, IMHO, NPC's get buffed, we get the bat. They make us "stronger" NPC's go mega. TYVM
About that cannon thing: I've seen people mention that, but I've never encountered anyone in the game who verbally attacked me for using cannons. And I use them on all characters that don't use a torpedo build, and I PUG almost all my missions.
I'm seeing a lot of "lets hope FAW gets the attention it deserves" posts here. The issue with that is I remember people saying the same thing about escorts and cannons back in the day. So they got what they asked for and now it's beams and FAW that people are crying about. The truth is, that STO devs wouldn't know "balance" if it slapped them in the face and called them Shirley. Actually I take that back, they know what balance is, they simply just don't care what balance is, because balance doesn't make them money, power creep makes them money.
So like others have said, they're going to nerf FAW and science (because they ALWAYS nerf science) because that's what they are going to do. My guess is that the next major update they're got plans for releasing something and to make sure people buy that expansions stuff, they need to nerf the old stuff so people won't buy it any more. It's the usual pattern with STO. So it's now that FAW needs to be nerfed, it's that they've got plans for something else and don't want FAW and the current batch of ships to compete with their new shinys.
"Balance Changes" only means one thing.. global nerfs incoming.
We have seen it before, we will see it again. Those that cry on the forums will still suck at the game and the rest of us will just make the necessary adjustments. In the end, it won't matter, because people cry either way.
I dislike the tone of this point of view but I have to agree with it entirely.
Oh and lets not forget when they 'balanced' hangar pets rendering them completely useless.
yep. Also, anyone remember when they were having a look at 'balancing' some of the queue rewards? The vault was left with a reward of 1 mark.
Balancing is not in Cryptic's skillset but, in the end, we will have to make the choice to adapt and continue to play or quit in anger. I'm not hopeful that they will succeed in doing anything more than making people angry but I will wait for them to take action before deciding if I need to light my torch.
You know in the end these balance passes don't really hurt the elite player who do 1k dps on the ground and 200k dps in space. It hurts average player more. We will end up with even bigger losers in pugs. It's going to be tremendous...bigly.
Current space dps at the top end, 514k Tac, 343k Engineer and 310k Sci. Perhaps simply making APA a buff for weapon damage only would help to bring the classes closer together without significant change and more importantly avoiding the inevitable breakage or imbalanced nerfing of skills that have been the result of past attempts at balance. Or simply stop adding shinys that are in no way balanced in order to sell ships (some hope).
"Balance Changes" only means one thing.. global nerfs incoming.
Actually it means two things, things can go down (which we call nerfs) or up (which we call buffs). So far Cryptic has listed 1 nerf and 3 buffs.
Edit: following appeared later in the thread but Vanilla ate the post after an edit.
seaofsorrows wrote: »
These players are getting hit with AFK bans because they're flying silly builds and have no idea what's going on. Bringing down global damage numbers will actually effect these players more then those at the top because those at the top make constant adjustments. In the end, those players still have to hit that paltry 1% total damage threshold, and if they can't do it now, they won't do it after the changes either.
Provided they Cryptic target all abilities equally, which they clearly aren't doing. Reducing damage globally is targeting the average. That can move without necessarily pushing down all parts of the distribution. It depends on what Cryptic goes after. For example: Kemocite. Say Cryptic slaps that down with a significant nerf. That would bring many high-damage builds down but it wouldn't do a thing to players who suffer AFK bans for drifting about with generic abilities and equipment. Now, carry this through to all those extra abilities that have spiked the power creep over the last few years. That could easily be the shape of the update if Cryptic's exclusive aim is to significantly level damage output.
That "exclusive" part is probably not the case, but it should be an adequate illustration of the point: targeted changes to the 1% do not come at the same or greater cost to the 99%.
Actually, they fixed kemocite, or rather buffed it when the new skill trees launched. Ive been getting favorable parser numbers using all variants of the ability.
Other than the security escort, they sound like buffs.
It's not the first time something like this has happened. Cryptic has been consistent in it's methodology over the years, 'balance changes' always just means blanket nerfs.
The last "global" balancing act was the uber Buff's of the BORG STF Trinity and Delta Rising release. So much so, some "elites" were removed from the game, and the DPSePeeners now have to play the RA's and "Advanced" STF's for thier ego's..
A more recent "balance" was to the Miner Instability.. Again, a buff to the NPC's that kicked 90% of the player base from elite to Advance, just to complete it. Funny thing is, those same folks that can't do the Elite now, may have been challenged during the "event" period, but afterwards, just a mega-respawn-adventure on elite.
Any one been here long enough to remember the SCI skill "balance" about 3, maybe 4 years ago ?? That balance just about killed the SCI speciality.
For my fellow TAC family members, remember the FAW "balance" and the subsequent cannon nerf ?? Go to a STF with cannons and be prepared for the attacks, and not from the NPC's
In my 7 years of observation and game play, IMHO, a "Balance" generally means, IMHO, NPC's get buffed, we get the bat. They make us "stronger" NPC's go mega. TYVM
About that cannon thing: I've seen people mention that, but I've never encountered anyone in the game who verbally attacked me for using cannons. And I use them on all characters that don't use a torpedo build, and I PUG almost all my missions.
Really...I have. And also because I toss in a torp for the same of these ships should have one sake as well. Or that I don't use AP when that was hot or disruptors now that one is. There are people who are on the low totem of the DPS pole who seem to think they are this bad **** player because they can reach 30k DPS after spending hundreds of dollars. Oh please...I can do that with free stuff. Some of these people don't realize that once you get good enough, that whole game gets kinda boring...and some of us do stuff for fun.
Oh well. I've never encountered them. I'd just laugh about it, just like I always laugh at people who ask about 'the meta' and so on. I think it's cute
But...but...money. They are a corporation. If they make more money doing these cycles...they will.
This is why I stopped spending actual money on STO a long time ago. They sell all these powerful items, give it just long enough to where everyone clamors to get them and then once the spending slows down, they hit everything with the nerf bat. I find it a dishonest business tactic and they have been doing it for years.
This is very typical for them, sell a ton of ships and abilities that let you push the very upper limits of DPS, then once they have made a ton of money.. come in and nerf them into the ground. I'm glad I learned this lesson years ago and stopped spending on this game.
I'm actually happy about this, this incoming round of nerfs should line up pretty close to the release date of Mass Effect Andromeda so I'll have no problem spending time away while everything gets sorted out and 'balanced.'
Yup. Never been pretty, and often takes some time to get straight again afterwards. While "consideration for player investment" is #2 on the list, historically it has been treated precisely like that very thing..."#2."
But...but...money. They are a corporation. If they make more money doing these cycles...they will.
This is why I stopped spending actual money on STO a long time ago. They sell all these powerful items, give it just long enough to where everyone clamors to get them and then once the spending slows down, they hit everything with the nerf bat. I find it a dishonest business tactic and they have been doing it for years.
This is very typical for them, sell a ton of ships and abilities that let you push the very upper limits of DPS, then once they have made a ton of money.. come in and nerf them into the ground. I'm glad I learned this lesson years ago and stopped spending on this game.
More truth from the sea. Preach it brother!
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,080Community Moderator
I'm gonna take my usual "wait and see how it turns out" approach rather than assume the worst right off the bat.
I for one am glad to see that they are thinking about balance changes. In my opinion, a large scale balance pass (especially in space) has long been needed.
I agree with SeaofSorrows in his assessment regarding changes, good players will adapt, poor players will still stuck and cry about the game, rather than realize in truth they are problem not the game or good players.
So.
The Starfleet Engineers in game that can turn rocks in replicators will adapt and move on from any adjustments made to the games mechanics and still make replicators from rocks.
The others that can't turn a rock into a replicator will still have a rock when these changes go through and probably have a bigger, heavier rock "IF" power creep on some powers are reduced.
I just pray that these changes are thoroughly thought through and if its to make a more challenging game, its challenging because of AI/NPC intelligence not a repeat of past season.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
Would it be too much to hope for that they change CRF, CSV, BFAW, and BO to be non-weapon specific to give more attack style choices?
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
I feel pretty much every damage buff (whether it's sci, tac or even eng powers) needs to be nerfed into the ground.
For example - instead of something giving a 10% increase in damage, it should be reduced to 1%-2%. That should seriously decrease the damage we're doing.
Tac powers need to stop buffing Sci or Eng abilities. FBP needs to not return more damage than received (especially since there's 50% shield pen).
"Universal" consoles need to get their own slot or something. Any way limiting how many you can take.
Embassy consoles also need a massive nerf into the ground. I can't remember the figures, but for a 75K player, can't they do something like 10k?
Looks like the first changes are coming to Tribble soon.
Looks pretty good actually. Some of these things are just fixes, others are corrections on items that were clearly overperforming or had no drawbacks at all like the Kligat.
And there's a lot of hard cooldowns implemented, which shouldn't have too many adverse effects.
All in all it seems pretty reasonable, this will most likely only hit those that heavily specialised in a single ability rather than a build that combines different things (like the army of Security escorts). This doesn't look like 'nerfing' in the sense of hurting players or discouraging the use of items; it's just removing extreme benefits from specific abilities.
If this is actually as good as it is described here, then I think this will definitely be beneficial.
One of the things I'm hoping they balance are the embassy consoles. The hull/shield repair variants are vastly under powered compared to the plasma variants because of the 10 sec global cooldown on the hull/shield ones.
One of the things I'm hoping they balance are the embassy consoles. The hull/shield repair variants are vastly under powered compared to the plasma variants because of the 10 sec global cooldown on the hull/shield ones.
Or, the plasma ones are vastly overpowered compared to their counterparts Perhaps reduce the shield penetration on the explosions to 50% or less, reduce the base value by some large margin and add crits, reduce the base value but allow them to be affected by exotics, or some combination of the above. In addition, of course, to bringing the healing consoles up in effectiveness to fit with all the new lukari-era regen themed stuff, allowing a ship to specialize in outlasting damage either by dint of armor or regen.
The effect of embassy plasma consoles was only ever supposed to be a nice little extra perk, kinda like entropic rider, instead becoming a major if not the largest component in some people's builds. If we recall, their original iteration was basically just 'slot this console to add the plasma proc to otherwise non plasma weapons'...except that the DoTs could stack and be doped in ways the standard plasma effect could not. Heck, there's still (at least) one way left to dope explosions in their current form, even after all the balance passes and bug fixes on them...maybe just revert them to the original intent and limit it to 1 or 2 consoles that can provide their effect. Or make them like the other embassy consoles are now, in that each console has an individual or they collectively have a minimum c/d, the possibilities are endless.
Comments
You can almost hear BFAW getting a much needed poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
That there will be a new "what people say is best" in inevitable. Getting rid of that is not the goal, so don't think for a second "there's always a meta" is gonna save the current one. That the next best is less far behind and the average is much closer to the best are the real goals.
This ought to be significantly more entertaining than the skill revamp. Time to fire up the barbeque and grill some of them sacred cows!
About that cannon thing: I've seen people mention that, but I've never encountered anyone in the game who verbally attacked me for using cannons. And I use them on all characters that don't use a torpedo build, and I PUG almost all my missions.
Ground Tactical Iniviative is magnificent for the entire team. The change to that is a massive nerf.
So like others have said, they're going to nerf FAW and science (because they ALWAYS nerf science) because that's what they are going to do. My guess is that the next major update they're got plans for releasing something and to make sure people buy that expansions stuff, they need to nerf the old stuff so people won't buy it any more. It's the usual pattern with STO. So it's now that FAW needs to be nerfed, it's that they've got plans for something else and don't want FAW and the current batch of ships to compete with their new shinys.
I dislike the tone of this point of view but I have to agree with it entirely.
This can't be quoted enough.
yep. Also, anyone remember when they were having a look at 'balancing' some of the queue rewards? The vault was left with a reward of 1 mark.
Balancing is not in Cryptic's skillset but, in the end, we will have to make the choice to adapt and continue to play or quit in anger. I'm not hopeful that they will succeed in doing anything more than making people angry but I will wait for them to take action before deciding if I need to light my torch.
Tactical will still be the best at everything, but Cryptic will just get to resell all that powercreep they took away in the form of new lockboxes...
Actually, they fixed kemocite, or rather buffed it when the new skill trees launched. Ive been getting favorable parser numbers using all variants of the ability.
Oh well. I've never encountered them. I'd just laugh about it, just like I always laugh at people who ask about 'the meta' and so on. I think it's cute
This is why I stopped spending actual money on STO a long time ago. They sell all these powerful items, give it just long enough to where everyone clamors to get them and then once the spending slows down, they hit everything with the nerf bat. I find it a dishonest business tactic and they have been doing it for years.
This is very typical for them, sell a ton of ships and abilities that let you push the very upper limits of DPS, then once they have made a ton of money.. come in and nerf them into the ground. I'm glad I learned this lesson years ago and stopped spending on this game.
I'm actually happy about this, this incoming round of nerfs should line up pretty close to the release date of Mass Effect Andromeda so I'll have no problem spending time away while everything gets sorted out and 'balanced.'
More truth from the sea. Preach it brother!
Then again I'm a casual so... *shrug*
yeah so apparently the "balance" pass actually hurts engi and sci the most
So.
The Starfleet Engineers in game that can turn rocks in replicators will adapt and move on from any adjustments made to the games mechanics and still make replicators from rocks.
The others that can't turn a rock into a replicator will still have a rock when these changes go through and probably have a bigger, heavier rock "IF" power creep on some powers are reduced.
I just pray that these changes are thoroughly thought through and if its to make a more challenging game, its challenging because of AI/NPC intelligence not a repeat of past season.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
For example - instead of something giving a 10% increase in damage, it should be reduced to 1%-2%. That should seriously decrease the damage we're doing.
Tac powers need to stop buffing Sci or Eng abilities. FBP needs to not return more damage than received (especially since there's 50% shield pen).
"Universal" consoles need to get their own slot or something. Any way limiting how many you can take.
Embassy consoles also need a massive nerf into the ground. I can't remember the figures, but for a 75K player, can't they do something like 10k?
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Looks like the first changes are coming to Tribble soon.
Looks pretty good actually. Some of these things are just fixes, others are corrections on items that were clearly overperforming or had no drawbacks at all like the Kligat.
And there's a lot of hard cooldowns implemented, which shouldn't have too many adverse effects.
All in all it seems pretty reasonable, this will most likely only hit those that heavily specialised in a single ability rather than a build that combines different things (like the army of Security escorts). This doesn't look like 'nerfing' in the sense of hurting players or discouraging the use of items; it's just removing extreme benefits from specific abilities.
If this is actually as good as it is described here, then I think this will definitely be beneficial.
And watch from afar as madness and chaos take over the forums, reddit, facebook and twitter.
And too, pretty, please.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
Or, the plasma ones are vastly overpowered compared to their counterparts
The effect of embassy plasma consoles was only ever supposed to be a nice little extra perk, kinda like entropic rider, instead becoming a major if not the largest component in some people's builds. If we recall, their original iteration was basically just 'slot this console to add the plasma proc to otherwise non plasma weapons'...except that the DoTs could stack and be doped in ways the standard plasma effect could not. Heck, there's still (at least) one way left to dope explosions in their current form, even after all the balance passes and bug fixes on them...maybe just revert them to the original intent and limit it to 1 or 2 consoles that can provide their effect. Or make them like the other embassy consoles are now, in that each console has an individual or they collectively have a minimum c/d, the possibilities are endless.
P.S. http://sto.gamepedia.com/Console_-_Tactical_-_Auto_Targeting_Module, specifically the [+Beam] variety, still add to plasma explosion damage in the same way that spire consoles used to...for anyone out there watching who has the power to correct this.