[...]. Yet that does not mean a science officer is going to be as good at combat or combat maneuvers as say a tactical officer,[...]
Riiiighht. Because only one career is actually a military officer in command of a warship.
Who said only one career can become a military officer on a starship? I know I did not. I said that the background of a commander of a starship, and also what other areas they study can influence how they command even between two different tactical captains (which is also true of engineering, and science captains). Also are you trying to say that a commander with a background of being a science or engineering officer prior to his promotion to commander (we have seen officers from those two areas becoming commanders) would be just as capable tactically as a commander from a tactical background? Hell even in the real world military not all officers and soldiers are equally trained, some go thru advanced training of varying types that depends on what their duties entail, and yet these officers can still hold quite high ranks an are also still military officers.
[...]. Yet that does not mean a science officer is going to be as good at combat or combat maneuvers as say a tactical officer,[...]
Riiiighht. Because only one career is actually a military officer in command of a warship.
Who said only one career can become a military officer on a starship? [...]
"Combat maneuvers" are every. Single. STO. Captain's. Day. Job.
The styles differ. The performance should not.
That will not happen except within a small margin. How you spec in the trees should have more impact on your career abilities, and what they affect or buff. Also they do differ in style as a science an engineering character have quite a different feel/style to a tactical, and if you run them like a tactical or vis-versa they are not going to excell nearly as well, since they are missing the tactical/engineering/science career abilities.
If you gave the career specific abilities bonus effects that were based on how deeply you specced into the sub-trees, like that if you specced deeply into engineering as a tactical it could give you a reduction to weapon power usage an also improving your defensive stats to some of your career abilities. Similarly if you are a science or engineer going deep into the tactical tree it would give your normally defensive or debuff/buffing career abilities a offensive boosting buff. Keeping it that base-line for example that career abilities of a tactical (no points spent in the sub-career trees) only effect their weapons, but that the more you spend into the science sub-tree your tactical career abilities begin to give a bonus to damage of exotic damage, or if you spec mre into engineering you might gain boosts to your defensive stats while using your career abilities.
Tactical is supposed to do damage though, so their abilities should do as much as possible to buff all forms of damage.
Sci is meant to do crowd control, not damage. it's unbalanced for them to do both.
Show me a situation where crowd control > flat out DPSing the target(s) to oblivion before they become a "problem".
Oh wait, you can't. Because STO is designed around a "no trinity required" mentality. Any and every situation "needs" to be "solved" by a 5x Tactical team - so every situation is designed where a sufficient application of Tactical DPS in the right place at the right time = win.
So what is it? We gonna go "full trinity" now, or we gonna keep a game where "5x Tactical DPS = Win". As long as it's the second, then every participant needs to be able to contribute "1x tactical DPS" worth of effect, whether it's showing up in a parse or not. And it needs to be done in such a manner that no matter how the teaming up occurs, each person contributes exactly "1x Tactical DPS" to the combat - so that drainboat over in the corner has to be able to debuff the target enough so that his 6x weapons + debuffs = a kill in the same amount of time as a Tactical, but if the tactical comes over to assist, the pairing kills the target in exactly the same amount of time that it would take 2x tacticals to do so - otherwise "early trinity mentality" starts to kick in and "if we don't run a drainboat/tactical team, we can't start this queue" becomes the rule...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
No, Tac characters DO NOT need a nerf' if ANYTHING, SCIs need a nerf, engineers need a severe buff. Don't just nerf one class to put it on level with the other two classes eventhough the class theyre nerfing is the wrong one! Tac officers are fine, Sci officers need a nerf, and Engineers need a near complete overhaul and SEVERE buff. To me this just sounds like people complaining that Tacs can call in more **** than they can (lookin at you whining, ground-loving engineers in the corner). Tacs are fine, leave them alone. Debuff the minor thing or two, but otherwise, theyre fine. In about 95 percemt of the ISAs i have run today ALONE, a SCI is always the highest parse, not a tac.
Singular question: are the parses showing that a Science Captain, of equivalent skill/build, "winning" the parse battles, or a Tactical in a Science ship. Please don't confuse the two and say that a science ship = science officer...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
The red uniform people lead / fight, the yellow and blue uniform people are always in SUPPORT roles.
I thought in the TNG era, "Red" uniforms meant officers in the command track? Janeway was a Science officer for example, Picard was an archaeologist and Sisko was a former Engineer weren't they? In fact, IIRC, "Tactical Officers" wore yellow (Tuvok and Worf for example).
The red uniform people lead / fight, the yellow and blue uniform people are always in SUPPORT roles.
I thought in the TNG era, "Red" uniforms meant officers in the command track? Janeway was a Science officer for example, Picard was an archaeologist and Sisko was a former Engineer weren't they? In fact, IIRC, "Tactical Officers" wore yellow (Tuvok and Worf for example).
yep. in fact in tng and later. tactical officers mostly just get slapped around by threat of the week. assuming it is something that can be fought othere is they sit in their corner and not get in peoples way.science and engineering are the ones to save the day. the worf effect is named that for a good reason.
and the only even possible tact captain is kirk and across two timelines/universes most just gets beat up, embarrassed, and loses to his first officer when is comes to women.
Post edited by nightken on
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
The red uniform people lead / fight, the yellow and blue uniform people are always in SUPPORT roles.
The point of sci and eng is to SUPPORT tac.
This is a Star Trek game.
As a die-hard Sci, I want to "support" you.
I present you a choice, however. Do we:
A: Make it where a Tactical must have an Engineer-Tank and a Science-Controller around
B: Make it where Sciences and Engineers "carry their weight" in the DPS race, ie, do 1x Tactical Officer's worth of DPS, but in a "different manner", which may or may not show up on a parse.
Otherwise, we have option C: Support classes are "worthless" because 5x Tacs rule all...
As you present yourself as the "overwhelming font" of "non-fun, hyper efficient" STO knowledge, which option do we go with? My guess is that in the name of "efficiency", option B would be the "goal", because one cannot ensure that the appropriate amount of "mandatory Science/Engineering support" is available the exact second the hyper-efficient Tactical would want to run a queue. However, this "mandates" that all classes be able to do exactly the same amount of "damage", whether it's direct parsed damage or debuffed in such a way that only the debuffing individual benefits, because we can't have a Tactical "boost" their DPS because of someone else's actions....
But to get there, we need to clear the elephant in the room - APA and FOMM make it to where Tactical DPS of any sort > anyone else's DPS. This situation is "fixable" by either making these damage boosts "universal", or by "nerfing" their benefits to the Tactical in order to "bring these abilities" into line with what Sciences and Engineers can already do.
Again, I leave you the choice to make...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
To boil this thread down to basics....
You shouldn't be penalized for choosing a profession other than tactical.
Since the vast majority of content in the game focuses on doing damage currently you are and any "balance" issues needs to focus on tactical...not nerfing fabrications. C'mon Cryptic.
I think they fixed the stealth modules first, so they cab stealth nerf tactical officers.
But seriously, I'm not overly fussed with what happens. I don't use tactical officers, I'm a science and engineer player. However, seeing that most tactical officers tank better than my engineer, who I built to be a tank is quite sad really. But the biggest issue is cheeseback pulse (feedback pulse) with the ship trait, as well as many other science abilities. And then stacking all the tactical stuff on top to make most abilities ultra deadly. Either way stuff is going to change, and no doubt it'll upset a lot of people.
I just feel, some of the science and engineering class abilities need to be buffed, to make those classes feel special once again. As it is now, most are gimicks like miracle worker is.
No, Tac characters DO NOT need a nerf' if ANYTHING, SCIs need a nerf, engineers need a severe buff. Don't just nerf one class to put it on level with the other two classes eventhough the class theyre nerfing is the wrong one! Tac officers are fine, Sci officers need a nerf, and Engineers need a near complete overhaul and SEVERE buff. To me this just sounds like people complaining that Tacs can call in more **** than they can (lookin at you whining, ground-loving engineers in the corner). Tacs are fine, leave them alone. Debuff the minor thing or two, but otherwise, theyre fine. In about 95 percemt of the ISAs i have run today ALONE, a SCI is always the highest parse, not a tac.
Singular question: are the parses showing that a Science Captain, of equivalent skill/build, "winning" the parse battles, or a Tactical in a Science ship. Please don't confuse the two and say that a science ship = science officer...
I know what im talking about here, It was a SCIENCE officer in a SCIENCE vessel. I know the half of the science toons that won the "parse battles" to quote you further. They have everything epic and have been playing the game for any time period ranging from 2 months to since beta. For example, I would parse anywhere from 65.7k to 79.76k in my T6 NX refit as a Tactical officer with everything gold. These science players had a parse range of 99.58k to 178.87k. Now i scrolled more through this forum thread and I stand by the people who say damage game-wide should be nerfed, not just tacs. I would settle for that. All of this hatred towards tactical officers for both ground or space. Tac officers have been nerfed the most out of all three professions. Science needs a severe nerf in both the Drain and part gen categories, and Engineering needs a HUGE buff, whether to modify one of their captain skills to give them a damage buff or crit chance and crit severity buff. The tac attack pattern alpha captain skill has been nerfed a LOT to the point it buffs a THIRD of what it used to if i remember correctly. The devs should bring down Sci and bring up engineer if they want to balance the game more, not leave the other two exactly how they are and bring tacs to the point where its like theyre throwing sticks and rocks at a starship.
I know what im talking about here, It was a SCIENCE officer in a SCIENCE vessel. I know the half of the science toons that won the "parse battles" to quote you further. They have everything epic and have been playing the game for any time period ranging from 2 months to since beta. For example, I would parse anywhere from 65.7k to 79.76k in my T6 NX refit as a Tactical officer with everything gold. These science players had a parse range of 99.58k to 178.87k. Now i scrolled more through this forum thread and I stand by the people who say damage game-wide should be nerfed, not just tacs. I would settle for that. All of this hatred towards tactical officers for both ground or space. Tac officers have been nerfed the most out of all three professions. Science needs a severe nerf in both the Drain and part gen categories, and Engineering needs a HUGE buff, whether to modify one of their captain skills to give them a damage buff or crit chance and crit severity buff. The tac attack pattern alpha captain skill has been nerfed a LOT to the point it buffs a THIRD of what it used to if i remember correctly. The devs should bring down Sci and bring up engineer if they want to balance the game more, not leave the other two exactly how they are and bring tacs to the point where its like theyre throwing sticks and rocks at a starship.
If you did, indeed, know what you were talking about, you would know that a Tactical captain, using the same skills, consoles, weapons, ship, and player skill would put out more damage than those Science captains. Even using EPG- based builds. What you're saying, is to nerf Science because these players using it are better at the game than you.
I made a quick list of possible changes to space captain abilities. Of course this is just my opinion, and this is just a simple way to try to fix some game balance. There could be some larger scale changes that they have planned.
Engineering
Rotate Shield Frequency (30 sec):
* +Shield Heal Over Time
* +Shield Hardness
* Immune to all shield bypassing damage
* Possibly make this a team ability by ordering your allies to rotate their shield frequency as well.
EPS Power Transfer (30 sec):
* +All Power
* +Maximum Power Levels
* +Power Transfer Rate
* +Turn Rate and Flight Speed
Nadion Inversion (30 sec):
* +Shield and Energy Drain Resistance
* -Energy Weapon Power Cost
* +All Energy Damage
Miracle Worker (30 sec):
* Large Shield and Hull Heal
* +Hull and Shield Heal Over Time
* +Hull Damage Resistance and Shield Hardness
* +All Power
* Removes a debuff once per second
Engineering Fleet (30 sec):
* +Hull Regeneration
* +All Damage Resistance
* +All Healing
* +All Power
Science
Sensor Scan (30 sec):
* -All Damage Resistance (Target
* +Stealth Detection
* +Control Effectiveness
Subnucleonic Beam (30 sec):
* Removes All Buffs (Target)
* -Power Recharge Speed (Target)
* +Drain Effectiveness
Scattering Field (30 sec):
* +All Damage Resistance
* Reduces damage of all enemies within 10km
* Immune to control effects
Photonic Fleet:
* Spawns 3 NPC ships
* These ships can use self buffs and buff allies
* They also fight nearby enemies
Science Fleet (30 sec):
* +Shield Regeneration
* +Shield Hardness
* +EPG Damage
* +Control Effectiveness
* +Drain Effectiveness
Tactical
Attack Pattern Alpha (30 sec):
* +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage
* +Critical Severity
* +Critical Chance
* +Flight Speed and Turn Rate
Fire on My Mark (30 sec):
* -All Damage Resistance (Target)
* +Hull Penetration
* +Accuracy
Tactical Initiative (30 sec):
* +Tactical Power Recharge Speed
* +Flight Speed and Turn Rate
* +Defense
Go Down Fighting (30 sec):
* +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage
* +Flight Speed and Turn Rate
* +Critical Chance
* +Critical Severity
Tactical Fleet (30 sec):
* +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage
* +Flight Speed and Turn Rate
* +Accuracy
* +Defense
That's really quite perfect.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
Just allow all careers to have the same dps potential when built correctly, but delivering the dps in different and interesting ways. how hard is this to understand?
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
By the way Janeway was a science officer before she got her command. she wears red only becuase of command.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
No, Tac characters DO NOT need a nerf' if ANYTHING, SCIs need a nerf, engineers need a severe buff. Don't just nerf one class to put it on level with the other two classes eventhough the class theyre nerfing is the wrong one! Tac officers are fine, Sci officers need a nerf, and Engineers need a near complete overhaul and SEVERE buff. To me this just sounds like people complaining that Tacs can call in more **** than they can (lookin at you whining, ground-loving engineers in the corner). Tacs are fine, leave them alone. Debuff the minor thing or two, but otherwise, theyre fine. In about 95 percemt of the ISAs i have run today ALONE, a SCI is always the highest parse, not a tac.
Singular question: are the parses showing that a Science Captain, of equivalent skill/build, "winning" the parse battles, or a Tactical in a Science ship. Please don't confuse the two and say that a science ship = science officer...
I know what im talking about here, It was a SCIENCE officer in a SCIENCE vessel. I know the half of the science toons that won the "parse battles" to quote you further. They have everything epic and have been playing the game for any time period ranging from 2 months to since beta. For example, I would parse anywhere from 65.7k to 79.76k in my T6 NX refit as a Tactical officer with everything gold. These science players had a parse range of 99.58k to 178.87k. Now i scrolled more through this forum thread and I stand by the people who say damage game-wide should be nerfed, not just tacs. I would settle for that. All of this hatred towards tactical officers for both ground or space. Tac officers have been nerfed the most out of all three professions. Science needs a severe nerf in both the Drain and part gen categories, and Engineering needs a HUGE buff, whether to modify one of their captain skills to give them a damage buff or crit chance and crit severity buff. The tac attack pattern alpha captain skill has been nerfed a LOT to the point it buffs a THIRD of what it used to if i remember correctly. The devs should bring down Sci and bring up engineer if they want to balance the game more, not leave the other two exactly how they are and bring tacs to the point where its like theyre throwing sticks and rocks at a starship.
I, myself, have "won" parse battles with a 10k Science ship! Because, oddly enough, those days I was the "most skilled" player, by a mile.
Therefore, your anecdotes of "I've seen Sciences be the best" isn't at dispute. However, to reiterate:
To be blunt, an 80k build is not equivalent to a 180k build. Whether it's due to the actual components of the build or the "skill" of the pilot(s) in question.
To ascertain "balance" within a given pairing, we need to remove as many other variables as possible except for the one being tested.
Therefore, a simple test in the most basic terms. Share your T6 NX build with a Sci that can replicate it 100%, outside of the tactical-only skills and/traits. Go to ISA twice, and "solo" the gateway. Tell me the results of the gateway section of the parse.
My guess would be, based on theorycraft and knowledge of the game, that the Tactical would "win" every gateway-only parsing that they used all their tactical abilities to the fullest - but if both players just sat and relied on BOffs and the gear, they'd be exactly equal.
If I'm wrong, I'm welcome to corrections...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
One way of making both engineers as well as science careers more viable choice alongside tactical would be to make their support more needed in the content. Not that you would need to nerf tactical captain's output, but that giving enemies mechanics, and abilities that actually work against the fact tactical captains are more damage oriented. So like having mechanics that reduce the effectiveness of incoming damage, enhance their own defensive stats, and other things that might issues for a group within engineer or science captains in the team rooster. This would also add a new element an layer to the content, as you would need to look for ways of combating the mechanic, and just throwing more an more dps at the mechanic is only one solution that is most likely the worse option of the three even if still viable.
Like in the above the engineers an science captains could have abilities that would interact with these mechanics, and would be things to counteract them via strping or reducing their effect allowing the tactical captain to pump out their damage without the downside of the mechanic reducing it. This could be done that abilties affecting these mechanics are both in the career specific branch, while also being in the boff abilities too, but that the scope of the ability's effect on the mechanic would be determined by it being a career specific or boff one. Like you might have some science or engineer boff abilities that can reduce the stack size or effect of a stacking mechanic of a enemy, but than in the the career specific abilities you might have ones that fully negate the effect or reset the stack of the mechanic with a lockout that disables the mechanic for a short time. This type of idea would actually make science an engineers useful an supportive, but without making the game adapt to a rigid trinity.
Just putting the three (five) "Team" abilities back on a shared cooldown would do wonders for making "all DPS, all the time" gameplay be something that gets you sunk.
"You don't contribute to DPS when you're face down on the floor" is a proven way of keeping DPS-over-Survivability lunacy in check.
Just putting the three (five) "Team" abilities back on a shared cooldown would do wonders for making "all DPS, all the time" gameplay be something that gets you sunk.
"You don't contribute to DPS when you're face down on the floor" is a proven way of keeping DPS-over-Survivability lunacy in check.
^^^
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
One way of making both engineers as well as science careers more viable choice alongside tactical would be to make their support more needed in the content. Not that you would need to nerf tactical captain's output, but that giving enemies mechanics, and abilities that actually work against the fact tactical captains are more damage oriented. So like having mechanics that reduce the effectiveness of incoming damage, enhance their own defensive stats, and other things that might issues for a group within engineer or science captains in the team rooster. This would also add a new element an layer to the content, as you would need to look for ways of combating the mechanic, and just throwing more an more dps at the mechanic is only one solution that is most likely the worse option of the three even if still viable.
Like in the above the engineers an science captains could have abilities that would interact with these mechanics, and would be things to counteract them via strping or reducing their effect allowing the tactical captain to pump out their damage without the downside of the mechanic reducing it. This could be done that abilties affecting these mechanics are both in the career specific branch, while also being in the boff abilities too, but that the scope of the ability's effect on the mechanic would be determined by it being a career specific or boff one. Like you might have some science or engineer boff abilities that can reduce the stack size or effect of a stacking mechanic of a enemy, but than in the the career specific abilities you might have ones that fully negate the effect or reset the stack of the mechanic with a lockout that disables the mechanic for a short time. This type of idea would actually make science an engineers useful an supportive, but without making the game adapt to a rigid trinity.
Here's the thing with "rigidity", and "min maxxers":
The "one true way", which must be adhered to 100% of the time, is the method that produces the desired result to the best of the desire.
To put into perspective, ISA. The "one true way" of min-maxxed ISA mandates a specific build(s) flying in specific patterns using their abilities at specific times so that, much like the old Pac-Man Patterns, the desired goal of clearing the map in X seconds occurs each and every time it's played and the "patterns" are executed to perfection.
Same with CCE, or whatever other queue you generate. There's a method (pattern) that results in the quickest completion.
If a "new mechanic" is introduced that were to result in a "trinity team" producing a better result than the current team (ISA cleared in 1:14 instead of 1:15, for example), then the "trinity team" becomes the "one true way" and all other options are fail. "Mandated Trinity", as it were - whether the content can or can't be "completed" in any other way... Much like while a Trinity Team can complete ISA or CCE today, the "optimal result" only occurs when 5x Tacticals do the job...
A "perfectly balanced" game is the result of a system in which no matter the "inputted characters", when gearing and skill are "equal" the results are identical - whether it's 5x tacticals, 5x sciences, 3x engineers with a sci and a tac, whatever, if any/all teams can complete the mission in 1:15, we have "balance"...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I think it is still pretty clear from most people that realize the craziness of Tac Captains Online- Tac Captain abilities should only buff Weapons Damage - period! They don't need to buff anything else to make them superior. No Tac Captain should out damage a science captain in the same ship, with the same build, with Science powers - it's plain silly. Of course they could also take a look at stacking and Kemocite as well. Any I would suggest a reduction in the buff percentages as well.
I'm not as interested in nerfing Tac (even though I do think there needs to be some changes to take into account years of power creep) as making Engineer and Science more viable and interesting career choices again with an equal ability to contribute to missions and equivalent rewards for that effort.
The fact that most of the discussion both in this thread and in general is about normalizing dps rather than expanding alternative solutions to missions is a symptom of the problem. I think the new Tzenkethi queues are a step in the right direction; you can complete them without having to kill everything in sight, emphasizing cooperation and division of labor over sheer firepower for speedy completion and maximized rewards. More of this, please.
As aside, I've always thought an interesting approach to Tac would be to focus the career on close-range single-target damage (especially escorts and raiders) rather than being able to routinely and repeatedly spray-and-pray away entire squadrons at a time.
One way of making both engineers as well as science careers more viable choice alongside tactical would be to make their support more needed in the content. Not that you would need to nerf tactical captain's output, but that giving enemies mechanics, and abilities that actually work against the fact tactical captains are more damage oriented. So like having mechanics that reduce the effectiveness of incoming damage, enhance their own defensive stats, and other things that might issues for a group within engineer or science captains in the team rooster. This would also add a new element an layer to the content, as you would need to look for ways of combating the mechanic, and just throwing more an more dps at the mechanic is only one solution that is most likely the worse option of the three even if still viable.
Like in the above the engineers an science captains could have abilities that would interact with these mechanics, and would be things to counteract them via strping or reducing their effect allowing the tactical captain to pump out their damage without the downside of the mechanic reducing it. This could be done that abilties affecting these mechanics are both in the career specific branch, while also being in the boff abilities too, but that the scope of the ability's effect on the mechanic would be determined by it being a career specific or boff one. Like you might have some science or engineer boff abilities that can reduce the stack size or effect of a stacking mechanic of a enemy, but than in the the career specific abilities you might have ones that fully negate the effect or reset the stack of the mechanic with a lockout that disables the mechanic for a short time. This type of idea would actually make science an engineers useful an supportive, but without making the game adapt to a rigid trinity.
Here's the thing with "rigidity", and "min maxxers":
The "one true way", which must be adhered to 100% of the time, is the method that produces the desired result to the best of the desire.
To put into perspective, ISA. The "one true way" of min-maxxed ISA mandates a specific build(s) flying in specific patterns using their abilities at specific times so that, much like the old Pac-Man Patterns, the desired goal of clearing the map in X seconds occurs each and every time it's played and the "patterns" are executed to perfection.
Same with CCE, or whatever other queue you generate. There's a method (pattern) that results in the quickest completion.
If a "new mechanic" is introduced that were to result in a "trinity team" producing a better result than the current team (ISA cleared in 1:14 instead of 1:15, for example), then the "trinity team" becomes the "one true way" and all other options are fail. "Mandated Trinity", as it were - whether the content can or can't be "completed" in any other way... Much like while a Trinity Team can complete ISA or CCE today, the "optimal result" only occurs when 5x Tacticals do the job...
A "perfectly balanced" game is the result of a system in which no matter the "inputted characters", when gearing and skill are "equal" the results are identical - whether it's 5x tacticals, 5x sciences, 3x engineers with a sci and a tac, whatever, if any/all teams can complete the mission in 1:15, we have "balance"...
yeah perfect balance never going to happen, there will always be a optimal set-up, which is why most games shot for a spread of all classes/careers/builds being within 10-15% of a contribution like dps for instance. Though I would call what we have a meta team concept, and not a trinity team (trinity is normally denoting of a tank/healer/dps standard of party set up that the content is created with in mind.) which is more what I meant (in most cases it is also a system that makes it almost impossible to complete the content without using the trinity set up). Though in the same vain not everyone is going to play the flavor of the month meta builds, or even be a min-maxer even, but their chosen career should feel like they actually are contributing to the instance in a meaningful manner. Which right now for many engineers an science captains is not felt as much, since a tactical captain can bring more value than they can to a run, but a mechanic that brings value to the abilities of the engineering an science career/boff abilities makes them more viable to be used by more players.
I mean the abilities of a engineering, or science captain are good, and have their uses, but in the content as it is they are somewhat redundant most of all when compared to the tactical career abilities. Would it not be better to see the meta shift away from the optimal set up of a group being largely made up of tactical character to a more balanced set up, that has all three careers have more need of each other to work at their highest potential.
Sadly I don't think some of the other options given in other threads, like boosting sci/eng are possible in the games current meta. With power leap Tac's have just become too powerful. Sure new content which focuses on more team effort, would certainly help, but we all no how well pug team matches "work" in this game. I still don't see what the big problem is with making adjustments to Tac captain abilities is. So far it just seems like "I want my power!! Please don't take it away!!" The fact is that all of the Tac captian powers make them the best at EVERYTHING - Science - check - Tanking - check - Damage - check, and that is a big balance issue.
The problem with the game now is that science debuffing and crowd control is also well accomplished with Tac. Add to that the problem of the sci captain powers being mostly useless in pve. And what good is debuffing and crowd control when a Tac comes along and vapes npc's with shield still up? The game is fundamentally broken, but at least if Tac is not best at everything, it will be more balanced. Personally I don't think there is anything they can do to balance the careers as the Trinity is long gone. Making Tac captain powers changes would at least address some power leap that has happened. The fact that there may be so many tears, makes me think they won't change much.
Comments
Who said only one career can become a military officer on a starship? I know I did not. I said that the background of a commander of a starship, and also what other areas they study can influence how they command even between two different tactical captains (which is also true of engineering, and science captains). Also are you trying to say that a commander with a background of being a science or engineering officer prior to his promotion to commander (we have seen officers from those two areas becoming commanders) would be just as capable tactically as a commander from a tactical background? Hell even in the real world military not all officers and soldiers are equally trained, some go thru advanced training of varying types that depends on what their duties entail, and yet these officers can still hold quite high ranks an are also still military officers.
That will not happen except within a small margin. How you spec in the trees should have more impact on your career abilities, and what they affect or buff. Also they do differ in style as a science an engineering character have quite a different feel/style to a tactical, and if you run them like a tactical or vis-versa they are not going to excell nearly as well, since they are missing the tactical/engineering/science career abilities.
If you gave the career specific abilities bonus effects that were based on how deeply you specced into the sub-trees, like that if you specced deeply into engineering as a tactical it could give you a reduction to weapon power usage an also improving your defensive stats to some of your career abilities. Similarly if you are a science or engineer going deep into the tactical tree it would give your normally defensive or debuff/buffing career abilities a offensive boosting buff. Keeping it that base-line for example that career abilities of a tactical (no points spent in the sub-career trees) only effect their weapons, but that the more you spend into the science sub-tree your tactical career abilities begin to give a bonus to damage of exotic damage, or if you spec mre into engineering you might gain boosts to your defensive stats while using your career abilities.
Show me a situation where crowd control > flat out DPSing the target(s) to oblivion before they become a "problem".
Oh wait, you can't. Because STO is designed around a "no trinity required" mentality. Any and every situation "needs" to be "solved" by a 5x Tactical team - so every situation is designed where a sufficient application of Tactical DPS in the right place at the right time = win.
So what is it? We gonna go "full trinity" now, or we gonna keep a game where "5x Tactical DPS = Win". As long as it's the second, then every participant needs to be able to contribute "1x tactical DPS" worth of effect, whether it's showing up in a parse or not. And it needs to be done in such a manner that no matter how the teaming up occurs, each person contributes exactly "1x Tactical DPS" to the combat - so that drainboat over in the corner has to be able to debuff the target enough so that his 6x weapons + debuffs = a kill in the same amount of time as a Tactical, but if the tactical comes over to assist, the pairing kills the target in exactly the same amount of time that it would take 2x tacticals to do so - otherwise "early trinity mentality" starts to kick in and "if we don't run a drainboat/tactical team, we can't start this queue" becomes the rule...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Singular question: are the parses showing that a Science Captain, of equivalent skill/build, "winning" the parse battles, or a Tactical in a Science ship. Please don't confuse the two and say that a science ship = science officer...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
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yep. in fact in tng and later. tactical officers mostly just get slapped around by threat of the week. assuming it is something that can be fought othere is they sit in their corner and not get in peoples way.science and engineering are the ones to save the day. the worf effect is named that for a good reason.
and the only even possible tact captain is kirk and across two timelines/universes most just gets beat up, embarrassed, and loses to his first officer when is comes to women.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
As a die-hard Sci, I want to "support" you.
I present you a choice, however. Do we:
A: Make it where a Tactical must have an Engineer-Tank and a Science-Controller around
B: Make it where Sciences and Engineers "carry their weight" in the DPS race, ie, do 1x Tactical Officer's worth of DPS, but in a "different manner", which may or may not show up on a parse.
Otherwise, we have option C: Support classes are "worthless" because 5x Tacs rule all...
As you present yourself as the "overwhelming font" of "non-fun, hyper efficient" STO knowledge, which option do we go with? My guess is that in the name of "efficiency", option B would be the "goal", because one cannot ensure that the appropriate amount of "mandatory Science/Engineering support" is available the exact second the hyper-efficient Tactical would want to run a queue. However, this "mandates" that all classes be able to do exactly the same amount of "damage", whether it's direct parsed damage or debuffed in such a way that only the debuffing individual benefits, because we can't have a Tactical "boost" their DPS because of someone else's actions....
But to get there, we need to clear the elephant in the room - APA and FOMM make it to where Tactical DPS of any sort > anyone else's DPS. This situation is "fixable" by either making these damage boosts "universal", or by "nerfing" their benefits to the Tactical in order to "bring these abilities" into line with what Sciences and Engineers can already do.
Again, I leave you the choice to make...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
You shouldn't be penalized for choosing a profession other than tactical.
Since the vast majority of content in the game focuses on doing damage currently you are and any "balance" issues needs to focus on tactical...not nerfing fabrications. C'mon Cryptic.
But seriously, I'm not overly fussed with what happens. I don't use tactical officers, I'm a science and engineer player. However, seeing that most tactical officers tank better than my engineer, who I built to be a tank is quite sad really. But the biggest issue is cheeseback pulse (feedback pulse) with the ship trait, as well as many other science abilities. And then stacking all the tactical stuff on top to make most abilities ultra deadly. Either way stuff is going to change, and no doubt it'll upset a lot of people.
I just feel, some of the science and engineering class abilities need to be buffed, to make those classes feel special once again. As it is now, most are gimicks like miracle worker is.
I know what im talking about here, It was a SCIENCE officer in a SCIENCE vessel. I know the half of the science toons that won the "parse battles" to quote you further. They have everything epic and have been playing the game for any time period ranging from 2 months to since beta. For example, I would parse anywhere from 65.7k to 79.76k in my T6 NX refit as a Tactical officer with everything gold. These science players had a parse range of 99.58k to 178.87k. Now i scrolled more through this forum thread and I stand by the people who say damage game-wide should be nerfed, not just tacs. I would settle for that. All of this hatred towards tactical officers for both ground or space. Tac officers have been nerfed the most out of all three professions. Science needs a severe nerf in both the Drain and part gen categories, and Engineering needs a HUGE buff, whether to modify one of their captain skills to give them a damage buff or crit chance and crit severity buff. The tac attack pattern alpha captain skill has been nerfed a LOT to the point it buffs a THIRD of what it used to if i remember correctly. The devs should bring down Sci and bring up engineer if they want to balance the game more, not leave the other two exactly how they are and bring tacs to the point where its like theyre throwing sticks and rocks at a starship.
If you did, indeed, know what you were talking about, you would know that a Tactical captain, using the same skills, consoles, weapons, ship, and player skill would put out more damage than those Science captains. Even using EPG- based builds. What you're saying, is to nerf Science because these players using it are better at the game than you.
That's really quite perfect.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
I, myself, have "won" parse battles with a 10k Science ship! Because, oddly enough, those days I was the "most skilled" player, by a mile.
Therefore, your anecdotes of "I've seen Sciences be the best" isn't at dispute. However, to reiterate:
To be blunt, an 80k build is not equivalent to a 180k build. Whether it's due to the actual components of the build or the "skill" of the pilot(s) in question.
To ascertain "balance" within a given pairing, we need to remove as many other variables as possible except for the one being tested.
Therefore, a simple test in the most basic terms. Share your T6 NX build with a Sci that can replicate it 100%, outside of the tactical-only skills and/traits. Go to ISA twice, and "solo" the gateway. Tell me the results of the gateway section of the parse.
My guess would be, based on theorycraft and knowledge of the game, that the Tactical would "win" every gateway-only parsing that they used all their tactical abilities to the fullest - but if both players just sat and relied on BOffs and the gear, they'd be exactly equal.
If I'm wrong, I'm welcome to corrections...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Like in the above the engineers an science captains could have abilities that would interact with these mechanics, and would be things to counteract them via strping or reducing their effect allowing the tactical captain to pump out their damage without the downside of the mechanic reducing it. This could be done that abilties affecting these mechanics are both in the career specific branch, while also being in the boff abilities too, but that the scope of the ability's effect on the mechanic would be determined by it being a career specific or boff one. Like you might have some science or engineer boff abilities that can reduce the stack size or effect of a stacking mechanic of a enemy, but than in the the career specific abilities you might have ones that fully negate the effect or reset the stack of the mechanic with a lockout that disables the mechanic for a short time. This type of idea would actually make science an engineers useful an supportive, but without making the game adapt to a rigid trinity.
"You don't contribute to DPS when you're face down on the floor" is a proven way of keeping DPS-over-Survivability lunacy in check.
^^^
Here's the thing with "rigidity", and "min maxxers":
The "one true way", which must be adhered to 100% of the time, is the method that produces the desired result to the best of the desire.
To put into perspective, ISA. The "one true way" of min-maxxed ISA mandates a specific build(s) flying in specific patterns using their abilities at specific times so that, much like the old Pac-Man Patterns, the desired goal of clearing the map in X seconds occurs each and every time it's played and the "patterns" are executed to perfection.
Same with CCE, or whatever other queue you generate. There's a method (pattern) that results in the quickest completion.
If a "new mechanic" is introduced that were to result in a "trinity team" producing a better result than the current team (ISA cleared in 1:14 instead of 1:15, for example), then the "trinity team" becomes the "one true way" and all other options are fail. "Mandated Trinity", as it were - whether the content can or can't be "completed" in any other way... Much like while a Trinity Team can complete ISA or CCE today, the "optimal result" only occurs when 5x Tacticals do the job...
A "perfectly balanced" game is the result of a system in which no matter the "inputted characters", when gearing and skill are "equal" the results are identical - whether it's 5x tacticals, 5x sciences, 3x engineers with a sci and a tac, whatever, if any/all teams can complete the mission in 1:15, we have "balance"...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
The fact that most of the discussion both in this thread and in general is about normalizing dps rather than expanding alternative solutions to missions is a symptom of the problem. I think the new Tzenkethi queues are a step in the right direction; you can complete them without having to kill everything in sight, emphasizing cooperation and division of labor over sheer firepower for speedy completion and maximized rewards. More of this, please.
As aside, I've always thought an interesting approach to Tac would be to focus the career on close-range single-target damage (especially escorts and raiders) rather than being able to routinely and repeatedly spray-and-pray away entire squadrons at a time.
yeah perfect balance never going to happen, there will always be a optimal set-up, which is why most games shot for a spread of all classes/careers/builds being within 10-15% of a contribution like dps for instance. Though I would call what we have a meta team concept, and not a trinity team (trinity is normally denoting of a tank/healer/dps standard of party set up that the content is created with in mind.) which is more what I meant (in most cases it is also a system that makes it almost impossible to complete the content without using the trinity set up). Though in the same vain not everyone is going to play the flavor of the month meta builds, or even be a min-maxer even, but their chosen career should feel like they actually are contributing to the instance in a meaningful manner. Which right now for many engineers an science captains is not felt as much, since a tactical captain can bring more value than they can to a run, but a mechanic that brings value to the abilities of the engineering an science career/boff abilities makes them more viable to be used by more players.
I mean the abilities of a engineering, or science captain are good, and have their uses, but in the content as it is they are somewhat redundant most of all when compared to the tactical career abilities. Would it not be better to see the meta shift away from the optimal set up of a group being largely made up of tactical character to a more balanced set up, that has all three careers have more need of each other to work at their highest potential.
The game is fundamentally broken, but at least if Tac is not best at everything, it will be more balanced. Personally I don't think there is anything they can do to balance the careers as the Trinity is long gone. Making Tac captain powers changes would at least address some power leap that has happened. The fact that there may be so many tears, makes me think they won't change much.