In this game the divide between a meta build and something you just come up with by yourself is a gaping interstellar void. It's not even close, and I'm not going to take "STO is just the smartest game there ever was so follow this instructional video and don't do your own thing" as an answer.
Game balance is a balance between people's ability to play how they like and ability to compete. A game that doesn't allow people to play how they like is badly balanced, plain and simple.
Sorry to tell you.. but the 'meta' currently is just taking abilities that work together. There is no real 'meta' right now in Star Trek Online.. it's just 'take things that make sense for your build.'
So if your 'just came up with it' build is that drastically behind the meta, then I'm sorry to say that you're coming up with stuff that just doesn't make sense. It's not like people are using some ancient secrets or anything, they're just putting together skills with things that buff or work with those skills.
Sorry man, but it's video game 101. It's far less complex then any of the other games you mentioned.
Uhm pardon this question. But what does buffed mean? Or normally?
Buffing is using abilities, consoles, traits, etc. to improve performance while normal is using the gear without consideration of how other abilities interact with it.
As an example, untill recently Subsystem Targeting powers only benefitted beam weapons while it now benefits beams and cannons, but not torpedoes, mines, or other powers. But a true buff improves some aspect of your build, such as energy type consoles buffing weapons which use that particular energy type, or torpedo consoles buffing some, but not all, torpedoes.
To achieve what is called Synergy, one must provide multiple stacking buffs. As an example, take my Cannon Bird of Prey:
Forward is four Dual Heavy Disruptor Cannons, (Mk XIV w/Dam and CrtH modifiers.) Aft is one Mk XII Coalition Disruptor Turret, (Accx3) and one Kinetic Cutting Beam. (Earned via repeated trips for salvage, not bought in the Rep store!)
This 'normal' setup benefits from the Coalition Disruptor proc which reduces resistance to Disruptors when it 'procs', (2.5% chance per hit for a stacking 'debuff' on the target.) The regular disruptors generate a smaller stacking debuff on the target versus all energy types.
Looks good on paper, right? But this alone is not going to do much to anything beyond the challenges in the episodes. I need Synergy to enhance my attacks.
So, I have 3 disruptor consoles which improve, (buff,) my raw damage. Each provides diminishing returns, so the second one only buffs half as much as the first, and the third only buffs half as much as the second. (The actual formula is in a tutorial in The Academy, where experienced players post advice and answer new guy questions.)
Again, this looks good, but it's still far from maximizing my potential. Need more Synergy!
So, I'm going to expose my Big Secret! Stacking powers. Before I drop my cloak, I trigger Attack Pattern Alpha, Tactical Team, Cannon Scatter Volley or Cannon Rapid Fire, Emergency Power to Weapons, and either Attack Pattern Delta or Attack Pattern Omega.
But there's more! I fly a Raider, and Raiders get a flanking bonus to damage. So I shoot them in the rear arc unless there is some reason not to, and gain a 25% bonus on the damage I inflict. Whoot!
And did I mention Power Level Settings? Naturally, weapons come first, then engines. When I feel the need for more power or need to clear a damage debuff I pop a Weapons Battery, and I always keep an Engines Battery or Deuterium on hand for when I have to run away. Which I do. A lot. Because my shields are **** and my hull is made of wet tissue paper. (Because power settings matter a lot in each category, but you have to choose between mediocrity in everything or being good at one thing and less so at the others.)
But that's not all. I have cannon Duty Officers to reduce the cooldown times of my cannon powers, and my traits and skills have been selected specifically to benefit a fast-flying, hard hitting Alpha Strike ship. It is a one-trick-pony, but very little can survive my Alpha Strike except obvious bosses like the Borg diamond in that one mission which regenerates almost as fast as I can shoot! Oh, and players in well built, or even moderately well built ships.
My 400 DPS cannons get a minimum of three times the rated damage with my setup, and I'm not even a very good player. I'm certainly not a build master by any stretch of the imagination. A full Alpha Strike generally results in me dodging a warp core breach.
Let me be clear: THIS IS NOT AN OPTIMAL BUILD! You can do much better with the investment of time, effort, and an honest but critical analysis of your build and playstyle. But my build is sufficient to accomplish any task in the game, except PvP versus guys who know how to shrug off an Alpha Strike and immobilize my ship.
But it doesn't stop there! There's more!
Most Tactical powers are 15 seconds or 30 seconds in duration, so knowing when to pop them is key to maximizing performance. Attack Pattern Alpha when used at random in the middle of a firefight really isn't much help, but when stacked with other powers it makes an impact. And timing isn't restricted to popping powers. Knowing when to strike is another key to victory.
The very best time to decloak on a foe's rear arc is right after a Science Captain uses a Subnucleonic Beam on it. Second best is when another ship has engaged it and forced it to draw power for its abilities. With its buffs down, most ships are easy marks. When you play Elite content with a group of team players, it's like being a part of a band, playing your score to enhance what the others are playing. Synergizing with other players is where the real power of your build will shine.
As an example, I purposely rejected Coalition Disruptors all around, dispite their ability to maintain a maximum disruptor resistance debuff stack on my target, because if I have to fly away from a badly damaged target before I can kill it, anyone using any energy type can benefit from the normal disruptor proc and finish off the cripple for me. Yay teamwork!
My personal view of the importance of any aspect of starship combat in STO is:
Teamwork. Teamwork is King of the Battlefield. Period. There is no other single aspect of the game which can compare to the power and synergy a team can unleash on a foe.
Piloting. The ability to be in the right place at the right time maximizes your own potential and that of your allies as well. A crappy build with a good pilot is rare, but I see a lot of crappy pilots with good builds out there, (myself included,) who could benefit from a bit of coaching.
Build Synergy. When you can triple or better your damage output, or healing ability, or ability to control the flow of the battle you gain huge advantages in combat.
Gear. I'm not saying it isn't important, but it is the bottom of the list of how it impacts a battle. Good gear is important, and better gear is better, but it will almost never mean the difference between victory and defeat so long as you are using Mk XII or better for Advanced and Mk XIV for Elite.
Now, I hope you understand when I say the problem is not your gear, but your programming. Also, I hope you gain a bit of appreciation for the complexity of the interactions of each aspect of a build, including playstyle. Finally, I hope you have an understanding of why I strongly recommend a mentor, because this little essay has not even scratched the surface of the potential of the STO build game.
Okay so some of this I am already doing. Others I need to work on if I want to build/fly better. Like I said my connie has a sci captain and I throw grav wells or tykens. I also use the deconstruction beam from the temporal portion of the ship along with a destabilizer. I try and keep the tactical consoles only for Phaser boosting consoles. So everything sounds like I am close but not as good as I could be.
Thank you.
Please, please, please don't take my previous essay as a guide. I'm not that good a builder, and I never got close to 100k DPS in any of my ships. My point was to demonstrate the importance of interactions between buffs, gear, and playstyle. A hit and run raider is nothing like a science ship which has vastly different needs than a battlecruiser.
This is my advice: find players who are doing what you want to do and talk to them.
And for all that's holy, don't ask for build and playstyle advice in zone chat.There is a lot of misinformation going around there. The people you want to talk to are in the queues.
Sorry to tell you.. but the 'meta' currently is just taking abilities that work together. There is no real 'meta' right now in Star Trek Online.. it's just 'take things that make sense for your build.'
Except I did pick abilities that work together, and they work together very well. The only problem is that when I run the build in any of the high end group content scenarios the attack sequence that build performs isn't enough to kill enemies, and has too big of a cooldown to hit them a second time before they are fully regenerated.
I find it pretty obnoxious how completely unwilling some people are to admit that there is any imbalance in the game, just trying to act like if someone's build doesn't work it's because they just pulled all their equipment and abilities out of a hat or something. Bottom line is, the reason I'm complaining is because my build is sound, it works very well both in theory and practice when dealing with enemies that don't arbitrarily have such gargantuan HP pools and regeneration that burst damage has no value, only sustained DPS can bring them down.
Except I did pick abilities that work together, and they work together very well. The only problem is that when I run the build in any of the high end group content scenarios the attack sequence that build performs isn't enough to kill enemies, and has too big of a cooldown to hit them a second time before they are fully regenerated.
Then that simply means you have put together a build that is sufficient for story line and regular content but is unable to handle Advanced/Elite combat. No big deal, means you're on the right track, but you still have some work to do. For starters, you should look into reducing your cooldowns. Coldnaplam gave you some good ideas, you should use them. Rather you like his style or not, dude knows what he's talking about.
I find it pretty obnoxious how completely unwilling some people are to admit that there is any imbalance in the game, just trying to act like if someone's build doesn't work it's because they just pulled all their equipment and abilities out of a hat or something.
Sorry you feel this way, but likewise.. I find it obnoxious when someone is struggling and won't admit that the problem could be them. You automatically assume that everything you're doing is correct and the problem is the game when people are telling you flat out what you can change to handle harder content. If you don't wish to make those changes, that's fine too, but then you need to accept that you are relegated to normal mode content.
Bottom line is, the reason I'm complaining is because my build is sound, it works very well both in theory and practice when dealing with enemies that don't arbitrarily have such gargantuan HP pools and regeneration that burst damage has no value, only sustained DPS can bring them down.
And again, that's fine. In high end content the enemies have massively increased health and shields. By your own admission, your build can handle enemies that don't meet this criteria, so cool. It leaves you with 2 options, if you don't wish to change, then that's fine, but you have to accept that there is content in this game that you will be unable to play. Your second option is to make adjustments to the build so that you can deal with harder content.
Going through and tweaking and fine tuning your build can be quite a bit of fun. You're closing yourself off to the experience by refusing to take any responsibility for how your build performs. You say your 'build is sound' and it is.. for the easiest content. Harder content is made for more advanced players using upgraded weapons and sound technique. If you cannot meet this criteria, then you either adjust or you skip the content.
It's selfish to expect the game and the entire player base to adapt to you. It's also unrealistic.
Yea @colonelmarik, that warbird was tough for me as well when I played the Romulan stories for the first time 5 years ago. It should not however pose an obstacle the moment u discover boff powers can be used (whatever you picked).
Perhaps it’s something more superficial? Do you play stories on elite? Have you set your weapon power levels to max?
Like Sea, Eli and quite a few others made clear, the knowledge how to become good in game is wide spread and available for everybody. There is no meta anymore and a lot of stuff works. It’s basically just your attitude that hinders you or helps you.
Display your build in skill planer of sto academy and post it in build section of this forum. We can polish it together until no mission in game will pose a problem ever again for you.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Except I did pick abilities that work together, and they work together very well. The only problem is that when I run the build in any of the high end group content scenarios the attack sequence that build performs isn't enough to kill enemies, and has too big of a cooldown to hit them a second time before they are fully regenerated.
Then that simply means you have put together a build that is sufficient for story line and regular content but is unable to handle Advanced/Elite combat. No big deal, means you're on the right track, but you still have some work to do. For starters, you should look into reducing your cooldowns. Coldnaplam gave you some good ideas, you should use them. Rather you like his style or not, dude knows what he's talking about.
I find it pretty obnoxious how completely unwilling some people are to admit that there is any imbalance in the game, just trying to act like if someone's build doesn't work it's because they just pulled all their equipment and abilities out of a hat or something.
Sorry you feel this way, but likewise.. I find it obnoxious when someone is struggling and won't admit that the problem could be them. You automatically assume that everything you're doing is correct and the problem is the game when people are telling you flat out what you can change to handle harder content. If you don't wish to make those changes, that's fine too, but then you need to accept that you are relegated to normal mode content.
Bottom line is, the reason I'm complaining is because my build is sound, it works very well both in theory and practice when dealing with enemies that don't arbitrarily have such gargantuan HP pools and regeneration that burst damage has no value, only sustained DPS can bring them down.
And again, that's fine. In high end content the enemies have massively increased health and shields. By your own admission, your build can handle enemies that don't meet this criteria, so cool. It leaves you with 2 options, if you don't wish to change, then that's fine, but you have to accept that there is content in this game that you will be unable to play. Your second option is to make adjustments to the build so that you can deal with harder content.
Going through and tweaking and fine tuning your build can be quite a bit of fun. You're closing yourself off to the experience by refusing to take any responsibility for how your build performs. You say your 'build is sound' and it is.. for the easiest content. Harder content is made for more advanced players using upgraded weapons and sound technique. If you cannot meet this criteria, then you either adjust or you skip the content.
It's selfish to expect the game and the entire player base to adapt to you. It's also unrealistic.
I just want to say I admire and respect your gift for always being very lucid, yet not rude at all. If this were an exercise in Non-Violent Communication, you'd score a 10/10. Me, I try, but I tend to let the 'Wolf' come out too much. Chapeau!
I find it pretty obnoxious how completely unwilling some people are to admit that there is any imbalance in the game, just trying to act like if someone's build doesn't work it's because they just pulled all their equipment and abilities out of a hat or something. Bottom line is, the reason I'm complaining is because my build is sound, it works very well both in theory and practice when dealing with enemies that don't arbitrarily have such gargantuan HP pools and regeneration that burst damage has no value, only sustained DPS can bring them down.
Have you ever considered integrating the benefits of AP Beta on your builds or, if u dislike it for some reason, a few of the numerous other means to deal with high hit point values?
If you feel challenged by this game’s elite content then things are as they supposed to be. If you struggle with anything less than that it’s entirely on you.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Hey, I fully respect people who delve into the systems, and I will gladly take their advice where applicable, but at the end of the day there is simply no mysterious secret that will make my fighters hit harder once I've gotten every skill that supports them and upgraded them all the way. They simply don't do enough damage to be dangerous to the enemies in high end content, and their inability to use full impulse will always make their deployment too slow to keep up with a mobile team.
Hey, I'm willing to meet up with people in the game so they can have a look at my ship and tell me if there is anything I can change that would preserve the spirit of the build but get me better results. But so far most of the people who claim to have build advice basically just always end up making suggestions that aren't fixing the build but just replacing it with something entirely different.
I play with my eyes open, I know what kinds of builds crop up over and over and over, and it's simply not that I'm surrounded by support carrier builds that are doing great while I stink, it's that I'm flying a pretty unusual ship while all around me are beam or cannon boats that melt all comers in seconds and don't actually need my help for anything.
Hey, I fully respect people who delve into the systems, and I will gladly take their advice where applicable, but at the end of the day there is simply no mysterious secret that will make my fighters hit harder once I've gotten every skill that supports them and upgraded them all the way. They simply don't do enough damage to be dangerous to the enemies in high end content, and their inability to use full impulse will always make their deployment too slow to keep up with a mobile team.
Hey, I'm willing to meet up with people in the game so they can have a look at my ship and tell me if there is anything I can change that would preserve the spirit of the build but get me better results. But so far most of the people who claim to have build advice basically just always end up making suggestions that aren't fixing the build but just replacing it with something entirely different.
I play with my eyes open, I know what kinds of builds crop up over and over and over, and it's simply not that I'm surrounded by support carrier builds that are doing great while I stink, it's that I'm flying a pretty unusual ship while all around me are beam or cannon boats that melt all comers in seconds and don't actually need my help for anything.
Yeah I don't get that I only used advanced fighters as I don't have elites unlocked yet and they hurt baddies and can often solo endgame ships. And I am using one flight of scimitars and one of delta fliers on a Jupiter.
And they do go impulse most of the time. Those that don't, drop off my tray and I can launch new ones.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Every time I've played STO I run into the same problem, I make up a starship build that I have a lot of fun with, and then I find out that it simply doesn't scale up to the hardest content. That basically ends the fun right on the spot.
For example, I've been running a Fleet Carrier that uses a combination of science abilities coupled with the Vaadwaur cluster torpedo and its fighters to dish out damage. As long as I'm playing missions I'm having a blast with this thing, I can gather all the enemies into a neat little pile with a singularity, then blow up the pile, killing many of the smaller enemies instantly. Bigger foes usually require more than one attack, but between the fighters, and dropping some mines on them they also go down eventually.
It's not the most conventional way of fighting, but it works, and I have fun doing it. Not looking to be the most powerful ship there ever was, I just like playing as a support unit, and between launching fighters, being able to do some healing and occasionally chucking out a huge missile that's exactly what this ship feels like.
The problem is when I enter the difficult group content. The ship basically just stops being useful at all. The fighters do too little damage to even scratch the shields of the enemies. The exotic damage abilities don't really do much. The tricobalt torpedoes knock off maybe 10% of an opponent's hull, but that's long regenerated before I ever get another torpedo loaded. Tachyon Beams shave a few points off shields, but aren't even close to dropping them. Nothing adds up to an effective attack because all the enemies have so much health that these kinds of burst damage abilities just don't do anything. Meanwhile you see people just roll in with all their skills and consoles focused on cannons and beams and DPS those enemies down pretty quickly. Without that kind of sustained high damage output you simply can't really do much.
And yea yea, I'm going to get tons of replies telling me that I'm using my ship wrong and it's all my fault, and sure, I'll readily admit I didn't go for an optimal build. However, I think it's a serious problem with this game that things that are perfectly viable and fun to use when you're playing the missions are so completely useless in high end content. You shouldn't just suddenly find out that what you've been doing and what was working and enjoyable one second simply doesn't work the next, just because the enemies now have so much health and regeneration that any build that ran on burst damage can't ever kill them, and a build that runs on high sustained DPS is simply required.
only returned back to the game the other day at the end of that pheonix event, i picked up over 300 boxes from that converting all my zen into dil. it felt more important than going for a ship. most of my builds are obsolete and out of date, some of them going on over 4 years, and others just need their weapons and consoles updated. I had this chat with a few people yesterday on NoP chat regarding weapon procs and their effectiveness, that was an eye opener.
my main K'mec she only needed some consoles and all XI weapons upgraded and since there was little value in the rare tier, all those went into uncommons for the universal upgrades. She is upgraded as i can get her outside of fleet tech with exception to the shield. before she was doing okay in pve content, but she should be even more effective in large groups of ships.
my second eldest character, Celise, she was in a right state, had to go back to the defiant retrofit and fix it up with phaser weapons, some of which went up to epic on the first try which was nice. before she would be lucky to do any damage in her polaron beam build in PVE, but with her cannon build she can take on cubes very easily, it's made more easier with that heavy weapons thing i haven't seen before. Thankfully the wiki had some info on that and helped. I suspect she can be very handy in the DQ.
my third and fourth characters, Shenna needed a few upgrades and T'Sara, she needed upgrades as well however her build isn't quite as potent as Celise at this point, it will have to be worked out.
I also get what you are going through, sometimes you just fly through them and suddenly you're in a much more harder fight then it should be. i've always felt a good example was doing missions in the DQ were a little more tougher than those in the AQ/BQ. When you fight klingons you kill them quite easily and they are fairly harmless but when you attack Malon ships you realise it's not as easy, same can be stated about Hirogen and Voth ships.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Hey, I'm willing to meet up with people in the game so they can have a look at my ship and tell me if there is anything I can change that would preserve the spirit of the build but get me better results. But so far most of the people who claim to have build advice basically just always end up making suggestions that aren't fixing the build but just replacing it with something entirely different.
I play with my eyes open,
It's not your eyes that need to be open here, but your mind. Which means that sometimes you need to accept that fixing your build means 'replacing it with something entirely different.' If you cling to the premiss that your build is essentially fine, but just needs a console replaced here or there, then you're still just resisting their help, and you'll continue to go nowhere.
I know what kinds of builds crop up over and over and over, and it's simply not that I'm surrounded by support carrier builds that are doing great while I stink, it's that I'm flying a pretty unusual ship while all around me are beam or cannon boats that melt all comers in seconds and don't actually need my help for anything.
If all around you are beam or cannon boats that melt all comers in seconds and don't actually need your help for anything, then either of these two things are true: you have a wrong build, or your piloting skills are not as stellar as you thought they were. No other options are possible. (And 'unusual ship' falls into the former category: you don't know how to fly the ship properly; aka, your build is wrong)
... it's simply not that I'm surrounded by support carrier builds that are doing great while I stink, it's that I'm flying a pretty unusual ship while all around me are beam or cannon boats that melt all comers in seconds and don't actually need my help for anything.
And another thing (and this one truly baffes me), if you're freely admitting, and seeing, that everyone around you is doing sheer endlessly better than you, shouldn't the logical inference then not be that the game scales just fine, and that it's really just you?!
See, that's what I do. I see The Battle of Korfez, for instance, and I don't go: "OMG, I can't do it, therefore the game scales badly." Rather, I think: "Tunebreaker et al. can do it just fine, so it's really just me."
Just find yourself a Tachyon Beam that even the smallest of Borg ships wield, immediately taking down the enemies shields and put three red dots on them. Then finish them off with whatever. Or you can pick yourself up a Web Cannon like the Tholians Capital Ships use and cause 1.2 Million damage on a crit. There's all the fun you can ask for.
'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.'
I find it pretty obnoxious how completely unwilling some people are to admit that there is any imbalance in the game, just trying to act like if someone's build doesn't work it's because they just pulled all their equipment and abilities out of a hat or something. Bottom line is, the reason I'm complaining is because my build is sound, it works very well both in theory and practice when dealing with enemies that don't arbitrarily have such gargantuan HP pools and regeneration that burst damage has no value, only sustained DPS can bring them down.
What you are describing is not an issue with game balance. You keep saying your build works fine for common NPCs, but has difficulties with higher end content and expect your syle of play, build and tactics to work the same for 100% of the content. That's simply not how the game works and I honestly don't believe you are understanding the difference between normal and advanced/elite content.
Look at most any MMO that has tiered raids and the gear needed for each tier of that raid treadmill. Playstyle, tactics and gear you use for common story missions isn't going to cut it for higher end raids.
Yup, on the easiest you would expect not much difference in what you got, but you need a little coordinated effort, the next step up you need a reasonable build doing enough damage, good rotations and if need it, some coordination in the team. you'd expect the top tier raid to need the best you can get and perfect rotations and good teamwork. but it wouldn't be surprising if there are players still doing 80k builds that can wipe elites easily that helping out others isn't needed when you got everything down and everyone can do their part.
Coming from SWTOR and raiding there i've gained an understanding about Raids i never had on STO. But undoubtly the idea is the same.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I just want to say I admire and respect your gift for always being very lucid, yet not rude at all. If this were an exercise in Non-Violent Communication, you'd score a 10/10. Me, I try, but I tend to let the 'Wolf' come out too much. Chapeau!
Thanks man, that's very kind of you. Truth is, I don't usually need to let loose on anyone because coldnapalm has already done it done it better then I ever could.
It's not your eyes that need to be open here, but your mind. Which means that sometimes you need to accept that fixing your build means 'replacing it with something entirely different.' If you cling to the premises that your build is essentially fine, but just needs a console replaced here or there, then you're still just resisting their help, and you'll continue to go nowhere.
So much of this!
Anyone that's struggling and wants some help can start by filling out their build on STO Academy.
Fill out as much as you can including your gear, traits, Duty Officers.. as much as you can. The more accurate you are, the better we can help. If however, you're going to be totally unwilling to accept any type of change to your build, then with respect please just don't bother. There are a lot of people here that would love to help you, but yes.. we're going to go through your currently struggling build and we're going to suggest changes to that build. If the build didn't require changes, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It would be a waste of everyones time if you were to post your build with the mindset that the build is fine and you're unwilling to change it.
If the build was fine, you wouldn't need any help to begin with. That's why we're doing this to begin with right?
Have you ever considered integrating the benefits of AP Beta on your builds or, if u dislike it for some reason, a few of the numerous other means to deal with high hit point values?
If you feel challenged by this game’s elite content then things are as they supposed to be. If you struggle with anything less than that it’s entirely on you.
As always, you sir are a wealth of useful information. The last line is especially true though, Elite Content is designed to challenge you and yes.. even frustrate you. Advanced is supposed to get you to refine your build and tactics so that you can handle Elite Content. If you're struggling with Advanced Content, simply post your build and tell us what's going wrong and you will get plenty of help.
This community has people willing to help, your choices are to either utilize that resource or continue to struggle. Choice is yours, but we're happy to try and help if we can.
The thing veterans need to keep in mind is that some time ago we all had a similar problem making the transition from episodes to queues. There is a learning curve issue beginning at level 50 for which the game does not prepare the player. It is frustrating to run head-first into that vertical curve, and it can seem to be impossible to overcome because all the things that previously worked suddenly don't. And the item descriptions are very vague on what does what to what.
Example: where does it say that multiple energy boost consoles offer diminishing returns?
So please try to remember your first character, and how you reacted the first time you went to Kerrat.
On the other side of the coin, the guys dealing with this frustration must realize by now that every response to the problem from multiple posters is virtually the same advice, even when it's worded in less than frienfly terms. If you were going into a new game and everyone gave the same advice you would likely take heed of it.
But the problem is that the early content of STO is intentionally made easy to accomodate extremely marginal or young gamers, and that creates a false sense of competence among more experienced gamers still new to STO. The transition from normal to advanced content comes after a couple of weeks of blowing stuff away, and it's very much like having a bucket of ice dumped on you while you aren't looking.
Friendly or not, the advice is valid.We all play the Advanced and Elite content, (with varying degrees of success,) and overcame the obstacles you now face. And we often forget how we reacted to the realization that on any random team of five, we were the weakest link.
Boring story follows, so skip it if you like.
I discovered STO while playing World Of Tanks. I had over 1700 battles in Beta and over 2300 battles after it went live in the starter tank. I didn't do that to pwn noobs, I did it because I sucked and wanted to get better. I worked my way up from the low 40% win rate to over 60%, (yes, a single player can make that big an impact on a 15 player team.) By the time I moved on to other tanks, (retaining my 60% win rate,) I was #400 on the win rate leader board.
I was a little bit cocky coming into STO. On normal difficulty I was doing what I thought was okay, but I respawned a lot. Then I went on the mission to Kerrat that you get at level 30 and met a guy named star*dagger who ganked me. Again, and again, and again.
I raged. Oh, the e-tears I spilled, the accusations, the recriminations. It was a scene similar to when the drunk uncle shows up at the funeral. Let's just say that I was mad. So I went to 'level up and learn him some manners.'
At level 50 I entered the queues. I'm not bad at PvP. Look at my WoT record. I went from sucking so hard I was a drag on my team to being a boss! I could do it in STO. But persistence was not paying off. I got the best gear I could afford: theirs was better. I tried to use tactics I devised to overcome obstacles, they moved the goalposts. I copied what I saw successful guys do, they countered me. Frustration mounted. I vented.
Then a guy invited me to the OPvP channel to discuss my problem. I can admit now that I came in as an arrogant TRIBBLE, certain in my knowledge that those guys were using hacks, special gear, and exploits to defeat my well considered and quite effective build and playstyle. But I was just smart enough to begin taking advice. Slowly at first, but then things started to get better. I was only fourteen of the required fifteen kills. Then thirteen.
I think there was a pool to wager how much longer until I rage-quit, and a side bet that I'd go full Mikey. But Persistence is my middle name. brian Persistance 334. And then something wonderful happened.
At the time there was acknowledgement by the PvP community that the group was growing smaller, and that there was a need to create a way for new players to break into PvP. The Sad Pandas, a PvP fleet, started a noob fleet they called Sad Panda Cubs, and I was the first player-student they invited.
I went from marginal to competent in days. Those guys knew the game, and though they specifically focused on my current ship, they taught me how to think about building and playing any ship in STO. I never became one of the greats, and computer death and work took me away from the game long enough that when I got back PvP was effectively dead. But my obsolete sci torp build was still rocking the queues, and my Cannon BoP was still generating warp core breaches.
When I created my Legacy Of Romulus character I didn't encounter any of the respawn issues I had encountered earlier, though I had a hard time killing anything in the D'd warbird. I asked for advice from OPvP and once again I was pew pewing my way through the stars. By the time I created my Delta Recruit I was playing on Advanced difficulty. By the time I created my AoY character I was surprised to learn Advanced was no longer a challenge and began to move up to Elite on mission replays. I used up a few stacks of Components, but I seldom had to respawn.
But it all goes back to one evening in one match where a player named Naz said, "Your Recon shouldn't be that squishy." That was the day I realized that the real problem was my attitude. Sure, the game has flaws, but design flaws are not what's holding you back.
Sorry to tell you.. but the 'meta' currently is just taking abilities that work together. There is no real 'meta' right now in Star Trek Online.. it's just 'take things that make sense for your build.'
Except I did pick abilities that work together, and they work together very well. The only problem is that when I run the build in any of the high end group content scenarios the attack sequence that build performs isn't enough to kill enemies, and has too big of a cooldown to hit them a second time before they are fully regenerated.
I find it pretty obnoxious how completely unwilling some people are to admit that there is any imbalance in the game, just trying to act like if someone's build doesn't work it's because they just pulled all their equipment and abilities out of a hat or something. Bottom line is, the reason I'm complaining is because my build is sound, it works very well both in theory and practice when dealing with enemies that don't arbitrarily have such gargantuan HP pools and regeneration that burst damage has no value, only sustained DPS can bring them down.
With respect to that second section... anyone here who has read some of my posts knows that imbalances in the game are one of my prime concerns. But that kind of imbalance that I am usually concerned with is related to the insane amounts of power that players can do against enemies that are only built to sustain a fraction of it.
Your problem is the other side of the same coin. Any build can work because it is so ridiculously easy to get more damage potential than you'll ever need for 90% of the game's content in many different ways.
Those enemies you are describing are tougher than the average passive HP sponge such as the Borg or some of the older enemies such as Gorn and Klingons. I don't think anyone's denying that. They are far from invulnerable though. Multiple suggestions such as targeting their front arcs, targeting the cruisers first and so on, have been suggested but I am wondering whether you have actually read those posts.
The thing veterans need to keep in mind is that some time ago we all had a similar problem making the transition from episodes to queues. There is a learning curve issue beginning at level 50 for which the game does not prepare the player. It is frustrating to run head-first into that vertical curve, and it can seem to be impossible to overcome because all the things that previously worked suddenly don't. And the item descriptions are very vague on what does what to what.
In my experience most games do not do a good job at all preparing a player for higher end content. This is why tribal knowledge is so important.
In my opinion most games shouldn't even try to prepare players for high-tier content because:
1. High-tier content is (supposed to be) about challenge and telling players how to beat it would defeat the purpose
2. Official advice tends to favor dev intentions over reality, telling players how things are "meant" to work as opposed to how they actually work. It also tends to go out of date as the metagame marches on
3. For some players, figuring that stuff out for themselves is the fun part
STO's problem concerning builds is the game doesn't do a good job at all preparing a player for the basics.
Comments
Sorry to tell you.. but the 'meta' currently is just taking abilities that work together. There is no real 'meta' right now in Star Trek Online.. it's just 'take things that make sense for your build.'
So if your 'just came up with it' build is that drastically behind the meta, then I'm sorry to say that you're coming up with stuff that just doesn't make sense. It's not like people are using some ancient secrets or anything, they're just putting together skills with things that buff or work with those skills.
Sorry man, but it's video game 101. It's far less complex then any of the other games you mentioned.
Please, please, please don't take my previous essay as a guide. I'm not that good a builder, and I never got close to 100k DPS in any of my ships. My point was to demonstrate the importance of interactions between buffs, gear, and playstyle. A hit and run raider is nothing like a science ship which has vastly different needs than a battlecruiser.
This is my advice: find players who are doing what you want to do and talk to them.
And for all that's holy, don't ask for build and playstyle advice in zone chat.There is a lot of misinformation going around there. The people you want to talk to are in the queues.
Except I did pick abilities that work together, and they work together very well. The only problem is that when I run the build in any of the high end group content scenarios the attack sequence that build performs isn't enough to kill enemies, and has too big of a cooldown to hit them a second time before they are fully regenerated.
I find it pretty obnoxious how completely unwilling some people are to admit that there is any imbalance in the game, just trying to act like if someone's build doesn't work it's because they just pulled all their equipment and abilities out of a hat or something. Bottom line is, the reason I'm complaining is because my build is sound, it works very well both in theory and practice when dealing with enemies that don't arbitrarily have such gargantuan HP pools and regeneration that burst damage has no value, only sustained DPS can bring them down.
Then that simply means you have put together a build that is sufficient for story line and regular content but is unable to handle Advanced/Elite combat. No big deal, means you're on the right track, but you still have some work to do. For starters, you should look into reducing your cooldowns. Coldnaplam gave you some good ideas, you should use them. Rather you like his style or not, dude knows what he's talking about.
Sorry you feel this way, but likewise.. I find it obnoxious when someone is struggling and won't admit that the problem could be them. You automatically assume that everything you're doing is correct and the problem is the game when people are telling you flat out what you can change to handle harder content. If you don't wish to make those changes, that's fine too, but then you need to accept that you are relegated to normal mode content.
And again, that's fine. In high end content the enemies have massively increased health and shields. By your own admission, your build can handle enemies that don't meet this criteria, so cool. It leaves you with 2 options, if you don't wish to change, then that's fine, but you have to accept that there is content in this game that you will be unable to play. Your second option is to make adjustments to the build so that you can deal with harder content.
Going through and tweaking and fine tuning your build can be quite a bit of fun. You're closing yourself off to the experience by refusing to take any responsibility for how your build performs. You say your 'build is sound' and it is.. for the easiest content. Harder content is made for more advanced players using upgraded weapons and sound technique. If you cannot meet this criteria, then you either adjust or you skip the content.
It's selfish to expect the game and the entire player base to adapt to you. It's also unrealistic.
Perhaps it’s something more superficial? Do you play stories on elite? Have you set your weapon power levels to max?
Like Sea, Eli and quite a few others made clear, the knowledge how to become good in game is wide spread and available for everybody. There is no meta anymore and a lot of stuff works. It’s basically just your attitude that hinders you or helps you.
Display your build in skill planer of sto academy and post it in build section of this forum. We can polish it together until no mission in game will pose a problem ever again for you.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I just want to say I admire and respect your gift for always being very lucid, yet not rude at all. If this were an exercise in Non-Violent Communication, you'd score a 10/10.
Have you ever considered integrating the benefits of AP Beta on your builds or, if u dislike it for some reason, a few of the numerous other means to deal with high hit point values?
If you feel challenged by this game’s elite content then things are as they supposed to be. If you struggle with anything less than that it’s entirely on you.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Hey, I'm willing to meet up with people in the game so they can have a look at my ship and tell me if there is anything I can change that would preserve the spirit of the build but get me better results. But so far most of the people who claim to have build advice basically just always end up making suggestions that aren't fixing the build but just replacing it with something entirely different.
I play with my eyes open, I know what kinds of builds crop up over and over and over, and it's simply not that I'm surrounded by support carrier builds that are doing great while I stink, it's that I'm flying a pretty unusual ship while all around me are beam or cannon boats that melt all comers in seconds and don't actually need my help for anything.
Yeah I don't get that I only used advanced fighters as I don't have elites unlocked yet and they hurt baddies and can often solo endgame ships. And I am using one flight of scimitars and one of delta fliers on a Jupiter.
And they do go impulse most of the time. Those that don't, drop off my tray and I can launch new ones.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
only returned back to the game the other day at the end of that pheonix event, i picked up over 300 boxes from that converting all my zen into dil. it felt more important than going for a ship. most of my builds are obsolete and out of date, some of them going on over 4 years, and others just need their weapons and consoles updated. I had this chat with a few people yesterday on NoP chat regarding weapon procs and their effectiveness, that was an eye opener.
my main K'mec she only needed some consoles and all XI weapons upgraded and since there was little value in the rare tier, all those went into uncommons for the universal upgrades. She is upgraded as i can get her outside of fleet tech with exception to the shield. before she was doing okay in pve content, but she should be even more effective in large groups of ships.
my second eldest character, Celise, she was in a right state, had to go back to the defiant retrofit and fix it up with phaser weapons, some of which went up to epic on the first try which was nice. before she would be lucky to do any damage in her polaron beam build in PVE, but with her cannon build she can take on cubes very easily, it's made more easier with that heavy weapons thing i haven't seen before. Thankfully the wiki had some info on that and helped. I suspect she can be very handy in the DQ.
my third and fourth characters, Shenna needed a few upgrades and T'Sara, she needed upgrades as well however her build isn't quite as potent as Celise at this point, it will have to be worked out.
I also get what you are going through, sometimes you just fly through them and suddenly you're in a much more harder fight then it should be. i've always felt a good example was doing missions in the DQ were a little more tougher than those in the AQ/BQ. When you fight klingons you kill them quite easily and they are fairly harmless but when you attack Malon ships you realise it's not as easy, same can be stated about Hirogen and Voth ships.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
It's not your eyes that need to be open here, but your mind. Which means that sometimes you need to accept that fixing your build means 'replacing it with something entirely different.' If you cling to the premiss that your build is essentially fine, but just needs a console replaced here or there, then you're still just resisting their help, and you'll continue to go nowhere.
If all around you are beam or cannon boats that melt all comers in seconds and don't actually need your help for anything, then either of these two things are true: you have a wrong build, or your piloting skills are not as stellar as you thought they were. No other options are possible. (And 'unusual ship' falls into the former category: you don't know how to fly the ship properly; aka, your build is wrong)
And another thing (and this one truly baffes me), if you're freely admitting, and seeing, that everyone around you is doing sheer endlessly better than you, shouldn't the logical inference then not be that the game scales just fine, and that it's really just you?!
See, that's what I do. I see The Battle of Korfez, for instance, and I don't go: "OMG, I can't do it, therefore the game scales badly." Rather, I think: "Tunebreaker et al. can do it just fine, so it's really just me."
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.'
Yup, on the easiest you would expect not much difference in what you got, but you need a little coordinated effort, the next step up you need a reasonable build doing enough damage, good rotations and if need it, some coordination in the team. you'd expect the top tier raid to need the best you can get and perfect rotations and good teamwork. but it wouldn't be surprising if there are players still doing 80k builds that can wipe elites easily that helping out others isn't needed when you got everything down and everyone can do their part.
Coming from SWTOR and raiding there i've gained an understanding about Raids i never had on STO. But undoubtly the idea is the same.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Thanks man, that's very kind of you. Truth is, I don't usually need to let loose on anyone because coldnapalm has already done it done it better then I ever could.
So much of this!
Anyone that's struggling and wants some help can start by filling out their build on STO Academy.
Fill out as much as you can including your gear, traits, Duty Officers.. as much as you can. The more accurate you are, the better we can help. If however, you're going to be totally unwilling to accept any type of change to your build, then with respect please just don't bother. There are a lot of people here that would love to help you, but yes.. we're going to go through your currently struggling build and we're going to suggest changes to that build. If the build didn't require changes, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It would be a waste of everyones time if you were to post your build with the mindset that the build is fine and you're unwilling to change it.
If the build was fine, you wouldn't need any help to begin with. That's why we're doing this to begin with right?
As always, you sir are a wealth of useful information. The last line is especially true though, Elite Content is designed to challenge you and yes.. even frustrate you. Advanced is supposed to get you to refine your build and tactics so that you can handle Elite Content. If you're struggling with Advanced Content, simply post your build and tell us what's going wrong and you will get plenty of help.
This community has people willing to help, your choices are to either utilize that resource or continue to struggle. Choice is yours, but we're happy to try and help if we can.
Example: where does it say that multiple energy boost consoles offer diminishing returns?
So please try to remember your first character, and how you reacted the first time you went to Kerrat.
On the other side of the coin, the guys dealing with this frustration must realize by now that every response to the problem from multiple posters is virtually the same advice, even when it's worded in less than frienfly terms. If you were going into a new game and everyone gave the same advice you would likely take heed of it.
But the problem is that the early content of STO is intentionally made easy to accomodate extremely marginal or young gamers, and that creates a false sense of competence among more experienced gamers still new to STO. The transition from normal to advanced content comes after a couple of weeks of blowing stuff away, and it's very much like having a bucket of ice dumped on you while you aren't looking.
Friendly or not, the advice is valid.We all play the Advanced and Elite content, (with varying degrees of success,) and overcame the obstacles you now face. And we often forget how we reacted to the realization that on any random team of five, we were the weakest link.
Boring story follows, so skip it if you like.
I discovered STO while playing World Of Tanks. I had over 1700 battles in Beta and over 2300 battles after it went live in the starter tank. I didn't do that to pwn noobs, I did it because I sucked and wanted to get better. I worked my way up from the low 40% win rate to over 60%, (yes, a single player can make that big an impact on a 15 player team.) By the time I moved on to other tanks, (retaining my 60% win rate,) I was #400 on the win rate leader board.
I was a little bit cocky coming into STO. On normal difficulty I was doing what I thought was okay, but I respawned a lot. Then I went on the mission to Kerrat that you get at level 30 and met a guy named star*dagger who ganked me. Again, and again, and again.
I raged. Oh, the e-tears I spilled, the accusations, the recriminations. It was a scene similar to when the drunk uncle shows up at the funeral. Let's just say that I was mad. So I went to 'level up and learn him some manners.'
At level 50 I entered the queues. I'm not bad at PvP. Look at my WoT record. I went from sucking so hard I was a drag on my team to being a boss! I could do it in STO. But persistence was not paying off. I got the best gear I could afford: theirs was better. I tried to use tactics I devised to overcome obstacles, they moved the goalposts. I copied what I saw successful guys do, they countered me. Frustration mounted. I vented.
Then a guy invited me to the OPvP channel to discuss my problem. I can admit now that I came in as an arrogant TRIBBLE, certain in my knowledge that those guys were using hacks, special gear, and exploits to defeat my well considered and quite effective build and playstyle. But I was just smart enough to begin taking advice. Slowly at first, but then things started to get better. I was only fourteen of the required fifteen kills. Then thirteen.
I think there was a pool to wager how much longer until I rage-quit, and a side bet that I'd go full Mikey. But Persistence is my middle name. brian Persistance 334. And then something wonderful happened.
At the time there was acknowledgement by the PvP community that the group was growing smaller, and that there was a need to create a way for new players to break into PvP. The Sad Pandas, a PvP fleet, started a noob fleet they called Sad Panda Cubs, and I was the first player-student they invited.
I went from marginal to competent in days. Those guys knew the game, and though they specifically focused on my current ship, they taught me how to think about building and playing any ship in STO. I never became one of the greats, and computer death and work took me away from the game long enough that when I got back PvP was effectively dead. But my obsolete sci torp build was still rocking the queues, and my Cannon BoP was still generating warp core breaches.
When I created my Legacy Of Romulus character I didn't encounter any of the respawn issues I had encountered earlier, though I had a hard time killing anything in the D'd warbird. I asked for advice from OPvP and once again I was pew pewing my way through the stars. By the time I created my Delta Recruit I was playing on Advanced difficulty. By the time I created my AoY character I was surprised to learn Advanced was no longer a challenge and began to move up to Elite on mission replays. I used up a few stacks of Components, but I seldom had to respawn.
But it all goes back to one evening in one match where a player named Naz said, "Your Recon shouldn't be that squishy." That was the day I realized that the real problem was my attitude. Sure, the game has flaws, but design flaws are not what's holding you back.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
With respect to that second section... anyone here who has read some of my posts knows that imbalances in the game are one of my prime concerns. But that kind of imbalance that I am usually concerned with is related to the insane amounts of power that players can do against enemies that are only built to sustain a fraction of it.
Your problem is the other side of the same coin. Any build can work because it is so ridiculously easy to get more damage potential than you'll ever need for 90% of the game's content in many different ways.
Those enemies you are describing are tougher than the average passive HP sponge such as the Borg or some of the older enemies such as Gorn and Klingons. I don't think anyone's denying that. They are far from invulnerable though. Multiple suggestions such as targeting their front arcs, targeting the cruisers first and so on, have been suggested but I am wondering whether you have actually read those posts.
1. High-tier content is (supposed to be) about challenge and telling players how to beat it would defeat the purpose
2. Official advice tends to favor dev intentions over reality, telling players how things are "meant" to work as opposed to how they actually work. It also tends to go out of date as the metagame marches on
3. For some players, figuring that stuff out for themselves is the fun part
STO's problem concerning builds is the game doesn't do a good job at all preparing a player for the basics.
Okay, now I see how you got your name.