Shields absorb 75% of kinetic damage that they take.
Man, don't you ever get tired of having that conversation? It seems like about a third of the time that I see you post it is on that topic.
He keeps having to post about it because people keep complaining based on their inadequate understanding of the game's mechanics. Don't blame the developer for having to explain the same thing over and over again.
Well, it's not exactly the simplest MMO mechanic I've ever seen, so I'm not surprised many people still don't understand it
I do agree with that. I myself don't really understand how it works. I just understand why he keeps having to try to explain it. I doubt I could do a better job.
"Deflector Overcharge" is an absolutely horrible idea IMHO.
It basically sends the message that "Science Captains should stick to flying Science-centric Ships"
There's a few things to keep in mind:
"Science-oriented" ships cover a pretty wide array of ships including tactical and engineering-heavy vessels. While it certainly discourages Sci captains from flying, say, a Sovereign or Akira variant of any kind, our options as Sci captains are still pretty wide for capitalizing on the new ability we get.
Depending on what's qualifying as control here (my technical knowledge of the game is very limited) this could still buff things like Suppression Barrage or Eject Warp Plasma or any number of other non-Science powers that are intended to control how opponents move and behave, giving it fair applicability on spec-oriented ships.
If the heal buff is significant, it could still be of some use to healboats or as an "oh s***" button if you need to buff your own heals real quick to avoid something.
So while on the surface the ability might seem like it's sending a "Fly Sci or Get Out" message to Sci captains, that could very well be not the case at all. "Absolutely horrible" is an ill-thought-out overstatement IMO.
There is nothing in gameplay to support your allegation that 'any sliver of shields absorbs 75% of the hit'. As I have explained numerous times and will likely continue to:
Shields absorb 75% of kinetic damage that they take.
If I fire a 1000 damage Photon Torpedo (which deals Kinetic Damage) at you and you have 1 shield hitpoint left in the facing closest to me, and it has 50% resistance, it can absorb a total of 8 damage - that 8 damage is reduced to 4 by its resistance and then to 1 by its absorption. The remaining 992 kinetic damage then is sent directly to your hull and deals with your hull resistances. Since that remaining 992 is not dealt to shields, it is not affected by that absorption mechanic.
If that same situation happens and you have 500 shield hitpoints in the relevant facing, your shields will have 900 damage sent at them, because they have the capacity to withstand that, and 100 sent at your hull (assuming nothing has happened to bleedthrough). Your shields will reduce that 900 by 50% because of resistance and then by 75% because of absorption, taking only 112.5 damage, but your hull will take the full 100 only modified by hull resistances.
Are you saying that the kinetic "absorption" mechanic is different from the shield resistance mechanic?
Are you saying that shield resistance is tied to shield "health"?
Let me state this all out then.
Shields have a resistance value to various damage types. This is default 0% and is scaled upwards by shield power and various other effects. This is hardcapped at 75%.
Resilient Shields have 5% absorption of energy damage, and as an additional unrelated stat have only 5% default bleedthrough.
All shields have 75% "absorption" of Kinetic and Physical Damage. This is the main subject being discussed.
When damage happens to a target that has shields, it default allocates damage between the shields and hull based on the target's shield bleedthrough. However, any damage a shield cannot take is not applied to the shields and is not reduced by things that reduce shield damage.
In the first example, 900 damage was allocated at the shields. However, because they only had 1 hitpoint, they could only take 8 of that damage, and the remaining 892 was passed to the hull unaffected by anything on the shields because it never impacted the shields.
In the second example, 900 damage was allocated at the shields. Because they had 500 hitpoints, and at that point could have withstood 4000 kinetic damage before collapsing, all of that 900 damage was sent to the shields. Despite the fact that the shields remained up, the 100 damage that was allocated at the hull impacted the hull and only cared about the hull resistance because it impacted hull.
Does this paint a clearer picture of the mechanics at play?
Would it be too much to ask for the warpout/in during battle bug to be fixed, as a high priority, during this balance pass. I'm not a top dps'r, but one of the things killing my dps most is this damn bug, thats been happening for months, a LOT more lately seems like, sometimes every 5 damn seconds, and it just sometimes cancels my powers buffs and reset cooldowns. There is absolutely nothing else I wish to see fixed more than this.
I like almost all I read. that said, I'd rather have seen FAW/Scatter/etc zero out all threat reduction bonus and become an overwhelming threat penalty where the NPC AI chase them down. If someone wants a tank ability while flying a overspeed glass cannon let them be chased down and skinned alive. I realize that wouldn't matter for PvP. But then I don't PvP. If someone wants to light up the sky they better be able to tank it.
Honestly you should keep Sub Nucleonic beam Sci captain only and just add the Deflector overcharge ability. Sub Nuc with with Tac captains will be too much. And Sci's still need some extra oomph. Deflector overcharge will give them that. Sub Nuc boff skill is an extremely bad idea.
Would it be too much to ask for the warpout/in during battle bug to be fixed, as a high priority, during this balance pass. I'm not a top dps'r, but one of the things killing my dps most is this damn bug, thats been happening for months, a LOT more lately seems like, sometimes every 5 damn seconds, and it just sometimes cancels my powers buffs and reset cooldowns. There is absolutely nothing else I wish to see fixed more than this.
And YES, please fix this already it's incredibly annoying.
I like almost all I read. that said, I'd rather have seen FAW/Scatter/etc zero out all threat reduction bonus and become an overwhelming threat penalty where the NPC AI chase them down. If someone wants a tank ability while flying a overspeed glass cannon let them be chased down and skinned alive. I realize that wouldn't matter for PvP. But then I don't PvP. If someone wants to light up the sky they better be able to tank it.
... you must not have ever played any other MMO ... aoe abilities are not inherently tank abilities, infact dps roles typically have better aoe capabilities than tanks. The problem with FaW was that it was better than all alternatives in all situations, including single target.
"[1] Increase the fun – Games are about having fun, and players should not be made to feel that their fun is “wrong.”"
Whats fun about constantly getting screwed by Arc because the babies don't want to take the time to learn the finer details of the game so they get rewarded for crying. While those that took the time to learn the finer points get screwed time and time again. What you are saying is those that took the time to learn or joined good fleets that would teach you are "WRONG" for putting some effort into the game.
"[2] Player investment retains value – While things need to be adjusted, a setup that was optimized before should still be useful and effective afterwards."
(Should refund everyone's money that spent money getting equipment and special ships to build the powerful builds just to get screwed by the babies crying they can't figure out the game. As these changes significantly will decrease the real money and time spent on the game for those that put effort into learning the game)
"[3] 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."
Choices are not meaningful when you keep gutting the game to help the babies out that are lazy and don't want to put effort into learning a simple process. Hell just make us all start at level 60 with the best ship, equipment, builds, and just run around screaming all day as that is the direction you keep going to satisfy the little cry babies.
[4] So yet again TRIBBLE the Tac captains and keep buffing the stupid Science and Engineers. Why don't you just do away with Tac's as you keep nerfing them to hell while buffing the other 2.
Doesn't seem like you guys even did anything for ground. Is ground finished? Saw my kits cd reduced by 1 second and that's it
Well they aren't doing much for space, as with ground this is just another band-aid that wont affect the meta at all.
My main concern is that once again they are not separating PvP mechanics from PvE. This argument goes back to the late 1980s, and it has long since stop pissing me off and has instead become an endless source of amusement watching each generation of devs tie themselves into knots trying to make a single mechanic work for two very... very... different playstyles.
I'm not kidding. It really goes back to TradeWars 2000 and Gemstone 1/2/3. Ultima Online pretty much destroyed themselves over it. EQ had to become EQ2 and then still failed. WoW almost got it right. And the game producers of MMOs the world over sat there scratching their heads wondering F2P FTS ate into their profit margin.
STO was better off ignoring PvP since they too can't seem to make the logical step of separating the two mechanics. Yes there is increased cost to the game's fixed and variable costs, data storage being foremost, but if you aren't willing to do it right why bother with a result that just pisses off both communities. STO's benign neglect of PvP was actually a rational decision. Now it appears they want to kick up PvP without really making the hardest commitment of all.
Guess what - you can't tweak your way around this. Separate them. Have a set of ship/traits for one and another for the other. Or go back to accepting PvP is just too expensive an investment on a franchise that has done very well moneywise without trying to be Counterstrike.
[4] So yet again **** the Tac captains and keep buffing the stupid Science and Engineers. Why don't you just do away with Tac's as you keep nerfing them to hell while buffing the other 2.
As a player who himself is pretty much all Tac, I can admit there is a power disparagement and Sci and Eng need some buffing. As it is now, on the PvE side of things, this is a DPS game, why would I want to use careers that give me "less" DPS than I would get with a Tac? Now with Tac's being able to have access to Sub Nuc, they're going to be even more OP than they already are in the PVP realm.
Ultimately this is a case of them not doing enough for Sci and Eng, and just further buffing Tac even more. It's a joke, and we should all be very angry about this.
Fire at Will now has a slight penalty to the weapon’s damage instead of an increase at ranks II and III, and has an accuracy debuff as well.
Subnucleonic Beam is now a Lieutenant Commander or higher Science Bridge Officer Power. In its place, Science Captains now gain Deflector Overcharge, which significantly increases outgoing healing, exotic damage, control abilities, and drain abilities for a short duration.
Reflected damage can no longer critically hit or be buffed by damage increases.
Well so much for the Krenim Science Vessel's Starship Trait, "Improved Feedback Pulse". Thanks for making an Anniversary ship completely useless. Can I have a refund on those 1000 vouchers I wasted my time getting? No? Well then...
... you must not have ever played any other MMO ... aoe abilities are not inherently tank abilities, infact dps roles typically have better aoe capabilities than tanks. The problem with FaW was that it was better than all alternatives in all situations, including single target.
I disagree on your first two points. Your first assertion is wrong since basically my lifetime parallels the evolution of MMOs. You couldn't know that of course. Your second point is wrong simply because by definition attacking everything on the FoB means everything on the FoB realizes you are the key threat. We have boats and planes that light up the sky IRL and they are always top priority targets simply because they overwhelm everything and distract from focused attack.
I have no argument with your third point. Except that it should zero out all threat reducers and make the source the PT. Or are you arguing that attacking everything on the battlefield basically is nothing more than a lightshow with no real impact. Then you make sense. Not that I want that outcome, but your words line up to something understandable.
"Increase the fun – Games are about having fun, and players should not be made to feel that their fun is “wrong.” - The only way to achieve that is to decrease the amount of grind significantly!
Ultimately this is a case of them not doing enough for Sci and Eng, and just further buffing Tac even more. It's a joke, and we should all be very angry about this.
Agreed. I honestly can't understand why a tac captain would complain about being nerfed. But then I'm old school and believe in the holy trinity of damage/debuffer/healer in multiplayer game teams. It's not like this game mechanic hasn't been understood since 1960s niche board/card games. Or Game Theory itself.
The fact that we have these hot house flower builds in the metal channels that then come into open channels and drive other players into AFK penalties suggest something is very wrong with a focus on DPS.
The only way to achieve that is to decrease the amount of grind significantly!
You speak the truth. If they gave longer breaks between grinds the game would be fun. Instead they've been constantly sticking giant carrots or new grinds since back in Oct/Nov and haven't given players a break. The "exclusivity" junk makes things even worse. I'll be happy if I don't see a single new grind until June 1st (Summer ship). Gives me time to relax when I play the game and go accolade hunting for a while.
I fully understand the reason for the change to hot restarts, but, then we, players, need at least a short immunity period to system offlines too. Going against Tholians, they can sometimes disable my weapons system a dozen times in 30 seconds.
And I'm going to just throw this out there again too. I'm past caring if our complaining about it is getting annoying.
Would it be too much to ask for the warpout/in during battle bug to be fixed, as a high priority, during this balance pass. I'm not a top dps'r, but one of the things killing my dps most is this damn bug, thats been happening for months, a LOT more lately seems like, sometimes every 5 damn seconds, and sometimes it just cancels my powers, buffs, and resets cooldowns. There is absolutely nothing else I wish to see fixed more than this.
The only way to achieve that is to decrease the amount of grind significantly!
You speak the truth. If they gave longer breaks between grinds the game would be fun. Instead they've been constantly sticking giant carrots or new grinds since back in Oct/Nov and haven't given players a break. The "exclusivity" junk makes things even worse. I'll be happy if I don't see a single new grind until June 1st (Summer ship). Gives me time to relax when I play the game and go accolade hunting for a while.
I don't mind when the grind is optional. Like reputation systems. They will always be there. There has been an increase in time gated / once in a lifetime grinds. I have mixed feelings about those. It's great they are bringing in exciting ships (um, where are my Vulcan ships ) and I have no regrets what I spent to get both a Konnie and Connie - it's why I joined a week after they hit the market after all. To me the problem only is that it took so long.
Anyway this is a tangential conversation. I'm not going to be on Tribble. I'll roll with whatever crypticspartan settles on. Truth be told I feel for the guy. This is an unwelcome task, balancing something across two very different communities when the mother corporation isn't willing to invest in parallel infrastructure. There is no upside for him. I think Cryptic is making a financial mistake, almost as bad as when they decided to to separate console players from PC players. Very shortsighted. The console players will drift away over time and that huge investment in infrastructure will have been wasted.
An investment they could have made to make a pure PvP STO. Lose-lose.
Reflected damage can no longer critically hit or be buffed by damage increases.
Well so much for the Krenim Science Vessel's Starship Trait, "Improved Feedback Pulse". Thanks for making an Anniversary ship completely useless. Can I have a refund on those 1000 vouchers I wasted my time getting? No? Well then...
Improved Feedback Pulse still modifies Feedback Pulse's Reflection amount. The Critical Hit chance and severity Improved Feedback Pulse applies still benefits everything else on your ship.
Well, given an Elachi Alert Weekend AND a Shuttle Weekend in April, both that may use that Weekend Voucher mechanism, nothing else is on the horizon. But then again, we can't see the May In-game Calendar yet either.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Fire at Will now has a slight penalty to the weapon’s damage instead of an increase at ranks II and III, and has an accuracy debuff as well.
Subnucleonic Beam is now a Lieutenant Commander or higher Science Bridge Officer Power. In its place, Science Captains now gain Deflector Overcharge, which significantly increases outgoing healing, exotic damage, control abilities, and drain abilities for a short duration.
Reflected damage can no longer critically hit or be buffed by damage increases.
Well so much for the Krenim Science Vessel's Starship Trait, "Improved Feedback Pulse". Thanks for making an Anniversary ship completely useless. Can I have a refund on those 1000 vouchers I wasted my time getting? No? Well then...
Im pretty sure this means all damage buffs like Attack Pattern Alpha not the Krenim trait
Reflected damage can no longer critically hit or be buffed by damage increases.
Well so much for the Krenim Science Vessel's Starship Trait, "Improved Feedback Pulse". Thanks for making an Anniversary ship completely useless. Can I have a refund on those 1000 vouchers I wasted my time getting? No? Well then...
Improved Feedback Pulse still modifies Feedback Pulse's Reflection amount. The Critical Hit chance and severity Improved Feedback Pulse applies still benefits everything else on your ship.
but FBP no longer being able to be buffed by damage increases (i seriously hope this doesn't include EPG) means not as much damage is outgoing, so enemies won't get as pissed at you and won't shoot you as often - and most NPC enemies already don't shoot all that often, tholians and newer ones from heralds onwards being exceptions - so that kind of reduces the effectiveness of the trait anyway
could always stick some bonus threatgen on the reflected shots (or if it's already there, increase it a tad) - after all, someone reflecting your damage back at you should always be a priority threat - just one that also has to be dealt with carefully
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Let's see how it turns out.
One thing i have not seen mentioned is Attack Pattern Alpha and the stacking of damage for various tactical powers.
Is that being looked at?
EXACTLY - Devs please address this issue - Tac captain powers should ONLY buff weapon's damage.
The only way to achieve that is to decrease the amount of grind significantly!
You speak the truth. If they gave longer breaks between grinds the game would be fun. Instead they've been constantly sticking giant carrots or new grinds since back in Oct/Nov and haven't given players a break. The "exclusivity" junk makes things even worse. I'll be happy if I don't see a single new grind until June 1st (Summer ship). Gives me time to relax when I play the game and go accolade hunting for a while.
Exactly! for those of us who need a break, take a vacation, work, spend time with family and friends, or whatever. It feels like we are punished! I used to enjoy playing multiple characters to enjoy the many different ships and play styles the game had to offer, at least from a paper point of view. I feel overwhelmed and like I can't catch up without playing hours a day and that simply makes me not want to play at all. If I am not playing, I am not spending money on ZEN!
Rep Systems need to be made account wide and not kick in on new characters until you reach level 50. Players will still have to grind for the marks to get the gear, which still provides something to work for. Things like the DOff System works fine as character thing because it is fairly independent. The Skill Point System needs to be account wide. This way, all characters can contribute to and benefit from after reaching level 50 to completing it.
I don't care if I am or anywhere near the best player in STO and I never will! I want to enjoy the missions that stand out to me, maybe spend some time with the unusual RP players on Drozana, and have the time to go back and play and accolade hunt where I missed or just really enjoyed. How about a month where DOff'ing grants double XP? What happened to those special mission reward rerun events? Does anyone remember when Dan Stahl used to fly his Bird of Prey over StarFleet Academy? Does anyone remember the Borg invasion of all sector space at the end of the open beta? These things not only added a random element to the game, but they also could be made into more fun events. Bring the Borg to every instance of ESD for players to fight them off in massive (well, by comparison of the generic 5 and 10 person teams) of full instances of 40 or so in waves of 10 minute intervals.
Gosh! it's Trek! The dev team has such a vast and rich IP to play with and yet all they do is keep going back to the same old grind! Instead of blending all 2 and a half factions into one generic pile of... Why not have 3 content updates each year? One Fed, one KDF, and one Romulan. This way, the storyline can continue to branch off and go their seperate ways, providing at least a 2 and a half faction of seperate stories to enjoy and with rewards that are faction tailored in some respects.
STO has some awesome maps but the time to visit them just isn't there with grind after grind. How about some accolades for things that don't require anything other than showing up? Visiting Vulcan and New Romulus on the anniversary of Spock's death to claim an accolade "Paid my respects" by approaching the monument and interacting with it would be fantastic! I get that this game is a business and people rely on it for their livelihood, but it needs to be more Star Trek by offering downtime from the grinds and appreciating aspects of the franchise and things STO has to offer and in a way that doesn't always involved the next few weeks of my time running the same thing over and over.
... you must not have ever played any other MMO ... aoe abilities are not inherently tank abilities, infact dps roles typically have better aoe capabilities than tanks. The problem with FaW was that it was better than all alternatives in all situations, including single target.
I disagree on your first two points. Your first assertion is wrong since basically my lifetime parallels the evolution of MMOs. You couldn't know that of course. Your second point is wrong simply because by definition attacking everything on the FoB means everything on the FoB realizes you are the key threat. We have boats and planes that light up the sky IRL and they are always top priority targets simply because they overwhelm everything and distract from focused attack.
I have no argument with your third point. Except that it should zero out all threat reducers and make the source the PT. Or are you arguing that attacking everything on the battlefield basically is nothing more than a lightshow with no real impact. Then you make sense. Not that I want that outcome, but your words line up to something understandable.
... comparing an MMO to real life is just silly ...
Let's use WoW as an example. Let's say a group comes up on a big group of mobs, the tank runs in and uses a relatively weak, but high aggro, aoe ability to get all the mobs attacking him while the rest of the group burns the mob down with high powered aoe abilities that, by design, do not cause as much threat as the tank's weaker aoe and therfore do not pull aggro. While this obviously would make very little sense in the real world, that is how these kinds of video games work. As I said, in an MMO AoE is not inherently a tank ability.
but FBP no longer being able to be buffed by damage increases (i seriously hope this doesn't include EPG)
EPG and Auxiliary Power still scale Feedback Pulse.
well, that's good; it still semi-useful in PvE then, but i'd still feel better if its threatgen were increased slightly
or alternatively, make NPCs shoot more and faster (not torpedoes, though - those are bad enough, especially the borg ones...and not even the heavy plasmas, but the regular ones fired en-masse by spheres after chain-tachyon beaming your shields away in 0.3 seconds - and no, that isn't an exaggeration), but that would involve much more change than doing one thing with FBP
EDIT: also, does this in the blog
The equation used to determine how weapons power influences your damage has been changed to a higher benefit at low power levels than before, and the same benefit as before at 100 weapons power, and slightly less while above.
have anything to do with what players refer to as 'weapon overcapping'? i believe you mentioned a few months back you were intending to do something about overcapping
EDIT 2: another also, how do the beam overload changes affect crafted weapons with the [Over] mod, and can we please get all traits - both starship and personal, and also doff abilities - that trigger off BO use but not weapons with [Over] to do so so people can make builds based entirely around [Over] weapons?
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Im all for balancing, but the Subnucleonic Beam change is severe. Science doesnt need another power to boost damage. It needs the cooldowns to be brought into line with the tactical powers.
Subnuke is what defines a science captain. Sensor Scan is just like other debuffs, and photonic fleet is random pets. But a good well timed Nuke is what made a science captain useful and valued. If Cryptic really wanted to balance these Captain powers out, then make Attack Pattern Alpha a boff ability, or change it to only affect weapon damage.
Another thing the devs should look at is the insane power levels via the skill tree/plasmonic leech/doffing and EPtX in the game that gives many players 100 system power in all 4 sub-systems!!! that is plain stupid. what ever happened to having to manage/care about system power levels?
Comments
I do agree with that. I myself don't really understand how it works. I just understand why he keeps having to try to explain it. I doubt I could do a better job.
There's a few things to keep in mind:
So while on the surface the ability might seem like it's sending a "Fly Sci or Get Out" message to Sci captains, that could very well be not the case at all. "Absolutely horrible" is an ill-thought-out overstatement IMO.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
Let me state this all out then.
Shields have a resistance value to various damage types. This is default 0% and is scaled upwards by shield power and various other effects. This is hardcapped at 75%.
Resilient Shields have 5% absorption of energy damage, and as an additional unrelated stat have only 5% default bleedthrough.
All shields have 75% "absorption" of Kinetic and Physical Damage. This is the main subject being discussed.
When damage happens to a target that has shields, it default allocates damage between the shields and hull based on the target's shield bleedthrough. However, any damage a shield cannot take is not applied to the shields and is not reduced by things that reduce shield damage.
In the first example, 900 damage was allocated at the shields. However, because they only had 1 hitpoint, they could only take 8 of that damage, and the remaining 892 was passed to the hull unaffected by anything on the shields because it never impacted the shields.
In the second example, 900 damage was allocated at the shields. Because they had 500 hitpoints, and at that point could have withstood 4000 kinetic damage before collapsing, all of that 900 damage was sent to the shields. Despite the fact that the shields remained up, the 100 damage that was allocated at the hull impacted the hull and only cared about the hull resistance because it impacted hull.
Does this paint a clearer picture of the mechanics at play?
And YES, please fix this already it's incredibly annoying.
... you must not have ever played any other MMO ... aoe abilities are not inherently tank abilities, infact dps roles typically have better aoe capabilities than tanks. The problem with FaW was that it was better than all alternatives in all situations, including single target.
"[1] Increase the fun – Games are about having fun, and players should not be made to feel that their fun is “wrong.”"
Whats fun about constantly getting screwed by Arc because the babies don't want to take the time to learn the finer details of the game so they get rewarded for crying. While those that took the time to learn the finer points get screwed time and time again. What you are saying is those that took the time to learn or joined good fleets that would teach you are "WRONG" for putting some effort into the game.
"[2] Player investment retains value – While things need to be adjusted, a setup that was optimized before should still be useful and effective afterwards."
(Should refund everyone's money that spent money getting equipment and special ships to build the powerful builds just to get screwed by the babies crying they can't figure out the game. As these changes significantly will decrease the real money and time spent on the game for those that put effort into learning the game)
"[3] 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."
Choices are not meaningful when you keep gutting the game to help the babies out that are lazy and don't want to put effort into learning a simple process. Hell just make us all start at level 60 with the best ship, equipment, builds, and just run around screaming all day as that is the direction you keep going to satisfy the little cry babies.
[4] So yet again TRIBBLE the Tac captains and keep buffing the stupid Science and Engineers. Why don't you just do away with Tac's as you keep nerfing them to hell while buffing the other 2.
I'm not kidding. It really goes back to TradeWars 2000 and Gemstone 1/2/3. Ultima Online pretty much destroyed themselves over it. EQ had to become EQ2 and then still failed. WoW almost got it right. And the game producers of MMOs the world over sat there scratching their heads wondering F2P FTS ate into their profit margin.
STO was better off ignoring PvP since they too can't seem to make the logical step of separating the two mechanics. Yes there is increased cost to the game's fixed and variable costs, data storage being foremost, but if you aren't willing to do it right why bother with a result that just pisses off both communities. STO's benign neglect of PvP was actually a rational decision. Now it appears they want to kick up PvP without really making the hardest commitment of all.
Guess what - you can't tweak your way around this. Separate them. Have a set of ship/traits for one and another for the other. Or go back to accepting PvP is just too expensive an investment on a franchise that has done very well moneywise without trying to be Counterstrike.
As a player who himself is pretty much all Tac, I can admit there is a power disparagement and Sci and Eng need some buffing. As it is now, on the PvE side of things, this is a DPS game, why would I want to use careers that give me "less" DPS than I would get with a Tac? Now with Tac's being able to have access to Sub Nuc, they're going to be even more OP than they already are in the PVP realm.
Ultimately this is a case of them not doing enough for Sci and Eng, and just further buffing Tac even more. It's a joke, and we should all be very angry about this.
Well so much for the Krenim Science Vessel's Starship Trait, "Improved Feedback Pulse". Thanks for making an Anniversary ship completely useless. Can I have a refund on those 1000 vouchers I wasted my time getting? No? Well then...
I have no argument with your third point. Except that it should zero out all threat reducers and make the source the PT. Or are you arguing that attacking everything on the battlefield basically is nothing more than a lightshow with no real impact. Then you make sense. Not that I want that outcome, but your words line up to something understandable.
The Hot restart nerf will kill most intel builds unless you do it right. I'm looking forward to looking at the new weapon damage equations as well.
Founder and Current CO of Gamma Strike Force
Player since December 2009
The fact that we have these hot house flower builds in the metal channels that then come into open channels and drive other players into AFK penalties suggest something is very wrong with a focus on DPS.
You speak the truth. If they gave longer breaks between grinds the game would be fun. Instead they've been constantly sticking giant carrots or new grinds since back in Oct/Nov and haven't given players a break. The "exclusivity" junk makes things even worse. I'll be happy if I don't see a single new grind until June 1st (Summer ship). Gives me time to relax when I play the game and go accolade hunting for a while.
I fully understand the reason for the change to hot restarts, but, then we, players, need at least a short immunity period to system offlines too. Going against Tholians, they can sometimes disable my weapons system a dozen times in 30 seconds.
And I'm going to just throw this out there again too. I'm past caring if our complaining about it is getting annoying.
Would it be too much to ask for the warpout/in during battle bug to be fixed, as a high priority, during this balance pass. I'm not a top dps'r, but one of the things killing my dps most is this damn bug, thats been happening for months, a LOT more lately seems like, sometimes every 5 damn seconds, and sometimes it just cancels my powers, buffs, and resets cooldowns. There is absolutely nothing else I wish to see fixed more than this.
Anyway this is a tangential conversation. I'm not going to be on Tribble. I'll roll with whatever crypticspartan settles on. Truth be told I feel for the guy. This is an unwelcome task, balancing something across two very different communities when the mother corporation isn't willing to invest in parallel infrastructure. There is no upside for him. I think Cryptic is making a financial mistake, almost as bad as when they decided to to separate console players from PC players. Very shortsighted. The console players will drift away over time and that huge investment in infrastructure will have been wasted.
An investment they could have made to make a pure PvP STO. Lose-lose.
Improved Feedback Pulse still modifies Feedback Pulse's Reflection amount. The Critical Hit chance and severity Improved Feedback Pulse applies still benefits everything else on your ship.
Well, given an Elachi Alert Weekend AND a Shuttle Weekend in April, both that may use that Weekend Voucher mechanism, nothing else is on the horizon. But then again, we can't see the May In-game Calendar yet either.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Im pretty sure this means all damage buffs like Attack Pattern Alpha not the Krenim trait
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
but FBP no longer being able to be buffed by damage increases (i seriously hope this doesn't include EPG) means not as much damage is outgoing, so enemies won't get as pissed at you and won't shoot you as often - and most NPC enemies already don't shoot all that often, tholians and newer ones from heralds onwards being exceptions - so that kind of reduces the effectiveness of the trait anyway
could always stick some bonus threatgen on the reflected shots (or if it's already there, increase it a tad) - after all, someone reflecting your damage back at you should always be a priority threat - just one that also has to be dealt with carefully
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
EXACTLY - Devs please address this issue - Tac captain powers should ONLY buff weapon's damage.
Exactly! for those of us who need a break, take a vacation, work, spend time with family and friends, or whatever. It feels like we are punished! I used to enjoy playing multiple characters to enjoy the many different ships and play styles the game had to offer, at least from a paper point of view. I feel overwhelmed and like I can't catch up without playing hours a day and that simply makes me not want to play at all. If I am not playing, I am not spending money on ZEN!
Rep Systems need to be made account wide and not kick in on new characters until you reach level 50. Players will still have to grind for the marks to get the gear, which still provides something to work for. Things like the DOff System works fine as character thing because it is fairly independent. The Skill Point System needs to be account wide. This way, all characters can contribute to and benefit from after reaching level 50 to completing it.
I don't care if I am or anywhere near the best player in STO and I never will! I want to enjoy the missions that stand out to me, maybe spend some time with the unusual RP players on Drozana, and have the time to go back and play and accolade hunt where I missed or just really enjoyed. How about a month where DOff'ing grants double XP? What happened to those special mission reward rerun events? Does anyone remember when Dan Stahl used to fly his Bird of Prey over StarFleet Academy? Does anyone remember the Borg invasion of all sector space at the end of the open beta? These things not only added a random element to the game, but they also could be made into more fun events. Bring the Borg to every instance of ESD for players to fight them off in massive (well, by comparison of the generic 5 and 10 person teams) of full instances of 40 or so in waves of 10 minute intervals.
Gosh! it's Trek! The dev team has such a vast and rich IP to play with and yet all they do is keep going back to the same old grind! Instead of blending all 2 and a half factions into one generic pile of... Why not have 3 content updates each year? One Fed, one KDF, and one Romulan. This way, the storyline can continue to branch off and go their seperate ways, providing at least a 2 and a half faction of seperate stories to enjoy and with rewards that are faction tailored in some respects.
STO has some awesome maps but the time to visit them just isn't there with grind after grind. How about some accolades for things that don't require anything other than showing up? Visiting Vulcan and New Romulus on the anniversary of Spock's death to claim an accolade "Paid my respects" by approaching the monument and interacting with it would be fantastic! I get that this game is a business and people rely on it for their livelihood, but it needs to be more Star Trek by offering downtime from the grinds and appreciating aspects of the franchise and things STO has to offer and in a way that doesn't always involved the next few weeks of my time running the same thing over and over.
Repetition is the ultimate form of boredom!
... comparing an MMO to real life is just silly ...
Let's use WoW as an example. Let's say a group comes up on a big group of mobs, the tank runs in and uses a relatively weak, but high aggro, aoe ability to get all the mobs attacking him while the rest of the group burns the mob down with high powered aoe abilities that, by design, do not cause as much threat as the tank's weaker aoe and therfore do not pull aggro. While this obviously would make very little sense in the real world, that is how these kinds of video games work. As I said, in an MMO AoE is not inherently a tank ability.
EPG and Auxiliary Power still scale Feedback Pulse.
well, that's good; it still semi-useful in PvE then, but i'd still feel better if its threatgen were increased slightly
or alternatively, make NPCs shoot more and faster (not torpedoes, though - those are bad enough, especially the borg ones...and not even the heavy plasmas, but the regular ones fired en-masse by spheres after chain-tachyon beaming your shields away in 0.3 seconds - and no, that isn't an exaggeration), but that would involve much more change than doing one thing with FBP
EDIT: also, does this in the blog
have anything to do with what players refer to as 'weapon overcapping'? i believe you mentioned a few months back you were intending to do something about overcapping
EDIT 2: another also, how do the beam overload changes affect crafted weapons with the [Over] mod, and can we please get all traits - both starship and personal, and also doff abilities - that trigger off BO use but not weapons with [Over] to do so so people can make builds based entirely around [Over] weapons?
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Subnuke is what defines a science captain. Sensor Scan is just like other debuffs, and photonic fleet is random pets. But a good well timed Nuke is what made a science captain useful and valued. If Cryptic really wanted to balance these Captain powers out, then make Attack Pattern Alpha a boff ability, or change it to only affect weapon damage.