Yeah, we all used 3 security officer Doffs in the hopes of spawning 9 escorts because it was good for RP. It wasn't because it offered us a massive benefit and gave tactical captains a edge over other careers.
This really does remind me how much this balance pass is needed.
Frankly, my engineer is way deadlier than my Tac toon on ground content.
Lot of talk about "making the game fun" and one of the biggest firt changes is jacking the security escort multispawn fun. Also, why just Command kit modules having area limits removed and not things like nanite health monitor having it's range limit extended? I would rage but you don't care anyways.
Yeah you've already got about $200 from me anyways but let's face it, you spent that already and you want more. You think nerfs gonna get it ?
Bring back team work that requires healing and tanking as well and not just full blown DPS. The game went so wrong with not requiring it that has to be fixed. No more "ALL DPS ONLY" balances.
This is Cryptic's chance to fix that and rebalance the game properly so you can actually choose to play a role you like and want to do rather then forced into a DPS only role which is what the game forces you into .
Are you crazy, that would require some sort of team planning and execution. That would involve thinking skills, which would make the game far too complicated for the nonthinking keyboard Smashers.
As some of you who have run with a Pug group, the one thing that destroys or frustrate the game experience , are players that join a higher level queue then they are ready for.
So, I propose to eliminate the thinking, and just design the game so that there is no thinking involved, this will make all the keyboard spammers happy, sure you will eventually lose the more experienced players, but they can easily be replaced with new inexperienced players, because in the end, all they want is to fly around without a clue and spam the keyboard until the reward window pop up.
See this is a perfect model for this free-to-play game because the whole concept of free to play is to get the non paying gamers to experience the game without having to learn the complicated mission and have to deal with angry experienced players commenting on how they should have learn the mission and have come better prepared before joining a more advance level bla, bla, bla...
Taking away the whole thinking thing will make them happy and they will start spending money, until they get bored and will eventually leave, but will get replaced with a brand new set of eager keyboard spammers to replace the old.
I never quite understood the appeal to having 3 purple security officers for red shirt armies. It was always unreliable. The whole "balance" behind it was that it only had a slim chance of happening, but when it did happen, it'd summon all those security officers at once. This meant that a player could go on a mission and hit security escort several times without the duty officers ever activating.
Those 3 duty officer slots could have been replaced with something more useful, like a a Na'khul warfare specialist, the Voth duty officer that adds a damage resistance debuff to Targeting Optics, a Biochemist that reduces Hypo/Shield/Energy Cell cooldowns, or any other number of duty officers that are reliable way more often.
I guess if you're a Tac on a budget (or have the ground trait that lets your security officers throw grenades), they're useful. But I'd still consider them rather balanced since you don't always get your red shirt armies.
Yeah, we all used 3 security officer Doffs in the hopes of spawning 9 escorts because it was good for RP. It wasn't because it offered us a massive benefit and gave tactical captains a edge over other careers.
This really does remind me how much this balance pass is needed.
Just in from tribble, this is what's changing about Security Escorts.
Security Escorts do more damage, especially with their grenades, and run faster
Summoning Security Escorts now de-summons your previous security escorts
The change isn't limiting us to two escorts, it's limiting us to one set of the little buggers (which would normally be just one pair, which is where the blog language is coming from). The max number of minions remains unchanged.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
"Your fun isn't wrong, so we're increasing cooldowns on everything and adding mandatory base globals."
What is this I don't even
It's too early to invoke dooooom or raise a joyful chorus, but it doesn't look very promising so far.
Redshirt swarm nerf/change I can understand. A couple of Tacs churning them out lag the bezeebus out of maps and I suppose it's a bit overpowered when the swarm is buffed from multiple teamwide sources. As long as the security officer Doffs affecting the ability are compensated fairly, I'm okay with this one.
Stealth Module is useful the way it is now. Yes, it's clunky. No, I don't use it primarily for the damage buff. The durationless stealth toggle allows a player to interact with objectives and avoid aggression: a unique and situationally useful ability. Making the stealth duration finite would diminish the ability and actually work toward reducing options rather than increasing them. We already have plenty of "click for timed damage buff" abilities and Ambush already does the same with a much stronger spike.
Tactical Iniative affecting only the user's kit modules brings it more in line with the other careers' ground abilities, but overall this change discourages diversity and pushes players toward choosing Tacs over Sci or Engi on ground. It also makes Engineering Proficiency and Scientific Aptitude that much less useful. Five minute cooldown for any ability except maybe the reputation T5s is excessive. If you're going through with this, at least cut the team buff CDs to 3 min along with it, so they'll be used more than once per map.
If Fire on My Mark can't be reduced below 30 sec CD, what's the point of the new lockbox trait reducing its cooldown? In order to get full use out of that trait, the target would have to die immediately upon application.
Seems to me this is less about making the game fun and more about slowing us with cooldowns. Just the first impression I get from reading the blog and Tribble patch notes.
Yeah, we all used 3 security officer Doffs in the hopes of spawning 9 escorts because it was good for RP. It wasn't because it offered us a massive benefit and gave tactical captains a edge over other careers.
This really does remind me how much this balance pass is needed.
Just in from tribble, this is what's changing about Security Escorts.
Security Escorts do more damage, especially with their grenades, and run faster
Summoning Security Escorts now de-summons your previous security escorts
The change isn't limiting us to two escorts, it's limiting us to one set of the little buggers (which would normally be just one pair, which is where the blog language is coming from). The max number of minions remains unchanged.
Okay, so summoning new Security Escorts despawns any previous Security Escorts that were out, meaning the purple security duty officers are still useful and still have a 20% chance to summon additional escorts.
You just can't stay in near-perpetual red alert to continue generating additional Security Escorts on top of the ones you already have.
The Tribble patch hit for ground "balancing". Not as bad as I thought, but engineers got the shaft it seems.
As though we weren't already poorly enough off...my fabrications die almost immediately and the explosives require stuff to walk near them. Oh well, back to Defera, home of copious slow-moving targets.
...Because the big red tactical elephant in the room is Attack Pattern Alpha (and an essentially always-on GDF at near max power if it's worked right) buffing all damage, making tactical officers better at Science vessels than even Science Officers (and lets be honest, better at literally every type of ship (and role) there is)...
Along the lines of my suggestion to differentiate classes more...sci should have the edge in exotic, engineers get nice perks in the form of Grace Under Pressure and EPS Manifold Efficiency. More things like those eng traits and Conservation of Energy (or maybe Psychological Warfare) for Sci's.
...Because the big red tactical elephant in the room is Attack Pattern Alpha (and an essentially always-on GDF at near max power if it's worked right) buffing all damage, making tactical officers better at Science vessels than even Science Officers (and lets be honest, better at literally every type of ship (and role) there is)...
Along the lines of my suggestion to differentiate classes more...sci should have the edge in exotic, engineers get nice perks in the form of Grace Under Pressure and EPS Manifold Efficiency. More things like those eng traits and Conservation of Energy (or maybe Psychological Warfare) for Sci's.
I'd take it one step further and suggest Engineers should get a separate-but-equal form of damage dealing similar to how Science was given a hard shift from "Support" to "Exotic Damage Space Wizardry".
Make Engineers masters of weapon firing haste or shield/armor penetration (or both) so they can compete with Tactical for raw DPS and Science for exotic damage.
Keeping my eyes glued to the tribble release notes, but I'll be the first one to complain like crazy if balance = science nerf while DPS gets a pass like always.
Elite Dangerous,Horizons is becoming way more fun then this nerffest,Engies have a tough time and you're making it worse,all because some whiney TRIBBLE players moaned for weeks how they don't like things,because they won't learn.STO is now WoW in space
So I've spent lot's of time dilithium and yes real money gettin to where I am ingame. I'm all for fun, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
Please don't just equate balance with science nerfs, or just plain nerfs,
please don't devalue hard to get, very/ultra rare items,
please make torpedoes and mines viable choices again.
Please make engineering just as good as science and tactical for teamplay.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE - Don't revert to Escorts online again.
that's all I'm askin.
What exactly "one pair at a time" means for Security Escort? Simply removing the doffs (and whatever else) that can give you more than that, or is it on a team lock-out now, like Tac Fleet?
Yea. I really need more clarity on this.
I'm assuming / hoping they mean "you can't summon a set and then summon a second set and have both sets"; but even that starts to make some strange scenerios.
You summoned 6, 2 die, you have 4. Can you *try* to summon again replacing the 4 you have? What if your DOff doesn't pop and you only get 2?
I think this will require a more nuanced rework to not toss out the baby with the bathwater.
How am I supposed to have mental Benny Hill music with 2?
Games are about having fun, and players should not be made to feel that their fun is “wrong.”
Cryptic already told me my idea of "fun" was "wrong" when they removed the 3 hour long, 5 player, able to be failed, borg missions. You want to bring the fun? stop with this "Everyone gets a trophy" grind fest and put some challenge back into the game.
players should not be made to feel that their fun is “wrong.”
Too bad that's what you're doing already with what you've previewed. Apparently my fun isn't the "right" type to be kept around.
Preach it, AFB!
Personally, I'm fairly apprehensive about the Security Escort change. How that ought to be rebalanced, if you're limiting it to two at a time is that they NEVER despawn unless killed in battle. They should NEVER just beam back up without the captain's permission...and I sure as heck have never given them permission. Don't let us summon more redshirts until ours are killed - that's fine. But they should stick around till their inevitable gruesome deaths - that's what redshirts are FOR!
The Stealth "balance" sounds like a nerf too, if it has a time limit on remaining Stealthed. Stealth was my "go to" module for the ground portion of "Boldly They Rode", and the old one with the Assimilated Undine. Otherwise, both of those missions would have been wildly unentertaining. Stealth added suspense and tactics to what otherwise was straight up Shooter time.
I really hope that I'm being unnecessarily pessimistic, and that the rollout will prove me wrong. I would happily eat my words. But it truly sounds to me like my fun is going to be considered "wrong". Ah, well.
"Your fun isn't wrong, so we're increasing cooldowns on everything and adding mandatory base globals."
[SNIP}
Stealth Module is useful the way it is now. Yes, it's clunky. No, I don't use it primarily for the damage buff. The durationless stealth toggle allows a player to interact with objectives and avoid aggression: a unique and situationally useful ability. Making the stealth duration finite would diminish the ability and actually work toward reducing options rather than increasing them. We already have plenty of "click for timed damage buff" abilities and Ambush already does the same with a much stronger spike.
[SNIP]
Seems to me this is less about making the game fun and more about slowing us with cooldowns. Just the first impression I get from reading the blog and Tribble patch notes.
Seems like a good way to ruin the game for ppl who still play ground.
Seems like it will kill public ntte queue since its full of trolls who reset bosses shield to begin with.
Seems like you could make a new ambush kit module and call it amplifying ambush or whatever.
Seems like undine infiltration still dead from where you changed the way to put out fires to game-pad controller friendly.
Feels like your breaking my traits that buff secuity guards, my doffs, my kperf kits, my modules.
How about a 48hour penalty for and expeling greifers who use the bse trigger switch before objectives, greifers make no one want to play it.
How about disabling concussive tachyon and shield reset proc on ntte, greifers make no one want to play it.
How about making fires to be put out on uie like they used to along with new way, it makes no one wants to play it
How about not making bug hunt really long and then having the guy die at the end, it makes no one wants to play it
I eagerly await it as much as I fear it. When I see Unimatrixes get down from ~55% hull to zero in one second; whole battlegroups of BZ ships eaten up in an anomaly +whatever in 2 seconds its clear something has to be done one way or another.
I just hope they take a looooong time to keep it on tribble and do what they appear to usually don't: READ & ACT UPON THE FRIGGIN FEEDBACK!
First round goes to ground combat? oO
err... what? Not enough "I hate ground combat in STO" threads lately?
Stealth Module is useful the way it is now. Yes, it's clunky. No, I don't use it primarily for the damage buff. The durationless stealth toggle allows a player to interact with objectives and avoid aggression: a unique and situationally useful ability. Making the stealth duration finite would diminish the ability and actually work toward reducing options rather than increasing them. We already have plenty of "click for timed damage buff" abilities and Ambush already does the same with a much stronger spike.
Yeah, I kinda liked being able to sneak around. Back in Undine Infiltration, one of my characters often went past the Undine, waited for the team to stir up trouble, then did the objective undeterred before helping kill the Undine forces. Fun times... which may be going away forever?
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Comments
Frankly, my engineer is way deadlier than my Tac toon on ground content.
Yeah you've already got about $200 from me anyways but let's face it, you spent that already and you want more. You think nerfs gonna get it ?
Are you crazy, that would require some sort of team planning and execution. That would involve thinking skills, which would make the game far too complicated for the nonthinking keyboard Smashers.
As some of you who have run with a Pug group, the one thing that destroys or frustrate the game experience , are players that join a higher level queue then they are ready for.
So, I propose to eliminate the thinking, and just design the game so that there is no thinking involved, this will make all the keyboard spammers happy, sure you will eventually lose the more experienced players, but they can easily be replaced with new inexperienced players, because in the end, all they want is to fly around without a clue and spam the keyboard until the reward window pop up.
See this is a perfect model for this free-to-play game because the whole concept of free to play is to get the non paying gamers to experience the game without having to learn the complicated mission and have to deal with angry experienced players commenting on how they should have learn the mission and have come better prepared before joining a more advance level bla, bla, bla...
Taking away the whole thinking thing will make them happy and they will start spending money, until they get bored and will eventually leave, but will get replaced with a brand new set of eager keyboard spammers to replace the old.
The perfect circle of life
Those 3 duty officer slots could have been replaced with something more useful, like a a Na'khul warfare specialist, the Voth duty officer that adds a damage resistance debuff to Targeting Optics, a Biochemist that reduces Hypo/Shield/Energy Cell cooldowns, or any other number of duty officers that are reliable way more often.
I guess if you're a Tac on a budget (or have the ground trait that lets your security officers throw grenades), they're useful. But I'd still consider them rather balanced since you don't always get your red shirt armies.
- Security Escorts do more damage, especially with their grenades, and run faster
- Summoning Security Escorts now de-summons your previous security escorts
The change isn't limiting us to two escorts, it's limiting us to one set of the little buggers (which would normally be just one pair, which is where the blog language is coming from). The max number of minions remains unchanged.Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
What is this I don't even
It's too early to invoke dooooom or raise a joyful chorus, but it doesn't look very promising so far.
Redshirt swarm nerf/change I can understand. A couple of Tacs churning them out lag the bezeebus out of maps and I suppose it's a bit overpowered when the swarm is buffed from multiple teamwide sources. As long as the security officer Doffs affecting the ability are compensated fairly, I'm okay with this one.
Stealth Module is useful the way it is now. Yes, it's clunky. No, I don't use it primarily for the damage buff. The durationless stealth toggle allows a player to interact with objectives and avoid aggression: a unique and situationally useful ability. Making the stealth duration finite would diminish the ability and actually work toward reducing options rather than increasing them. We already have plenty of "click for timed damage buff" abilities and Ambush already does the same with a much stronger spike.
Tactical Iniative affecting only the user's kit modules brings it more in line with the other careers' ground abilities, but overall this change discourages diversity and pushes players toward choosing Tacs over Sci or Engi on ground. It also makes Engineering Proficiency and Scientific Aptitude that much less useful. Five minute cooldown for any ability except maybe the reputation T5s is excessive. If you're going through with this, at least cut the team buff CDs to 3 min along with it, so they'll be used more than once per map.
If Fire on My Mark can't be reduced below 30 sec CD, what's the point of the new lockbox trait reducing its cooldown? In order to get full use out of that trait, the target would have to die immediately upon application.
Seems to me this is less about making the game fun and more about slowing us with cooldowns. Just the first impression I get from reading the blog and Tribble patch notes.
Okay, so summoning new Security Escorts despawns any previous Security Escorts that were out, meaning the purple security duty officers are still useful and still have a 20% chance to summon additional escorts.
You just can't stay in near-perpetual red alert to continue generating additional Security Escorts on top of the ones you already have.
Git gud or get off my lawn says the old-timer
As though we weren't already poorly enough off...my fabrications die almost immediately and the explosives require stuff to walk near them. Oh well, back to Defera, home of copious slow-moving targets.
Along the lines of my suggestion to differentiate classes more...sci should have the edge in exotic, engineers get nice perks in the form of Grace Under Pressure and EPS Manifold Efficiency. More things like those eng traits and Conservation of Energy (or maybe Psychological Warfare) for Sci's.
I'd take it one step further and suggest Engineers should get a separate-but-equal form of damage dealing similar to how Science was given a hard shift from "Support" to "Exotic Damage Space Wizardry".
Make Engineers masters of weapon firing haste or shield/armor penetration (or both) so they can compete with Tactical for raw DPS and Science for exotic damage.
I was just thinking this myself.
Please don't just equate balance with science nerfs, or just plain nerfs,
please don't devalue hard to get, very/ultra rare items,
please make torpedoes and mines viable choices again.
Please make engineering just as good as science and tactical for teamplay.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE - Don't revert to Escorts online again.
that's all I'm askin.
I'm assuming / hoping they mean "you can't summon a set and then summon a second set and have both sets"; but even that starts to make some strange scenerios.
You summoned 6, 2 die, you have 4. Can you *try* to summon again replacing the 4 you have? What if your DOff doesn't pop and you only get 2?
I think this will require a more nuanced rework to not toss out the baby with the bathwater.
How am I supposed to have mental Benny Hill music with 2?
If not, I respectfully suggest scraping any plans for any other projects until this is finally fixed.
Just do it.
Preach it, AFB!
Personally, I'm fairly apprehensive about the Security Escort change. How that ought to be rebalanced, if you're limiting it to two at a time is that they NEVER despawn unless killed in battle. They should NEVER just beam back up without the captain's permission...and I sure as heck have never given them permission. Don't let us summon more redshirts until ours are killed - that's fine. But they should stick around till their inevitable gruesome deaths - that's what redshirts are FOR!
The Stealth "balance" sounds like a nerf too, if it has a time limit on remaining Stealthed. Stealth was my "go to" module for the ground portion of "Boldly They Rode", and the old one with the Assimilated Undine. Otherwise, both of those missions would have been wildly unentertaining. Stealth added suspense and tactics to what otherwise was straight up Shooter time.
I really hope that I'm being unnecessarily pessimistic, and that the rollout will prove me wrong. I would happily eat my words. But it truly sounds to me like my fun is going to be considered "wrong". Ah, well.
Quoted for Truth.
Seems like it will kill public ntte queue since its full of trolls who reset bosses shield to begin with.
Seems like you could make a new ambush kit module and call it amplifying ambush or whatever.
Seems like undine infiltration still dead from where you changed the way to put out fires to game-pad controller friendly.
Feels like your breaking my traits that buff secuity guards, my doffs, my kperf kits, my modules.
How about a 48hour penalty for and expeling greifers who use the bse trigger switch before objectives, greifers make no one want to play it.
How about disabling concussive tachyon and shield reset proc on ntte, greifers make no one want to play it.
How about making fires to be put out on uie like they used to along with new way, it makes no one wants to play it
How about not making bug hunt really long and then having the guy die at the end, it makes no one wants to play it
Yeah, I kinda liked being able to sneak around. Back in Undine Infiltration, one of my characters often went past the Undine, waited for the team to stir up trouble, then did the objective undeterred before helping kill the Undine forces. Fun times... which may be going away forever?
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.