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Solving the Tactical Skill Tree Problem (the Projectiles vs Beams War)
gannadene
Member Posts: 81 Arc User
One of the most common issues with making builds in STO has always been so-called "hybrid" builds that run both beams and torpedoes. Prior to the current skill tree, it was a problem. With the introduction of the new skill tree and even the now-updated one, the game continues to reinforce the notion that you must choose between beams and torpedoes. According to Jeremy Randall (c. Priority 1 Podcast #315) the issue is known, and it's not something they want, but it would require a significant investment in changing the tactical tree, and the options for change in the tree are pretty limited.
So the objective here is to evaluate the tactical side of the tree enough to explore some ideas in altering what is creating the problem. As far as direct relationships go, it's really only the first group of skills that creates the division. Although if you change one thing, you may have to change another. A lot of Tac players dump 27 points into the tree, which means ignoring either beams or torpedoes entirely and running either beam boats or torpedo boats. Changing the front end of the tree may impact the desirability of, say, the pet skills at the bottom of the tree. Or even unrelated trees. Technically you could also ignore the first tier of Tac skills entirely, although that's not a criticism I take too seriously. Another important issue to consider is if the tree is "fixed," does that also kill off beam boat builds and torpedo boat builds as being viable? Would it encourage players to do nothing but run the same generic build?
In any scenario, it seems the must-have change is removing Projectile Weapon Training and Energy Weapon Training from the game, as being forced to choose between them is the primary root of many other problems. After that, comes things like consoles only benefiting very specific damage types, or traits or doffs enforcing the same restriction.
Honestly, the problem should be reversed, so you would need specialist traits to get boat builds to work correctly, NOT things like Super Charged Weapons to get actual canon builds to work. But that's not the game we're working with. And without going into the minutia of why that's the case (torpedoes and broadsiding, exclusive damage type buffing, damage-centric building supported by monetization goals, etc), suffice it to say, this is what we're working with.
Minor Rant: Personally, I don't like the skill tree. It costs zen to try new builds, discouraging people from ever rerolling despite the devs expressing a desire that players should be accessing it often (we can't; it needlessly costs money in a lazy effort to nickle and dime the player.) Almost all skills on the tree have nothing to do with choice, and simply dictate what you're allowed to try/use. It's a mini-Excel spreadsheet with right and wrong ways to build. Skill trees in any game should be something the player can reroll on a whim to try new things that have nothing to do with their equipment. They should be about choice, play style and trying new things. STO's skill tree is just a damage calculator that gates off whole sections of the game. Attribute systems exist for that, if at all. It's a very old, bad style of system, and always has been and always will be. But this is an old style MMO, and I digress.
Moving on, one thing I imagine the developers (and me and others...) would like to avoid is inflating damage values any higher than they already are. STO is a very DPS obsessed game, and most equipment either focuses on or competes with DPS. New C-Store consoles are very often elaborate ways to raise damage. You can't just toss beam and torpedo damage into one part of the tree. You also can't combine them but then split that damage between two new parts of the tree, as that's effectively taking 3 points off other areas just to get core damage back. You can see why this much-needed change has just never happened so far; it's difficult.
As an example, let's say we make it so that simply investing a set amount of points in the Tac tree (6? 9?) raises any non-exotic damage to their current skill tree values. That removes the entire first tier of the tree. What do you replace those 6 skills with? It makes achieving max damage require the same amount of points, unless you only wanted energy or projectile damage in your build (3 points) and nothing else. You just made a player have to dump in +3 points they didn't want to get that damage back. Even if you made the limit 3 points and put in two new skill trees, you effectively place that damage in every single Tac skill no matter what it is, plus whatever additional damage/benefit the original skill gave.
In another example, let's keep both parts of the tree and just grant a bonus to kinetic damage in the energy weapons category and a bonus to energy weapons in the projectile category, so investing a little in one grants some of the other. Well played torp boats already achieve pretty high DPS. Guess who runs the game now? Not to mention, if you invest in both, you just raised overall DPS. Even if you remove the bonus if you have the partner skill, it's a messy solution.
I'd contend that to fix the problem, you have to divide the game's damage up into two categories that compete (or can be combined) on a play style level rather than a build level. That is, broadside vs frontal; stationary vs speed; short vs long range; alpha damage vs pulse damage. Or alternatively, mixed damage vs singular damage.
Final example. If we make two new branches in the Tac tree:
[Branch 1] +25, +42.5, +50 percent non-exotic damage vs enemies inside the front and rear 90 degree arcs.
[Branch 2] +25, +42.5, +50 percent non-exotic damage vs enemies outside the front and rear 90 degree arcs.
In this example, we keep the damage players already had using 3 skill points to potentially one tree while combining projectile and beam damage. We also keep the trees from interacting with one another, as an enemy cannot exist within two separate arcs at the same time, regardless of the weapon. It's also a natural playstyle (broadside vs forward facing). Beam boats would obviously use the broadside tree, while cannon escorts, torp boats or some dual bank users would use the forward facing tree. A player could also use both for full 360 degree coverage while not gaining any bonus damage at all; choosing both ensures you never lose any DPS no matter your position.
Now, exploring any potential issues:
As mentioned, a target can't exist within both arcs at once. Aside from, I guess, gigantic ones like a Borg Unimatrix Command vessel? Not sure how STO interprets that. Fire at Will technically benefits from the forward tree, although players can't control the targets being selected, so many attacks would still be often hitting outside the 90 degree arcs, so this change would actually nerf Fire at Will. (Oh no... a shame.)
+180 degree weapons that aren't beam banks (basic cannons, missiles, wide angle weapons, experimental proton weapon, mines, turrets, omnis) would be negatively affected by this, since they can hit targets outside of the front 90 degrees, which would mean losing the damage bonus if you aren't aiming your hull at your target. But that's why the trees exist - to reinforce a play style. Three of these you can only equip one of anyway. Honestly, this is only a direct slight to mines (which will hit when they hit regardless of your position) and somewhat to basic cannons (which could sort of broadside and do technically more damage than beams). Giving cannons and mines a little bonus damage if you have both trees filled out wouldn't be too much of a stretch, especially if it's only a much smaller buff. Then again, no one is using either of them in the first place.
Now, I'll tell you, that last example took quite a long time to think up and work out, as simple as it actually was. And it still doesn't address how tactical consoles, doffs, etc continue to ruin any solution by needlessly restricting choice. So any solution will be complicated, because it's a complicated issue.
So, what're your thoughts and potential solutions? It's been discussed before, and will likely be discussed again.
So the objective here is to evaluate the tactical side of the tree enough to explore some ideas in altering what is creating the problem. As far as direct relationships go, it's really only the first group of skills that creates the division. Although if you change one thing, you may have to change another. A lot of Tac players dump 27 points into the tree, which means ignoring either beams or torpedoes entirely and running either beam boats or torpedo boats. Changing the front end of the tree may impact the desirability of, say, the pet skills at the bottom of the tree. Or even unrelated trees. Technically you could also ignore the first tier of Tac skills entirely, although that's not a criticism I take too seriously. Another important issue to consider is if the tree is "fixed," does that also kill off beam boat builds and torpedo boat builds as being viable? Would it encourage players to do nothing but run the same generic build?
In any scenario, it seems the must-have change is removing Projectile Weapon Training and Energy Weapon Training from the game, as being forced to choose between them is the primary root of many other problems. After that, comes things like consoles only benefiting very specific damage types, or traits or doffs enforcing the same restriction.
Honestly, the problem should be reversed, so you would need specialist traits to get boat builds to work correctly, NOT things like Super Charged Weapons to get actual canon builds to work. But that's not the game we're working with. And without going into the minutia of why that's the case (torpedoes and broadsiding, exclusive damage type buffing, damage-centric building supported by monetization goals, etc), suffice it to say, this is what we're working with.
Minor Rant: Personally, I don't like the skill tree. It costs zen to try new builds, discouraging people from ever rerolling despite the devs expressing a desire that players should be accessing it often (we can't; it needlessly costs money in a lazy effort to nickle and dime the player.) Almost all skills on the tree have nothing to do with choice, and simply dictate what you're allowed to try/use. It's a mini-Excel spreadsheet with right and wrong ways to build. Skill trees in any game should be something the player can reroll on a whim to try new things that have nothing to do with their equipment. They should be about choice, play style and trying new things. STO's skill tree is just a damage calculator that gates off whole sections of the game. Attribute systems exist for that, if at all. It's a very old, bad style of system, and always has been and always will be. But this is an old style MMO, and I digress.
Moving on, one thing I imagine the developers (and me and others...) would like to avoid is inflating damage values any higher than they already are. STO is a very DPS obsessed game, and most equipment either focuses on or competes with DPS. New C-Store consoles are very often elaborate ways to raise damage. You can't just toss beam and torpedo damage into one part of the tree. You also can't combine them but then split that damage between two new parts of the tree, as that's effectively taking 3 points off other areas just to get core damage back. You can see why this much-needed change has just never happened so far; it's difficult.
As an example, let's say we make it so that simply investing a set amount of points in the Tac tree (6? 9?) raises any non-exotic damage to their current skill tree values. That removes the entire first tier of the tree. What do you replace those 6 skills with? It makes achieving max damage require the same amount of points, unless you only wanted energy or projectile damage in your build (3 points) and nothing else. You just made a player have to dump in +3 points they didn't want to get that damage back. Even if you made the limit 3 points and put in two new skill trees, you effectively place that damage in every single Tac skill no matter what it is, plus whatever additional damage/benefit the original skill gave.
In another example, let's keep both parts of the tree and just grant a bonus to kinetic damage in the energy weapons category and a bonus to energy weapons in the projectile category, so investing a little in one grants some of the other. Well played torp boats already achieve pretty high DPS. Guess who runs the game now? Not to mention, if you invest in both, you just raised overall DPS. Even if you remove the bonus if you have the partner skill, it's a messy solution.
I'd contend that to fix the problem, you have to divide the game's damage up into two categories that compete (or can be combined) on a play style level rather than a build level. That is, broadside vs frontal; stationary vs speed; short vs long range; alpha damage vs pulse damage. Or alternatively, mixed damage vs singular damage.
Final example. If we make two new branches in the Tac tree:
[Branch 1] +25, +42.5, +50 percent non-exotic damage vs enemies inside the front and rear 90 degree arcs.
[Branch 2] +25, +42.5, +50 percent non-exotic damage vs enemies outside the front and rear 90 degree arcs.
In this example, we keep the damage players already had using 3 skill points to potentially one tree while combining projectile and beam damage. We also keep the trees from interacting with one another, as an enemy cannot exist within two separate arcs at the same time, regardless of the weapon. It's also a natural playstyle (broadside vs forward facing). Beam boats would obviously use the broadside tree, while cannon escorts, torp boats or some dual bank users would use the forward facing tree. A player could also use both for full 360 degree coverage while not gaining any bonus damage at all; choosing both ensures you never lose any DPS no matter your position.
Now, exploring any potential issues:
As mentioned, a target can't exist within both arcs at once. Aside from, I guess, gigantic ones like a Borg Unimatrix Command vessel? Not sure how STO interprets that. Fire at Will technically benefits from the forward tree, although players can't control the targets being selected, so many attacks would still be often hitting outside the 90 degree arcs, so this change would actually nerf Fire at Will. (Oh no... a shame.)
+180 degree weapons that aren't beam banks (basic cannons, missiles, wide angle weapons, experimental proton weapon, mines, turrets, omnis) would be negatively affected by this, since they can hit targets outside of the front 90 degrees, which would mean losing the damage bonus if you aren't aiming your hull at your target. But that's why the trees exist - to reinforce a play style. Three of these you can only equip one of anyway. Honestly, this is only a direct slight to mines (which will hit when they hit regardless of your position) and somewhat to basic cannons (which could sort of broadside and do technically more damage than beams). Giving cannons and mines a little bonus damage if you have both trees filled out wouldn't be too much of a stretch, especially if it's only a much smaller buff. Then again, no one is using either of them in the first place.
Now, I'll tell you, that last example took quite a long time to think up and work out, as simple as it actually was. And it still doesn't address how tactical consoles, doffs, etc continue to ruin any solution by needlessly restricting choice. So any solution will be complicated, because it's a complicated issue.
So, what're your thoughts and potential solutions? It's been discussed before, and will likely be discussed again.
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Comments
^^ This
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
But if you want to optimize a build, you start to avoid mixing your weapons.
The Tactical Tree is really just the first point where people might realize the drawbacks of running both energy and torpedo weapons.
But there are more, like the nature of the energy weapon buffs that buff all equipped weapons of their respective type, strongly encouraging only using that one type. Or the nature of tactical consoles, that boost (mirroring particularly the older skill trees) by weapon or damage type.
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If we want to start fixing the tactical tree, we "just" need to get rid of the energy/projectile difference there.
Maybe the tree shouldn't give straight damage buffs to weapons at all (since that would be an obvious choice).
Maybe one could use a concept of the expose/exploit mechanic from ground combat and Intel spec here.
As a first rough idea (with certainly a lot of rough edges that need to be analyzed and smoothed)
Shield Stress - New Core Mechanic
Energy Weapons have a chance to inflict shield stress.
Kinetic Weapons consume shield stress stacks, which grants them bonus damage against the shields or extra shield penetration or a combination of the two.
The Tactical Tree is then rearranged - Accuracy and Defense become Tier 1 skills, and we get the following two new Tactical Skills in the tree.
Energetic Shield Stress Training - Tier 2 Tactical Skill
This increases the chance of inflicting shield stress.
Shield Stress Exploitation Training - Tier 2 Tactical SKill
This increases the bonuses from shield stress.
If you don't mix energy and projectile weapons, you don't spend points on these skills, but you lose out of the potential extra damage, too (and since you don't have energy and projectile training anymore, you lose overall DPS)
The next step would be to look into damage boosting consoles. They might be replaced with either all damage buffs or with buffs to these two skills (as appropriate for the weapon type).
Oh, yes please. Add projectile damage to all Locators/Exploiters!
There's this thing called "fun." And you can have fun and still push out pretty good amounts of damage without worrying about every little bit of DPS. I'm still hitting over 70k with a front torpedo and my dual heavy cannons + turrets in a non cookie cutter build.
and any change that translates to more powercreep is bad. 90% of this game doesn't need but 15K - 25K to do. you can do alot more then that without overspecialization. you want to help more generalized/"weak" builds punish overspecialization. and no, overspecialization is not being better at the the game so your not being punished for it.
short version: less all solving hammer. more everyone has a way to contribute.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Unfortunately there's a million kinds of Vulnerability consoles, including ones that raise not only torpedo damage, but individual types of torpedo damage types, in addition to standard energy damage types. Heaven help us if they started adding damage subtypes. +Phaser damage, +Quantum damage. Whoops, your build changed to include a photon! Time to rebuy everything! They really only ever needed two: one for CrtH, one for CrtD - both with a generic non-exotic damage buff. The various subtypes were never needed. Especially not the torpedo subtypes, when making a torpedo build that's 100% one type is so unreasonable anyway.
I guess if they ever combined them, they'd just replace the ID for the affected consoles with the same ID of the new integrated console. Not sure if that would be possible, though. A shame.
To expand on my original suggestion, I'd imagine it as working something like this:
Tactical Console [+Pha]
+ 30% Phaser Damage
Projectiles deal 15% bonus damage as Phaser Damage
Pew pew.
Torpedoes have been inferior to energy weapons since the game was in the beta, they've never made a single move to ever change that in more than half a decade. There has never been a single thing in canon to support how they have treated projectiles.
They have never once given a damn about torpedoes or mines...forgive me if I don't believe they give a damn now.
Though i have always thought that the pet boosting talents should not be specifically part of any of the three talent trees (tactical, engineering, or science), since they really do not fit into specifically one group of those talent trees. Instead to me they should be their own talent tree, even if it were spec tree devoted to pets (such as hanger pets, seperation pets, and other such things) would be quite nice to see, while it would also end up freeing abit of space in the trees to add onto the system without expanding.
I have always liked the idea of taking out some of the tactical consoles that merely give a generic boosts to things like cannons/torpedoes/mines/beams, and then replace them with one of two types of new consoles. Like you could have split tactical consoles that boost one energy type an one torpedo/mine type, which would improve the viability of mixing weapons via making you able to boost both of your weapon types at the same time with one console slot, but the boost given would need to be a good bit less than the boost given by a single weapon boosting console (I would say the boost should be about 10-15 percent less comparatively.). Though i have also always thought we could use some consoles that allowed carriers to boost their pet's stats at a small cost to their own ship's boost from that console type.
And it seems typical for game developers to first nerf the overpowered abilities before they buff the underpowered weapon that used the ability to become reasonably powerful.
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If we want to start fixing the tactical tree, we "just" need to get rid of the energy/projectile difference there.
Here here exactly - just have one column Weapons Dmg!!
Kinetic Shearing only deals +40% of the bleedthru dmg. So, if you do 5% damage thru the shields, you'll only get +40% dmg from said 5%. Hardly 'completely overpowered.'
My personal mantra has always been:
Is the enemy dead? If yes, congrats, you're geared for the mission. Even if your ship is only left at 1%, you are properly geared. If the enemy is still alive and YOU are dead, then something is wrong. Right now, I'm having to solve this issue as a baby alt of mine keeps dying.
If there are posts here that do not appeal to you, or opinions you disagree with, the best way to deal with that is to resist the urge to add comments. Instead, engage with the content you like! Don't feed the trolls!
My Engineering escort has 4 kelvin phasers up front and 3 omnis. My science escort is a torp boat with 3 omnis covering which is quite fun. My phantom intel escort is a DBB build with 3 omnis in the back(yeah thankyou borg set for the KCB!) Got a steam runner with a broadside beam setup.
I mean I have all sorts of setups now, and all of them are fun in their own way. Isn't always about DPS, it's sometimes about how I want to set up my ships.
Oh and my Jupiter class carrier(which I use for story mode) has 6 arrays since now that the upgraded escorts I carry with it actually can do some damage, they do all my torp damage.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
I didn't realize that until the change came, and I checked the tooltips of the power on Holodeck and Tribble and inquired further - CrypticSpartan explained the details.
So even now, compared to most other traits, it's extremely potent, since it's basically +10 % shield penetration rolled in with +10 % damage.
But of course, it just buffs projectile weapons, the weakest weapon type, so the end result is not as impressive. If such a trait existed for energy weapons, it would be a complete must-have on any ship.
So the solution would have been to roll it back to pre-AoY, because right now the extra damage it gives is completely inconsequential.
Mk XII - Ultra Rare
+31.9% Disruptor Damage
+13.9% Torpedo Damage
+1.6% Critical Chance
Let's say you wanted a specific quantum boosting console instead. Such a console could have the reverse effect in 2 versions and boost cannons or beams.
Mk XII - Ultra Rare
+31.9% Quantum Damage
+13.9% Beam Weapon Damage
+1.6% Critical Chance
Having consoles like these would eliminate the impossible issue of having hundreds of combinations of different energy and torpedo damage types. Now, I don't think that this NEEDS to happen but if it did, I think that this would be the way to do it. I think that the skill tree and consoles are just fine the way they are. If you want to boost your torp damage, there's nothing stopping your from putting the points into a skill tree and using say one or two torpedo damage boosting consoles instead of that 4th or 5th energy weapon damaging console.
Then why haven't they nerfed stuff that is obviously more powerful and more widely used than kinetic shearing? Because they've had a vendetta against torpedoes and mines since the game was in beta and they always will.
Wouldn't want to risk torpedoes actually being useful...so it's easier to nerf them!
The state before AOY and now are pretty similar. Before AOY, it was 40 % extra damage, but the damage was modified by shield resistances (including the innate 75 % damage reduction against kinetics). That 75 % alone would neuter it down to 10 % extra damage, on top of that you have shield and hull resistances reducing the base damage that 40 % applied to further. The only time it was better was probably when the enemy had no shield left.
Now, you deal 10 % more damage, directly against hull, shields or no shields.
Oh man, I should have totally used it in that state!