That was the limiting factor to projectiles in Star Trek, and why most ships had 1 single torpedo launcher fore, and 1 aft. A few ships had perhaps 2 fore launchers.
The Akira class would like to have a word with you.
The Akira-class design incorporated a multitude of tactical systems, including at least three Phaser arrays, and housed numerous Photon torpedo launchers along the port and starboard sides of the ventral primary hull, at least one launcher forward of the deflector, and several located on the aft weapons pod. (Star Trek: First Contact)
then there's the fact that cannon Sovereign has 3-4 torps front depending on the version (a dual launcher on the underside of the engineering hull, the rapid fire quantum launcher on the underside of the saucer and during nemesis a third lancher on the top side of the saucer) and that's in addition to the phaser strips.
Most canon ships have way more weapon hardpoints then 8.
That said one of the charms of STO for me is that you aren't restricted to "canon builds" and can build your ship what ever way you want, personally I like building my ships around a specific theme, they're rarely meta but they're good enough.
there are exceptions of course. Look at the Defiant. non known rear hardpoints at all? And Galaxy and MOST TNG era ships had 1 massive beam array on top and one below the saucer. Plus 1 torpedo tube forward and 1 aft. And I believe 1 small beam array on the outside of the nacelle pylons?
Ent A and Excelsior obviously had two very obvious forward torpedo tubes, but take the Ent A, she had 3 obvious DBB banks on the top of the saucer, and 3 below. Nothing on the neck or hull for beams.
The Akira 100% supports my comment that there were escorts (short ranged) that had multiple torpedo launchers. But again the average among 99% of Star Trek canon ships, ships had 2-3 launchers total. And in every case where we had interaction with the crew (i.e. dialogue) or a technical manual, there is always reference to a set number of torpedoes in inventory. We often saw the actual torpedoes on the Defiant in DS9, and several times saw the black tube torpedoes in TNG. Many cases of "we are out of torpedoes, sir" or needing to resupply. Etc.
Nebula canon, same as Galaxy since it was hobjobbed from the Ent D model. New orleans...in the few screen shots and the model we saw makes it appear to have more than normal torpedo launchers, but again same beam arrays as the Ent D. Voyager had 2 forward tubes, 1 aft, and again the normal beam array on top of the saucer, and below. and two smaller ones on top of the aft hull, one below.
You're missing my point and that's canon ships don't care about 8 weapons max limit sto has, btw the Galaxy nacelle pylons have 4 phaser strips before the war upgrade, 2 per pylon and IIRC Galaxy also had the strip under the enginering hull that Voyager though these strips aren't seen firing normally.
Oh and Connie refit does have phasers in the engineering hull (2 above the shuttle bay though they're only visible on the model and are never seen firing) and while I'm at it Connie had 2 openings but 4 tubes (2 per opening) note that torpedo room they used to launch Spock casket didn't have any battle damage. so it's not impossible to think Excelsior has the same.
You're missing my point and that's canon ships don't care about 8 weapons max limit sto has, btw the Galaxy nacelle pylons have 4 phaser strips before the war upgrade, 2 per pylon and IIRC Galaxy also had the strip under the enginering hull that Voyager though these strips aren't seen firing normally.
Oh and Connie refit does have phasers in the engineering hull (2 above the shuttle bay though they're only visible on the model and are never seen firing) and while I'm at it Connie had 2 openings but 4 tubes (2 per opening) note that torpedo room they used to launch Spock casket didn't have any battle damage. so it's not impossible to think Excelsior has the same.[/quote]
You're missing MY point. I have NEVER said anything about the number of weapon slots in game, I was referring to the fact that in canon with rare exception we have never SEEN a ship with more than 4 torpedo bays and that's only in the JJverse. Excluding that, the max torpedo slots we saw was 3 on any one ship? Maybe we saw a 4 tube in the standard universe? Thus no such thing as a torpedo boat. The Akira reference was brought up, but even THAT proves my point because torpedoes were only PART of the armament.
The hardpoints on the ships....whatever. Cryptic never has and never will match what we see on canon.
My point was and still is, projectiles as we have them in the game do not match canon. That's it. That was my original post. Torpedoes do little if any damage to shields but are supposed to shred hull. The game just needs to reverse shield hitpoints and hull hitpoints and you could leave torpedo damage the way it is. But SHIELDS protected a ship. SHIELDS should have 200k hitpoints, and HULL should be 40k not the other way around as we have in game. Generally. I'm making up numbers, but by and large hull hitpoints are 3 to 4 times higher than shield hitpoints. Switch it and my issue is resolved if you don't want to have a game mechanic change.
YES, that would tick off torpedo boat players...but you shouldn't exist in the Star Trek universe. Shields can take the sustained damage of a prolonged conflict of ENERGY weapons, and when they drop, torpedoes were fired to destroy the target. That's simply how Star Trek works, bot NOT how STO online works.
You're missing MY point. I have NEVER said anything about the number of weapon slots in game, I was referring to the fact that in canon with rare exception we have never SEEN a ship with more than 4 torpedo bays and that's only in the JJverse. Excluding that, the max torpedo slots we saw was 3 on any one ship? Maybe we saw a 4 tube in the standard universe? Thus no such thing as a torpedo boat. The Akira reference was brought up, but even THAT proves my point because torpedoes were only PART of the armament.
The hardpoints on the ships....whatever. Cryptic never has and never will match what we see on canon.
There are a lot of things opposite to what they should be, high yield plasma torpedoes in the show are extremely fast so fast the Enterprise cannot out run them. But in the game for some odd reason are the opposite and extremely slow.
Also we have only seen the armaments of a tiny fraction of the ships in Star Trek. We know they make variations of the same ship. Just because a tiny amount of ships we have seen only have 4 torpedo bays it does not mean that's a limitation to the entire fleet. In fact we know that's not the case as a 4 front torpedo and 2 aft torpedo ship was very common in DS9 it was the main ship they used and that is just what a torpedo boat in this game is, 4 front torpedoes and a few aft.
You're missing MY point. I have NEVER said anything about the number of weapon slots in game, I was referring to the fact that in canon with rare exception we have never SEEN a ship with more than 4 torpedo bays and that's only in the JJverse. Excluding that, the max torpedo slots we saw was 3 on any one ship? Maybe we saw a 4 tube in the standard universe? Thus no such thing as a torpedo boat. The Akira reference was brought up, but even THAT proves my point because torpedoes were only PART of the armament.
The hardpoints on the ships....whatever. Cryptic never has and never will match what we see on canon.
There are a lot of things opposite to what they should be, high yield plasma torpedoes in the show are extremely fast so fast the Enterprise cannot out run them. But in the game for some odd reason are the opposite and extremely slow.
Also we have only seen the armaments of a tiny fraction of the ships in Star Trek. We know they make variations of the same ship. Just because a tiny amount of ships we have seen only have 4 torpedo bays it does not mean that's a limitation to the entire fleet. In fact we know that's not the case as a 4 front torpedo and 2 aft torpedo ship was very common in DS9 it was the main ship they used and that is just what a torpedo boat in this game is, 4 front torpedoes and a few aft.
what ship in DS9 was 4 front torpedo and 2 aft? I don't seem to remember that one at all, but it has been a while since I watched the series.
But again you are also focusing on the hardpoint issue. Generally, ENERGY weapons were primary shield droppers, and torpedoes were NOT primary weapons, but would be used with devastating effect on exposed hull.
You're missing MY point. I have NEVER said anything about the number of weapon slots in game, I was referring to the fact that in canon with rare exception we have never SEEN a ship with more than 4 torpedo bays and that's only in the JJverse. Excluding that, the max torpedo slots we saw was 3 on any one ship? Maybe we saw a 4 tube in the standard universe? Thus no such thing as a torpedo boat. The Akira reference was brought up, but even THAT proves my point because torpedoes were only PART of the armament.
The hardpoints on the ships....whatever. Cryptic never has and never will match what we see on canon.
There are a lot of things opposite to what they should be, high yield plasma torpedoes in the show are extremely fast so fast the Enterprise cannot out run them. But in the game for some odd reason are the opposite and extremely slow.
Also we have only seen the armaments of a tiny fraction of the ships in Star Trek. We know they make variations of the same ship. Just because a tiny amount of ships we have seen only have 4 torpedo bays it does not mean that's a limitation to the entire fleet. In fact we know that's not the case as a 4 front torpedo and 2 aft torpedo ship was very common in DS9 it was the main ship they used and that is just what a torpedo boat in this game is, 4 front torpedoes and a few aft.
what ship in DS9 was 4 front torpedo and 2 aft? I don't seem to remember that one at all, but it has been a while since I watched the series.
But again you are also focusing on the hardpoint issue. Generally, ENERGY weapons were primary shield droppers, and torpedoes were NOT primary weapons, but would be used with devastating effect on exposed hull.
Two famous ones that spring to mind the Defiant has 4 front torpedoes and 2 rear. The Enterprise E had 5 torpedo tubes and then went through a refit to fit 5 extra bringing the total up to 10 torpedo tubes.
I do not agree torpedoes where not primary weapons. I am just re watching Voyager and they treat torpedoes as primary weapons that are more powerful then energy weapons but they save the torpedoes for when they need that extra punch even against shielded targets. The episode I watched tonight they needed to take down a ship fast so skipped energy and jumped straight to a torpedo strike. They use energy weapons when they want finesse like disabling or to persuade someone to disengage. They switch to torpedoes even when shields are up when they instead want to do some real damage.
I think part of the problem of power creep in the game is largely to do with the lack of restrictions on Energy Weapons. It is way to easy to slot 8 beam arrays on a cruiser and spam BFAW at the moment and then I noticed that EvE Online has a very interesting workaround on this problem. EvE has both turret and launcher slots so that you can only equip specific weapons in those slots.
So why can't STO be like that, with some slots being energy weapons and other slots being for torpedoes/mines/missiles etc. This would force ships to diversify their weapon load-outs, lower the DPS problem and make ships more respective of canon (Federation vessels usually carry energy weapons and torpedoes?)
Giving players too much freedom with how they slot weapons is simply bad for the game.
As some have pointed out, the developers are not trying to stop power creep. In a game that is only combat focused, power creep is a big selling point. Not just to draw F2P players, but especially the cash whales. The upgrade system is proof that they don't want to reduce, or do away with power creep. But instead they want to find ways of increasing it without breaking the game too much.
Also, you have newer rep systems that will be adding more power creep, on top of the new endeavor system.
Plus, the way the game is, you don't need the game to tell you what weapons to put where, because you can choose for yourself how to build your ship. If you don't want to chase DPS, then you don't have to. Even though the game is focused towards it, there are usually enough DPS chasers in TFO's to carry those with lower DPS.
I don't chase it myself. I build my ships the way I want to fly them, and do the best I can in the TFO's. I am not the highest DPS, but I am able to carry my own.
EVE is a heavy pay to win game. Just because they limit what weapons can go where on their ships, doesn't eliminate power creep. It is still a problem with the game. All it does is force everyone into such similar builds, that it encourages players to buy the next power creep in line to get an advantage over those with the same ship as them. This is a form of marketing.
Aside from the power creep, and this being the only Star Trek MMO, one of the other big draws for a lot of players is the freedom the game gives when building your ship. Being forced into a cookie cutter build, because that is all the game allows is boring to a lot of people. For some people it is not a good idea. But there are others that do like it.
And it hasn't hurt other games that do the same, like Elite Dangerous, for example. In that game, you are not limited to a specific type of weapon on each slot. It only limits you to the size of the weapon. But you have the freedom to pick the most OP weapons on each slot if you want. And there are other games out there that do the same. They even have power creep.
If you are playing a PVE focused combat MMO that makes money off of things they can sell for real life money to increase stats in the game, then power creep is going to be there in one form or another. It helps pull in money for the game.
Razar.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Also the devs could instead of reworking the mechanics at a based level like adding a slot specific for weapons, or even changing how some weapons work fundamentally like how torpedo damage works against shields, they might be able to make tweaks via the ship trait system that already exists. I mean a tier six ship built to be a torpedo boat could have a ship trait that modifies the way your torpedo's interact with shields, or though I think we already might have a trait or something that causes your energy weapons to interact with your torpedoes like adding stacking proc that buffs the damage or shield pen of the next torpedo fired.
Though i would not mind just seeing more ship traits that add interactions between both boff abilities, and even weapons an boff abilities. Like a trait that if you have a tyken's rift active it causes your energy siphon to affect all the targets affected by thhe rift in regards to at least maybe ship traits you have slotted if the added energy bonsu would be too much (i am sure it would be).
The only change I would make, after looking over all the ship schematics for Starfleet, is to change all beam arrays and single cannons to 180' firing arc. Reducing it from the 250' arc that they have. Since every ship, is built to that. The Enterprise-D being the only exception and having 250' beam arrays. Then it only has 1 dorsal and 1 ventral beam array, fore and aft. Add in torpedoes here and it's a 3/3 ship.
The Original Enterprise has 5 beam projectors on it, set in the forward 180' arc.
This would break it down into..
Forward: 180
Aft: 180
Upper; 180
Lower: 180
This would limit the number of weapons one could bring to bear on a target. For example, being able to fire the weapons arrays built into the dorsal(upper) hull of the ship, couldn't be fired upon an enemy below the dorsal 180.
This is why ships are designed to have dorsal and ventral weapons.
Edit:
This would require Cryptic to hard point the weapons on the ships, which they have never done. Which is why you can fire them all on a target, as long as they're within firing arc.
You're missing MY point. I have NEVER said anything about the number of weapon slots in game, I was referring to the fact that in canon with rare exception we have never SEEN a ship with more than 4 torpedo bays and that's only in the JJverse. Excluding that, the max torpedo slots we saw was 3 on any one ship? Maybe we saw a 4 tube in the standard universe? Thus no such thing as a torpedo boat. The Akira reference was brought up, but even THAT proves my point because torpedoes were only PART of the armament.
The hardpoints on the ships....whatever. Cryptic never has and never will match what we see on canon.
There are a lot of things opposite to what they should be, high yield plasma torpedoes in the show are extremely fast so fast the Enterprise cannot out run them. But in the game for some odd reason are the opposite and extremely slow.
Also we have only seen the armaments of a tiny fraction of the ships in Star Trek. We know they make variations of the same ship. Just because a tiny amount of ships we have seen only have 4 torpedo bays it does not mean that's a limitation to the entire fleet. In fact we know that's not the case as a 4 front torpedo and 2 aft torpedo ship was very common in DS9 it was the main ship they used and that is just what a torpedo boat in this game is, 4 front torpedoes and a few aft.
what ship in DS9 was 4 front torpedo and 2 aft? I don't seem to remember that one at all, but it has been a while since I watched the series.
But again you are also focusing on the hardpoint issue. Generally, ENERGY weapons were primary shield droppers, and torpedoes were NOT primary weapons, but would be used with devastating effect on exposed hull.
Two famous ones that spring to mind the Defiant has 4 front torpedoes and 2 rear. The Enterprise E had 5 torpedo tubes and then went through a refit to fit 5 extra bringing the total up to 10 torpedo tubes.
I do not agree torpedoes where not primary weapons. I am just re watching Voyager and they treat torpedoes as primary weapons that are more powerful then energy weapons but they save the torpedoes for when they need that extra punch even against shielded targets. The episode I watched tonight they needed to take down a ship fast so skipped energy and jumped straight to a torpedo strike. They use energy weapons when they want finesse like disabling or to persuade someone to disengage. They switch to torpedoes even when shields are up when they instead want to do some real damage.
There is one thing you're overlooking here. A torpedo tube, is just where said torp is fired from. The tube itself is connected to the loading bay, or torpedo bay. In modern naval ships, that's generally two torpedo tubes, connected to a fore torpedo bay and an aft torpedo bay.
If they want to play a MOBA, go play a MOBA. There's at least 3 I can think of out there.
Also I don't get the appeal of Fortnite and other so called "Battle Royale" games. Its glorified Free for All with a shrinking map. That's all it is.
How many Star Trek MOBAs do you know, though? I can understand that some people would like STO to be one, but they'll have to accept compromises so that Star Trek Online also works for all the people that play the game for what it is.
I can't. How can some people look at a product and want it to be changed into something completely different? That's ridiculous. Like taking a vacuum cleaner and complaining it isn't a lawnmower.
If they want to play a MOBA, go play a MOBA. There's at least 3 I can think of out there.
Also I don't get the appeal of Fortnite and other so called "Battle Royale" games. Its glorified Free for All with a shrinking map. That's all it is.
How many Star Trek MOBAs do you know, though? I can understand that some people would like STO to be one, but they'll have to accept compromises so that Star Trek Online also works for all the people that play the game for what it is.
I can't. How can some people look at a product and want it to be changed into something completely different? That's ridiculous. Like taking a vacuum cleaner and complaining it isn't a lawnmower.
Umm... yeah... I kind of think this is how the yardvac came about.
If they want to play a MOBA, go play a MOBA. There's at least 3 I can think of out there.
Also I don't get the appeal of Fortnite and other so called "Battle Royale" games. Its glorified Free for All with a shrinking map. That's all it is.
How many Star Trek MOBAs do you know, though? I can understand that some people would like STO to be one, but they'll have to accept compromises so that Star Trek Online also works for all the people that play the game for what it is.
I can't. How can some people look at a product and want it to be changed into something completely different? That's ridiculous. Like taking a vacuum cleaner and complaining it isn't a lawnmower.
Umm... yeah... I kind of think this is how the yardvac came about.
If they want to play a MOBA, go play a MOBA. There's at least 3 I can think of out there.
Also I don't get the appeal of Fortnite and other so called "Battle Royale" games. Its glorified Free for All with a shrinking map. That's all it is.
How many Star Trek MOBAs do you know, though? I can understand that some people would like STO to be one, but they'll have to accept compromises so that Star Trek Online also works for all the people that play the game for what it is.
I can't. How can some people look at a product and want it to be changed into something completely different? That's ridiculous. Like taking a vacuum cleaner and complaining it isn't a lawnmower.
For me, the issue is not so much people wanting make a game a different game, that comes with the territory, cannot please all of the people all of the time.
The issue from my PoV is the, somewhat newer IMO, 'need' the 'gaming masses' have to make _every single game the same_.
I see this over and over again now, much more fequently since 'gaming' became popular with the masses over the gamer geeks.
Does not seem to matter the genre, IP/world setting, MMO vs Single Player, there are a lot of voices out there trying to make playing every game like driving the same car or something.
It baffles me, even though I know it is the human herd mentality - poeple want to 'feel' like they are part of the 'tribe', but they don't want the controls/playstyle of a new game from following the tribe - IMO, they don't want to play the game, just hang out with friends.
Not a bad thing from my PoV, but destroying the actual games to turn them into chat-rooms is...not a plan I endorse.
In this case, there is also the angle of 'balance' so all players in the game will 'feel' like they are no more or less strong than other players.
So Admiral Picard is equal to Lt. Broccoli? I think not.
As for the 'torpedos need to feel canon' idea, I like the _idea_ of making the game more canon, but it would force all players to adopt a 'kill the shields, then the hull' playstyle, making the game less fun just to allow a few peoples 'outlook' to be soothed, not to mention a fundamental re-write of a ton of the game, for no ROI.
Why do so many people want to restrict others, just to make themsleves fell better?
A question for our species, I guess.
If its a slow lumber whale of a ship then why should it be forced into taking projectiles that won't get fired as often unless the player uses other consoles and stuff to get the turn rate to a workable level.
Why slap a limit on weapons and not other items like the fleet consoles?
End of the day though the power creep is driven not by the demands of playable content but by peer pressure. It's up to the individual whether or not they get sucked in by it.
Honestly, the result that the OP wants can be easily reached by making same bonus from consoles not stack. Like I said, I like this idea as a way to get more ship distinction. There are a LOT of awfully similar ships in terms of stats and this can be a way to make them each more unique. Course that doesn't mean you will see more varied ships in game as everyone will pick whichever set up is most powerful anyways and we will probably start to see clones of those ships...but...humm...I think I talked myself out of support for this idea .
Actually getting more varied builds would only happen if varied builds were necessary for something. If the same build is good enough, or even best, for everything...no reason not to use it.
Sometimes things are done purely for gameplay reasons in MMOs and not always lore reasons. As one example, in World of Warcraft, canonically Undead are only Shadow Priests. Although exceptionally strong willed individuals may be able to use a few spells here or there, an undead using the Light is just as dangerous and damaging to them as it is the person they're throwing it at. So lore wise priests in game, undead priests should only be shadow. Gameplay wise however undead can be Holy or Discipline priests just any of the other races can be. It would have been extremely jarring if folks had chosen to be an undead priest but were locked purely into one type of spec.
In terms of STO there's a huge difference between a magical creature and a technological starship. Most ships in Star Trek are heavily modular and can be configured and reconfigured again to meet whatever demands are placed on them. By the time of 2410 and 2409 it's explained that most ships simply use the hull as the base platform and everything else depends on what is loaded into the ship. Think of it something like each ship being a basic shell with various base properties such as the boff seating and similar items. I could take something like the Vaadwaur Juggernaut and make it into a tank like I have with my main ship, and the guy next to me could take the same ship and turn it into a purely DPS and numbers based ship. It doesn't matter gameplay wise. Lore wise however the ship may lean one way or the other, but for gameplay reasons that's not the way the player version goes.
We've also seen that individual captains and crews have alot of flexibility in how their ship is setup and ran in the lore. Case and point when Dr Leah Brams was surprised that Geordi and crew had re-oriented the dilithium crystals, which wasn't due to be introduced until the next class of starship. It's not unreasonable to assume that by the time of 2410 and 2409 that Starfleet simply doesn't care what the individual captains do with their ships as long as they're combat worthy and can be ready when Starfleet needs them. If an individual ship makes a significant change that makes it better than all the other ships in some regard or another, the other ships of the fleet can implement that change as well. During the Dominion War when the Breen first deployed their energy draining weapon, there was one Bird of Prey in particular that the weapon had no effect on due to something the engineer on the ship had done. When the Klingons were looking for ways to counter the weapon, Martok and head leadership heard about this particular BOP and ordered every ship in the fleet to make the same changes that engineer did, and the entire fleet was now immune to the Breen energy draining weapon.
It's not unreasonable to assume most of those same principles apply by the time of STO and thus why we have so much more flexibility in game aside from the obvious gameplay reasons for it.
With that said I do believe there is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Restricting options to include "build diversity" as some folks in here have been calling it never works out. If folks want more diversity in builds then there needs to be motivation to use those alternate build types. Unless it becomes THE answer in all cases, such as the Leech previously, nerfing X to to encourage folks to use Y is only going to make folks feel like they're getting pigeonholed into one form of build or another. If folks want more build diversity then there needs to be benefits to having those builds. If enemies are more prone to kinetic damage this could give folks reason to run torps, maybe even mines if they want to go that route. Have enemy X take more damage if exposed to more than 2 energy types at once etc. There's a ton of ways it could go. Wanting options restricted purely because one person or the other doesn't like it will never end well because folks will feel like they're being pigeonholed as I pointed out above. More often than not folks will feel like someone else's build style is being forced on them and will make them want to quit. Seen it too many times in other games and believe me that's not a road anyone wants STO to go down.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Sometimes things are done purely for gameplay reasons in MMOs and not always lore reasons. As one example, in World of Warcraft, canonically Undead are only Shadow Priests. Although exceptionally strong willed individuals may be able to use a few spells here or there, an undead using the Light is just as dangerous and damaging to them as it is the person they're throwing it at. So lore wise priests in game, undead priests should only be shadow. Gameplay wise however undead can be Holy or Discipline priests just any of the other races can be. It would have been extremely jarring if folks had chosen to be an undead priest but were locked purely into one type of spec.
I would say a better example is that Forsaken (aka the playble undead) PCs and NPCs are classified as humanoids with a racial traits to give them a weaker version of undead immunities and this one done due to game balance , since both in-lore and in-game "undead" type enemies are immune to fear and don't need to breathe, but take extra damage/effects from certain holy based spells.
For a STO specific example, all AoE effects have friendly fire turned off, yet there's multiple cases of friendly fire (or people taking cover while using AoE effects) so we can say that's not the case in lore. The friendly Fire Immunity is purely a gameplay convention.
With that said I do believe there is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Restricting options to include "build diversity" as some folks in here have been calling it never works out. If folks want more diversity in builds then there needs to be motivation to use those alternate build types. Unless it becomes THE answer in all cases, such as the Leech previously, nerfing X to to encourage folks to use Y is only going to make folks feel like they're getting pigeonholed into one form of build or another. If folks want more build diversity then there needs to be benefits to having those builds. If enemies are more prone to kinetic damage this could give folks reason to run torps, maybe even mines if they want to go that route. Have enemy X take more damage if exposed to more than 2 energy types at once etc. There's a ton of ways it could go. Wanting options restricted purely because one person or the other doesn't like it will never end well because folks will feel like they're being pigeonholed as I pointed out above. More often than not folks will feel like someone else's build style is being forced on them and will make them want to quit. Seen it too many times in other games and believe me that's not a road anyone wants STO to go down.
As much as I agree with the beginning of that, I have to disagree with the end. Rules are what makes the game a game instead of just a playground and if having rules makes someone want to quit then maybe games just aren't their entertainment of choice.
Type-specific weapon slots would not be "forcing" someone else's build style on anyone, any more than type-specific boff and console slots are. Or being unable to put a DHC on a rear slot, or a mine in front, or stack the ship full of nothing but omnibeams. Not being allowed an experimental weapon on a cruiser or conversely being "required" (not really) to have one an escort doesn't make people want to quit. Not people who actually want to play a game. Why then should a torpedo?
Type-specific weapon slots could be a new way to make ships different from one another. Some could have more projectile slots, other more energy. Some might be able to go all one type or the other, or even have fully universal slots like BoPs do with boff slots. And no compelling reason to leave it at just projectile/energy either. However many hundreds of ships are there in the game? They aren't meant to be just cosmetic skins for a generic do-anything platform.
But like you said, what type-specific weapon slots wouldn't do is magically increase build diversity. As long as there is no reason for players to actually want different builds, they won't make different builds. All those people who had the same cookie-cutter DPS build would just add the "required" torpedo in and they'd all have the same build again, just with a torpedo in it.
Nor would they weaken high-performance players to the extent the OP seems to believe it would.
"Let's lower the number of individual item combinations we should be allowed to use, that's sure to make things more diverse!"
Seriously, no. Stop that. Does nobody here remember how many people started Tribbling their pants when the rebalance in Season 13 took place? You know, the one that was 90% nerfs?
Sure, some of the changes may have been justified, but imagine taking one of the most important differences between builds (Weapon types) and throwing it out the window. Do you really, honestly think that people would be OVERJOYED? Because I'd be right Tribbled if suddenly this horrid change took place.
You want things to be more accurate to canon? Make a canon ship build for yourself! Don't force it on anyone else! You don't like how the meta naturally evolves to point towards specific build types?
Then don't follow the meta, ya goober! Sure, if something is ridiculously OP then nerf it, that's fine. But killing off broadsiding or torp boats just because you personally don't like it? Are you serious? I just don't get it. Why police what other people do for fun? If it isn't hurting you then just don't mess with it! You want a mixed synergy build? Great, go right ahead.
And I don't see why THIS is the only thing anyone ever has issue with. Nothing else? Not the player Vonph ships, or blasting around Tyken's Rift like it's a toy? When has any Starfleet captain had an actual protocol for "Fire the Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity!" Never! It takes a good 30 minutes in an episode to even figure out that you shoot tachyons at a 'temporal anomaly'. When Picard takes the Enterprise into a fight, he only ever says "Fire weapons." There's no deflector abilities, aceton beams, or 'science teams', they never activate fluidic decouplers or fire hyperexcited ion cannons. Why is this the hill everyone has decided to curl up and die on?!
I can't bring myself to imagine what some of the people in this thread would say about my ship. "StArFLeeT wEApOnS can'T FIrE thAt FaSt!!1" Yeah alright fine. But 200% firing cycle haste is cool, so I'll keep doing it.
You say slotting 8 beams is a problem, but i almost never see it actually happen, and when i do its not usually very effective.
We do have different experiences here. I see a lot of 8 beam cruisers (and DHC/DC/Turret builds) without torpedoes. Not arguing about the second part, though, even if I don't really like torps.
As for the OP: played "A Step Between Stars"? Still like the idea of having preset loadouts?
And for the comparisons to Fortnight (or any other game successful right now): in my, admittedly non professional, opinion, one of the big mistakes that happens in the gaming industry is "look what others do and copy it". Because if you do, usually the original is more playworthy and the game in question is just an imperfect copycat at that time. This game, with its build liberty, has its audience. I bet chances are if you changed it that drastically, you'd annoy more users than you'd get enthusiastic players and new ones coming.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
"Let's lower the number of individual item combinations we should be allowed to use, that's sure to make things more diverse!"
Seriously, no. Stop that. Does nobody here remember how many people started Tribbling their pants when the rebalance in Season 13 took place? You know, the one that was 90% nerfs?
Sure, some of the changes may have been justified, but imagine taking one of the most important differences between builds (Weapon types) and throwing it out the window. Do you really, honestly think that people would be OVERJOYED? Because I'd be right Tribbled if suddenly this horrid change took place.
You want things to be more accurate to canon? Make a canon ship build for yourself! Don't force it on anyone else! You don't like how the meta naturally evolves to point towards specific build types?
Then don't follow the meta, ya goober! Sure, if something is ridiculously OP then nerf it, that's fine. But killing off broadsiding or torp boats just because you personally don't like it? Are you serious? I just don't get it. Why police what other people do for fun? If it isn't hurting you then just don't mess with it! You want a mixed synergy build? Great, go right ahead.
And I don't see why THIS is the only thing anyone ever has issue with. Nothing else? Not the player Vonph ships, or blasting around Tyken's Rift like it's a toy? When has any Starfleet captain had an actual protocol for "Fire the Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity!" Never! It takes a good 30 minutes in an episode to even figure out that you shoot tachyons at a 'temporal anomaly'. When Picard takes the Enterprise into a fight, he only ever says "Fire weapons." There's no deflector abilities, aceton beams, or 'science teams', they never activate fluidic decouplers or fire hyperexcited ion cannons. Why is this the hill everyone has decided to curl up and die on?!
I can't bring myself to imagine what some of the people in this thread would say about my ship. "StArFLeeT wEApOnS can'T FIrE thAt FaSt!!1" Yeah alright fine. But 200% firing cycle haste is cool, so I'll keep doing it.
What a cool post. Thanks for making it.
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As much as I agree with the beginning of that, I have to disagree with the end. Rules are what makes the game a game instead of just a playground and if having rules makes someone want to quit then maybe games just aren't their entertainment of choice.
Type-specific weapon slots would not be "forcing" someone else's build style on anyone, any more than type-specific boff and console slots are. Or being unable to put a DHC on a rear slot, or a mine in front, or stack the ship full of nothing but omnibeams. Not being allowed an experimental weapon on a cruiser or conversely being "required" (not really) to have one an escort doesn't make people want to quit. Not people who actually want to play a game. Why then should a torpedo?
Type-specific weapon slots could be a new way to make ships different from one another. Some could have more projectile slots, other more energy. Some might be able to go all one type or the other, or even have fully universal slots like BoPs do with boff slots. And no compelling reason to leave it at just projectile/energy either. However many hundreds of ships are there in the game? They aren't meant to be just cosmetic skins for a generic do-anything platform.
But like you said, what type-specific weapon slots wouldn't do is magically increase build diversity. As long as there is no reason for players to actually want different builds, they won't make different builds. All those people who had the same cookie-cutter DPS build would just add the "required" torpedo in and they'd all have the same build again, just with a torpedo in it.
Nor would they weaken high-performance players to the extent the OP seems to believe it would.
Having rules in a game is to be expected and isn't in debate. Changing those rules to make little Timmy use a shield and sword instead of his preferred mace and crossbow, purely because little Johnny and little Susie think everyone should like the shield and sword and should want to use it like they do, is something else completely different.
In STO it's been a long standing rule that once you get to max level you have a maximum of 8 weapon slots on your ship that you get to put equipment into. We've also been given several different types of weapons that can be equipped to the ship, mines, torps, beam arrays, dual banks, single cannons, dual and dual heavy cannons, turrets, experimental weapons, and omni beams. For some of those items we're told "if you want to use a dual bank/cannons" it can only be equipped on the front of the ship. The omni rule is one at this point that imo is outdated since we can equip as many turrets as we want, but that's another can of worms entirely. As long as I obey the equipment restrictions, I can equip whatever I want on my ship. When experimental weapons were first released, the ships that could use them were gifted an additional free slot above and beyond what they already had, thus nothing was lost, and the ships actually gained. The same thing is true with secondary deflector slots on sci ships, nothing was lost, and the ships gained a new power.
What you're talking about with the torpedo is actually changing an already established rule by stealing one of my weapon slots and now telling me if I want to keep using that slot, I have to slot a torpedo in it, or I don't get to use it at all. Thus I have lost the ability to use an 8th beam array, an additional dual cannon, dual bank, or so on. Taking that slot from me and telling me I can now only use it for a torpedo is absolutely forcing a particular playstyle on me. It would be the same general principle as saying, now only cruisers can use beam arrays, escorts can now only use dual banks and cannons. Sorry but no. If something like that happened I would quit tomorrow because why should my ability to slot 8 beam arrays if I choose be restricted because someone else doesn't like it? It would be like a ship that has a LT Cmdr Universal seat when you go to bed, suddenly having a LT Cmdr Engineering seat when you woke up.
The new experimental weapons worked and were well received because they built on what was already there and were an expansion to the ships, not a new restriction. Ships that may have only had 7 weapons before, now had 8, and such. If folks want a torpedo specific slot, then it would have to be an addition to what's already there, a 9th weapon slot of sorts, otherwise it would be a 100% pure nerf, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
People by nature always go for the path of least resistance, and if combination X is pushing out the most power, then that's typically what people will go for. Stealing options from people will never go over well and will just make people want to quit more than anything. Take the flight vs no-flight debacle over in World of Warcraft. Alot of folks complained that "too many people use flight and won't ride around on their ground mounts on the ground with me and it breaks my immersion." At first they restricted flight, and when they did people left by the thousands and it cost Blizzard a fair chunk of change. The people who wanted flight spoke up and were like "why should I not be allowed to use a feature I earned and/or paid for just because that guy over there doesn't like it?" Yet the solution to the anti-flyers was in front of them all along, use their ground mounts and play with friends. No one was holding a gun to their head and saying "if you don't use a flying mount I'm going to kill you."
Likewise the folks that want restrictions on ship slots, if they want to include a torp in all their builds, no one is going to hold a gun to their head and tell them they can't do it. If they want to use a torp on all their builds then more power to them. At the same time, demanding my ability to not use a torp be taken because someone else doesn't like it is absolutely forcing a build style on me. My using or not using a torp has literally no effect on his ability to play the game. The key thing I've never seen an adequate answer to is why my ability to equip my ship the way I please should be restricted because guy X doesn't like how I've equipped it.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Having rules in a game is to be expected and isn't in debate. Changing those rules to make little Timmy use a shield and sword instead of his preferred mace and crossbow, purely because little Johnny and little Susie think everyone should like the shield and sword and should want to use it like they do, is something else completely different.
/Thread.
I think I am going to have to link this post and use it across multiple game forums.
To suggest that the current way of doing things is the best if not the only way things could be done, just because it's the current way of doing things, is pure Appeal to Tradition.
Personally, I certainly wouldn't make "was it there yesterday" the deciding question whether a given rule is good or not today. There are existing rules that are bad and should be removed, as well as non-existing rules that could well be good.
Nevermind the thread isn't even about anybody "liking" a particular build style but rather the OP's (most likely mistaken) belief that requiring DPSers to pack torpedoes would weaken them.
To suggest that the current way of doing things is the best if not the only way things could be done, just because it's the current way of doing things, is pure Appeal to Tradition.
Personally, I certainly wouldn't make "was it there yesterday" the deciding question whether a given rule is good or not today. There are existing rules that are bad and should be removed, as well as non-existing rules that could well be good.
Nevermind the thread isn't even about anybody "liking" a particular build style but rather the OP's (most likely mistaken) belief that requiring DPSers to pack torpedoes would weaken them.
"Appeal to Tradition" only works as an argument if anyone was saying that it's the only reason for doing something. Besides, it's not like "Well I've always walked in and out the door three times whenever I go into a new room!" it's "Hey, maybe we shouldn't alienate the ENTIRE PLAYERBASE by altering one of the most basic foundations of combat that they have all invested time, effort, and MONEY into, especially one of the core concepts of the game since it was just an idea has been player customisation." It's not about if it was there before, it's about if taking away from the player is a good idea. Which it isn't.
And you're right! We shouldn't only be making decisions based on if something was already there, which is exactly why everyone against this ridiculous idea has provided actual reasoning as to why doing something so blind and ham-handedly
is a terrible idea.
But besides that, they are still definitely only bringing this up because they prefer it this way. All these people talking about what is and is not canon proves that easily. And even if it wasn't about that, making such a radical move just to 'stick it to the dpsers' is a tribble move and you know it.
To suggest that the current way of doing things is the best if not the only way things could be done, just because it's the current way of doing things, is pure Appeal to Tradition.
Personally, I certainly wouldn't make "was it there yesterday" the deciding question whether a given rule is good or not today. There are existing rules that are bad and should be removed, as well as non-existing rules that could well be good.
Nevermind the thread isn't even about anybody "liking" a particular build style but rather the OP's (most likely mistaken) belief that requiring DPSers to pack torpedoes would weaken them.
"Appeal to Tradition" only works as an argument if anyone was saying that it's the only reason for doing something. Besides, it's not like "Well I've always walked in and out the door three times whenever I go into a new room!" it's "Hey, maybe we shouldn't alienate the ENTIRE PLAYERBASE by altering one of the most basic foundations of combat that they have all invested time, effort, and MONEY into, especially one of the core concepts of the game since it was just an idea has been player customisation." It's not about if it was there before, it's about if taking away from the player is a good idea. Which it isn't.
And you're right! We shouldn't only be making decisions based on if something was already there, which is exactly why everyone against this ridiculous idea has provided actual reasoning as to why doing something so blind and ham-handedly
is a terrible idea.
But besides that, they are still definitely only bringing this up because they prefer it this way. All these people talking about what is and is not canon proves that easily. And even if it wasn't about that, making such a radical move just to 'stick it to the dpsers' is a tribble move and you know it.
The thing is that the OP had unclean hands in this matter (not literally but rather I'm referring the the legal term), which seems to the issue with most of these "lets nerf the DPSers" threads, that the hidden request is always "nerf the DPSers so I can out DPS them". This shows in that when it's not literally putting a hard cap on the amount of damage a player can do, it's actually making suggestions that would hurt semi-casual players who don't do that much DPS(like myself) more then the actual high end DPSers since they're mistaken on what actually is done to do those high DPS numbers.
To suggest that the current way of doing things is the best if not the only way things could be done, just because it's the current way of doing things, is pure Appeal to Tradition.
Personally, I certainly wouldn't make "was it there yesterday" the deciding question whether a given rule is good or not today. There are existing rules that are bad and should be removed, as well as non-existing rules that could well be good.
Nevermind the thread isn't even about anybody "liking" a particular build style but rather the OP's (most likely mistaken) belief that requiring DPSers to pack torpedoes would weaken them.
If you really want to get into logical fallacies then the original post calling for limits to player options is actually a type of Bandwagon fallacy. "I don't like using all beam builds and it needs to be restricted because you shouldn't like it either," is essentially what it boils down to. Folks are certainly entitled to that opinion, but it holds no weight in reality. Secondly what was posted above was not even close to an Appeal to Tradition. An example of an Appeal to Tradition is, "every woman in my family has been a nurse or a doctor, therefore I as a woman must also be a nurse or doctor." Thus in that example the woman believes her only course of action is to be a nurse or doctor because every woman in her family has been a nurse or doctor. In the instance of this thread, no one is suggesting that we turn everything into stone and never change anything again. What's being asked of the OP and others such as yourself is WHY the proposed change should be made. OP thinks we need more weapon restrictions because EVE Online has them. Since the proposed change would effect everyone in the game, myself included, I want to know his logical reasoning behind it.
As for your "was it there yesterday" example, there are times and places where such a thing is absolutely valid and this is one of those times. If I were to go to bed tonight with an all beam array build, and all 8 of my slots allowing me to equip what I want, only to wake up to find half my slots have been restricted and I'm being told I must now equip weapons I have no desire to use or so on, then yes that's a bad rule. Don't tell me I can equip all 8 of my slots with anything I want, then try to change the rules on me just because you don't like the choice I made. At that point you're absolutely changing the rules to try to force me to play the way you want me to play.
Wanting these equipment restrictions is like little Johnny and little Susie trying to change the rules just because they don't like that little Timmy prefers a mace and crossbow instead of the shield and sword they prefer. It's the same principle as the flight vs no-flight in World of Warcraft. If someone didn't like flying the solution was always in front of them, use your ground mounts. In this case with the OP he doesn't like all beam builds, then don't run all beams. Slap a torp on there or something. The point is, why implement sweeping changes when there are already solutions to the issues the OP describes? Why should my ability to run all beams be stolen from me because he or someone else doesn't like it? Why should little Johnny and little Susie get to tell little Timmy he can't use his mace and crossbow when it has literally no effect on the 2 of them? Personally I despise the Tal Shiar ships because I've always had bad experiences with groups where those ships have appeared. At the same time I'm not going to deny folks the right to fly that ship. Likewise why should my right to equip all beams on a ship be restricted to appease the OP or anyone else? What logical purpose does it serve?
That's one thing the anti-flyers in WoW could never answer without their answer being 100% pure opinion, and also one thing I'm seeing here.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
To suggest that the current way of doing things is the best if not the only way things could be done, just because it's the current way of doing things, is pure Appeal to Tradition.
Personally, I certainly wouldn't make "was it there yesterday" the deciding question whether a given rule is good or not today. There are existing rules that are bad and should be removed, as well as non-existing rules that could well be good.
Nevermind the thread isn't even about anybody "liking" a particular build style but rather the OP's (most likely mistaken) belief that requiring DPSers to pack torpedoes would weaken them.
"We've always done it like that"/"We've never done it like that" certainly shouldn't be an argument on its own merits, I agree with you there. So asking "wouldn't it be better if builds had to include torpedoes instead of being beam/cannons only?" is perfectly valid. I don't think it would be, as evidenced in this thread others agree, the OP thinks it would, and again others agree. We could have a perfectly fine argument about that. And there probably is no correct answer since it also includes things like taste, and in the end could go either way.
However, and here the "tradition" part comes in, not on its own, not "pure", but additionally, we're not discussing, what a new Star Trek game should or shouldn't include, but we're talking an existing one. And as has been stated, many players have sunk time and money to put into a build that works, either as a DPS ship or as something they just like to fly because of the rainbowy color scheme. Even those who are in favor of a change probably have done so. And invalidating this time and money is a massive negative. Of course, we all know that sometimes it has to be done, to include new stuff into the game, to fix broken builds. But it remains a negative, and for a change to do good to the game, the new version doesn't need to be viable alone (which it would be) but would have to have serious positive effects on the game to be even viable.
The opposite case would be different: if torpedoes were forced until now and somebody asked to remove this restriction, nobody's build would have to change. Here it has to (which is why somebody suggested it would be seen differently if we were talking about an additional torpedo slot instead of taking an existing one). But even in that instance I would ask for some major improvement and not just "this would be viable, too".
In the end, it wouldn't really matter. PvP, where build quality matters, is a non issue in this game. Avoiding AFK penalties because of inferior damage will arguably not be affected by this - either the affected player has more basic issues or he was unlucky to be with some uber players, which would be a case of tribble happens. And in PvE enemies will still melt down at a useful rate for gameplay, even if players cannot utilize the torpedo properly. But many players who are not chasing the current meta and thus not constantly rebuilding would be forced to do so, to think of how to cope with this. And even though I generally would like some more restrictions on builds and similar for various reasons, and working within restrictions instead of a pure sandbox can be fun, too, I can see nothing here that outweighs this negative.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Comments
You're missing my point and that's canon ships don't care about 8 weapons max limit sto has, btw the Galaxy nacelle pylons have 4 phaser strips before the war upgrade, 2 per pylon and IIRC Galaxy also had the strip under the enginering hull that Voyager though these strips aren't seen firing normally.
Oh and Connie refit does have phasers in the engineering hull (2 above the shuttle bay though they're only visible on the model and are never seen firing) and while I'm at it Connie had 2 openings but 4 tubes (2 per opening) note that torpedo room they used to launch Spock casket didn't have any battle damage. so it's not impossible to think Excelsior has the same.
You're missing my point and that's canon ships don't care about 8 weapons max limit sto has, btw the Galaxy nacelle pylons have 4 phaser strips before the war upgrade, 2 per pylon and IIRC Galaxy also had the strip under the enginering hull that Voyager though these strips aren't seen firing normally.
Oh and Connie refit does have phasers in the engineering hull (2 above the shuttle bay though they're only visible on the model and are never seen firing) and while I'm at it Connie had 2 openings but 4 tubes (2 per opening) note that torpedo room they used to launch Spock casket didn't have any battle damage. so it's not impossible to think Excelsior has the same.[/quote]
You're missing MY point. I have NEVER said anything about the number of weapon slots in game, I was referring to the fact that in canon with rare exception we have never SEEN a ship with more than 4 torpedo bays and that's only in the JJverse. Excluding that, the max torpedo slots we saw was 3 on any one ship? Maybe we saw a 4 tube in the standard universe? Thus no such thing as a torpedo boat. The Akira reference was brought up, but even THAT proves my point because torpedoes were only PART of the armament.
The hardpoints on the ships....whatever. Cryptic never has and never will match what we see on canon.
My point was and still is, projectiles as we have them in the game do not match canon. That's it. That was my original post. Torpedoes do little if any damage to shields but are supposed to shred hull. The game just needs to reverse shield hitpoints and hull hitpoints and you could leave torpedo damage the way it is. But SHIELDS protected a ship. SHIELDS should have 200k hitpoints, and HULL should be 40k not the other way around as we have in game. Generally. I'm making up numbers, but by and large hull hitpoints are 3 to 4 times higher than shield hitpoints. Switch it and my issue is resolved if you don't want to have a game mechanic change.
YES, that would tick off torpedo boat players...but you shouldn't exist in the Star Trek universe. Shields can take the sustained damage of a prolonged conflict of ENERGY weapons, and when they drop, torpedoes were fired to destroy the target. That's simply how Star Trek works, bot NOT how STO online works.
Also we have only seen the armaments of a tiny fraction of the ships in Star Trek. We know they make variations of the same ship. Just because a tiny amount of ships we have seen only have 4 torpedo bays it does not mean that's a limitation to the entire fleet. In fact we know that's not the case as a 4 front torpedo and 2 aft torpedo ship was very common in DS9 it was the main ship they used and that is just what a torpedo boat in this game is, 4 front torpedoes and a few aft.
what ship in DS9 was 4 front torpedo and 2 aft? I don't seem to remember that one at all, but it has been a while since I watched the series.
But again you are also focusing on the hardpoint issue. Generally, ENERGY weapons were primary shield droppers, and torpedoes were NOT primary weapons, but would be used with devastating effect on exposed hull.
I do not agree torpedoes where not primary weapons. I am just re watching Voyager and they treat torpedoes as primary weapons that are more powerful then energy weapons but they save the torpedoes for when they need that extra punch even against shielded targets. The episode I watched tonight they needed to take down a ship fast so skipped energy and jumped straight to a torpedo strike. They use energy weapons when they want finesse like disabling or to persuade someone to disengage. They switch to torpedoes even when shields are up when they instead want to do some real damage.
As some have pointed out, the developers are not trying to stop power creep. In a game that is only combat focused, power creep is a big selling point. Not just to draw F2P players, but especially the cash whales. The upgrade system is proof that they don't want to reduce, or do away with power creep. But instead they want to find ways of increasing it without breaking the game too much.
Also, you have newer rep systems that will be adding more power creep, on top of the new endeavor system.
Plus, the way the game is, you don't need the game to tell you what weapons to put where, because you can choose for yourself how to build your ship. If you don't want to chase DPS, then you don't have to. Even though the game is focused towards it, there are usually enough DPS chasers in TFO's to carry those with lower DPS.
I don't chase it myself. I build my ships the way I want to fly them, and do the best I can in the TFO's. I am not the highest DPS, but I am able to carry my own.
EVE is a heavy pay to win game. Just because they limit what weapons can go where on their ships, doesn't eliminate power creep. It is still a problem with the game. All it does is force everyone into such similar builds, that it encourages players to buy the next power creep in line to get an advantage over those with the same ship as them. This is a form of marketing.
Aside from the power creep, and this being the only Star Trek MMO, one of the other big draws for a lot of players is the freedom the game gives when building your ship. Being forced into a cookie cutter build, because that is all the game allows is boring to a lot of people. For some people it is not a good idea. But there are others that do like it.
And it hasn't hurt other games that do the same, like Elite Dangerous, for example. In that game, you are not limited to a specific type of weapon on each slot. It only limits you to the size of the weapon. But you have the freedom to pick the most OP weapons on each slot if you want. And there are other games out there that do the same. They even have power creep.
If you are playing a PVE focused combat MMO that makes money off of things they can sell for real life money to increase stats in the game, then power creep is going to be there in one form or another. It helps pull in money for the game.
Razar.
Though i would not mind just seeing more ship traits that add interactions between both boff abilities, and even weapons an boff abilities. Like a trait that if you have a tyken's rift active it causes your energy siphon to affect all the targets affected by thhe rift in regards to at least maybe ship traits you have slotted if the added energy bonsu would be too much (i am sure it would be).
The Original Enterprise has 5 beam projectors on it, set in the forward 180' arc.
This would break it down into..
Forward: 180
Aft: 180
Upper; 180
Lower: 180
This would limit the number of weapons one could bring to bear on a target. For example, being able to fire the weapons arrays built into the dorsal(upper) hull of the ship, couldn't be fired upon an enemy below the dorsal 180.
This is why ships are designed to have dorsal and ventral weapons.
Edit:
This would require Cryptic to hard point the weapons on the ships, which they have never done. Which is why you can fire them all on a target, as long as they're within firing arc.
There is one thing you're overlooking here. A torpedo tube, is just where said torp is fired from. The tube itself is connected to the loading bay, or torpedo bay. In modern naval ships, that's generally two torpedo tubes, connected to a fore torpedo bay and an aft torpedo bay.
Man, you telling me this now! I was betrayed.
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Umm... yeah... I kind of think this is how the yardvac came about.
Or the Flobee....
For me, the issue is not so much people wanting make a game a different game, that comes with the territory, cannot please all of the people all of the time.
The issue from my PoV is the, somewhat newer IMO, 'need' the 'gaming masses' have to make _every single game the same_.
I see this over and over again now, much more fequently since 'gaming' became popular with the masses over the gamer geeks.
Does not seem to matter the genre, IP/world setting, MMO vs Single Player, there are a lot of voices out there trying to make playing every game like driving the same car or something.
It baffles me, even though I know it is the human herd mentality - poeple want to 'feel' like they are part of the 'tribe', but they don't want the controls/playstyle of a new game from following the tribe - IMO, they don't want to play the game, just hang out with friends.
Not a bad thing from my PoV, but destroying the actual games to turn them into chat-rooms is...not a plan I endorse.
In this case, there is also the angle of 'balance' so all players in the game will 'feel' like they are no more or less strong than other players.
So Admiral Picard is equal to Lt. Broccoli? I think not.
As for the 'torpedos need to feel canon' idea, I like the _idea_ of making the game more canon, but it would force all players to adopt a 'kill the shields, then the hull' playstyle, making the game less fun just to allow a few peoples 'outlook' to be soothed, not to mention a fundamental re-write of a ton of the game, for no ROI.
Why do so many people want to restrict others, just to make themsleves fell better?
A question for our species, I guess.
Why slap a limit on weapons and not other items like the fleet consoles?
End of the day though the power creep is driven not by the demands of playable content but by peer pressure. It's up to the individual whether or not they get sucked in by it.
In terms of STO there's a huge difference between a magical creature and a technological starship. Most ships in Star Trek are heavily modular and can be configured and reconfigured again to meet whatever demands are placed on them. By the time of 2410 and 2409 it's explained that most ships simply use the hull as the base platform and everything else depends on what is loaded into the ship. Think of it something like each ship being a basic shell with various base properties such as the boff seating and similar items. I could take something like the Vaadwaur Juggernaut and make it into a tank like I have with my main ship, and the guy next to me could take the same ship and turn it into a purely DPS and numbers based ship. It doesn't matter gameplay wise. Lore wise however the ship may lean one way or the other, but for gameplay reasons that's not the way the player version goes.
We've also seen that individual captains and crews have alot of flexibility in how their ship is setup and ran in the lore. Case and point when Dr Leah Brams was surprised that Geordi and crew had re-oriented the dilithium crystals, which wasn't due to be introduced until the next class of starship. It's not unreasonable to assume that by the time of 2410 and 2409 that Starfleet simply doesn't care what the individual captains do with their ships as long as they're combat worthy and can be ready when Starfleet needs them. If an individual ship makes a significant change that makes it better than all the other ships in some regard or another, the other ships of the fleet can implement that change as well. During the Dominion War when the Breen first deployed their energy draining weapon, there was one Bird of Prey in particular that the weapon had no effect on due to something the engineer on the ship had done. When the Klingons were looking for ways to counter the weapon, Martok and head leadership heard about this particular BOP and ordered every ship in the fleet to make the same changes that engineer did, and the entire fleet was now immune to the Breen energy draining weapon.
It's not unreasonable to assume most of those same principles apply by the time of STO and thus why we have so much more flexibility in game aside from the obvious gameplay reasons for it.
With that said I do believe there is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Restricting options to include "build diversity" as some folks in here have been calling it never works out. If folks want more diversity in builds then there needs to be motivation to use those alternate build types. Unless it becomes THE answer in all cases, such as the Leech previously, nerfing X to to encourage folks to use Y is only going to make folks feel like they're getting pigeonholed into one form of build or another. If folks want more build diversity then there needs to be benefits to having those builds. If enemies are more prone to kinetic damage this could give folks reason to run torps, maybe even mines if they want to go that route. Have enemy X take more damage if exposed to more than 2 energy types at once etc. There's a ton of ways it could go. Wanting options restricted purely because one person or the other doesn't like it will never end well because folks will feel like they're being pigeonholed as I pointed out above. More often than not folks will feel like someone else's build style is being forced on them and will make them want to quit. Seen it too many times in other games and believe me that's not a road anyone wants STO to go down.
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For a STO specific example, all AoE effects have friendly fire turned off, yet there's multiple cases of friendly fire (or people taking cover while using AoE effects) so we can say that's not the case in lore. The friendly Fire Immunity is purely a gameplay convention.
Type-specific weapon slots would not be "forcing" someone else's build style on anyone, any more than type-specific boff and console slots are. Or being unable to put a DHC on a rear slot, or a mine in front, or stack the ship full of nothing but omnibeams. Not being allowed an experimental weapon on a cruiser or conversely being "required" (not really) to have one an escort doesn't make people want to quit. Not people who actually want to play a game. Why then should a torpedo?
Type-specific weapon slots could be a new way to make ships different from one another. Some could have more projectile slots, other more energy. Some might be able to go all one type or the other, or even have fully universal slots like BoPs do with boff slots. And no compelling reason to leave it at just projectile/energy either. However many hundreds of ships are there in the game? They aren't meant to be just cosmetic skins for a generic do-anything platform.
But like you said, what type-specific weapon slots wouldn't do is magically increase build diversity. As long as there is no reason for players to actually want different builds, they won't make different builds. All those people who had the same cookie-cutter DPS build would just add the "required" torpedo in and they'd all have the same build again, just with a torpedo in it.
Nor would they weaken high-performance players to the extent the OP seems to believe it would.
Seriously, no. Stop that. Does nobody here remember how many people started Tribbling their pants when the rebalance in Season 13 took place? You know, the one that was 90% nerfs?
Sure, some of the changes may have been justified, but imagine taking one of the most important differences between builds (Weapon types) and throwing it out the window. Do you really, honestly think that people would be OVERJOYED? Because I'd be right Tribbled if suddenly this horrid change took place.
You want things to be more accurate to canon? Make a canon ship build for yourself! Don't force it on anyone else! You don't like how the meta naturally evolves to point towards specific build types?
Then don't follow the meta, ya goober! Sure, if something is ridiculously OP then nerf it, that's fine. But killing off broadsiding or torp boats just because you personally don't like it? Are you serious? I just don't get it. Why police what other people do for fun? If it isn't hurting you then just don't mess with it! You want a mixed synergy build? Great, go right ahead.
And I don't see why THIS is the only thing anyone ever has issue with. Nothing else? Not the player Vonph ships, or blasting around Tyken's Rift like it's a toy? When has any Starfleet captain had an actual protocol for "Fire the Anti-Time Entanglement Singularity!" Never! It takes a good 30 minutes in an episode to even figure out that you shoot tachyons at a 'temporal anomaly'. When Picard takes the Enterprise into a fight, he only ever says "Fire weapons." There's no deflector abilities, aceton beams, or 'science teams', they never activate fluidic decouplers or fire hyperexcited ion cannons. Why is this the hill everyone has decided to curl up and die on?!
I can't bring myself to imagine what some of the people in this thread would say about my ship. "StArFLeeT wEApOnS can'T FIrE thAt FaSt!!1" Yeah alright fine. But 200% firing cycle haste is cool, so I'll keep doing it.
We do have different experiences here. I see a lot of 8 beam cruisers (and DHC/DC/Turret builds) without torpedoes. Not arguing about the second part, though, even if I don't really like torps.
As for the OP: played "A Step Between Stars"? Still like the idea of having preset loadouts?
And for the comparisons to Fortnight (or any other game successful right now): in my, admittedly non professional, opinion, one of the big mistakes that happens in the gaming industry is "look what others do and copy it". Because if you do, usually the original is more playworthy and the game in question is just an imperfect copycat at that time. This game, with its build liberty, has its audience. I bet chances are if you changed it that drastically, you'd annoy more users than you'd get enthusiastic players and new ones coming.
What a cool post. Thanks for making it.
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Having rules in a game is to be expected and isn't in debate. Changing those rules to make little Timmy use a shield and sword instead of his preferred mace and crossbow, purely because little Johnny and little Susie think everyone should like the shield and sword and should want to use it like they do, is something else completely different.
In STO it's been a long standing rule that once you get to max level you have a maximum of 8 weapon slots on your ship that you get to put equipment into. We've also been given several different types of weapons that can be equipped to the ship, mines, torps, beam arrays, dual banks, single cannons, dual and dual heavy cannons, turrets, experimental weapons, and omni beams. For some of those items we're told "if you want to use a dual bank/cannons" it can only be equipped on the front of the ship. The omni rule is one at this point that imo is outdated since we can equip as many turrets as we want, but that's another can of worms entirely. As long as I obey the equipment restrictions, I can equip whatever I want on my ship. When experimental weapons were first released, the ships that could use them were gifted an additional free slot above and beyond what they already had, thus nothing was lost, and the ships actually gained. The same thing is true with secondary deflector slots on sci ships, nothing was lost, and the ships gained a new power.
What you're talking about with the torpedo is actually changing an already established rule by stealing one of my weapon slots and now telling me if I want to keep using that slot, I have to slot a torpedo in it, or I don't get to use it at all. Thus I have lost the ability to use an 8th beam array, an additional dual cannon, dual bank, or so on. Taking that slot from me and telling me I can now only use it for a torpedo is absolutely forcing a particular playstyle on me. It would be the same general principle as saying, now only cruisers can use beam arrays, escorts can now only use dual banks and cannons. Sorry but no. If something like that happened I would quit tomorrow because why should my ability to slot 8 beam arrays if I choose be restricted because someone else doesn't like it? It would be like a ship that has a LT Cmdr Universal seat when you go to bed, suddenly having a LT Cmdr Engineering seat when you woke up.
The new experimental weapons worked and were well received because they built on what was already there and were an expansion to the ships, not a new restriction. Ships that may have only had 7 weapons before, now had 8, and such. If folks want a torpedo specific slot, then it would have to be an addition to what's already there, a 9th weapon slot of sorts, otherwise it would be a 100% pure nerf, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
People by nature always go for the path of least resistance, and if combination X is pushing out the most power, then that's typically what people will go for. Stealing options from people will never go over well and will just make people want to quit more than anything. Take the flight vs no-flight debacle over in World of Warcraft. Alot of folks complained that "too many people use flight and won't ride around on their ground mounts on the ground with me and it breaks my immersion." At first they restricted flight, and when they did people left by the thousands and it cost Blizzard a fair chunk of change. The people who wanted flight spoke up and were like "why should I not be allowed to use a feature I earned and/or paid for just because that guy over there doesn't like it?" Yet the solution to the anti-flyers was in front of them all along, use their ground mounts and play with friends. No one was holding a gun to their head and saying "if you don't use a flying mount I'm going to kill you."
Likewise the folks that want restrictions on ship slots, if they want to include a torp in all their builds, no one is going to hold a gun to their head and tell them they can't do it. If they want to use a torp on all their builds then more power to them. At the same time, demanding my ability to not use a torp be taken because someone else doesn't like it is absolutely forcing a build style on me. My using or not using a torp has literally no effect on his ability to play the game. The key thing I've never seen an adequate answer to is why my ability to equip my ship the way I please should be restricted because guy X doesn't like how I've equipped it.
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/Thread.
I think I am going to have to link this post and use it across multiple game forums.
Personally, I certainly wouldn't make "was it there yesterday" the deciding question whether a given rule is good or not today. There are existing rules that are bad and should be removed, as well as non-existing rules that could well be good.
Nevermind the thread isn't even about anybody "liking" a particular build style but rather the OP's (most likely mistaken) belief that requiring DPSers to pack torpedoes would weaken them.
"Appeal to Tradition" only works as an argument if anyone was saying that it's the only reason for doing something. Besides, it's not like "Well I've always walked in and out the door three times whenever I go into a new room!" it's "Hey, maybe we shouldn't alienate the ENTIRE PLAYERBASE by altering one of the most basic foundations of combat that they have all invested time, effort, and MONEY into, especially one of the core concepts of the game since it was just an idea has been player customisation." It's not about if it was there before, it's about if taking away from the player is a good idea. Which it isn't.
And you're right! We shouldn't only be making decisions based on if something was already there, which is exactly why everyone against this ridiculous idea has provided actual reasoning as to why doing something so blind and ham-handedly
is a terrible idea.
But besides that, they are still definitely only bringing this up because they prefer it this way. All these people talking about what is and is not canon proves that easily. And even if it wasn't about that, making such a radical move just to 'stick it to the dpsers' is a tribble move and you know it.
If you really want to get into logical fallacies then the original post calling for limits to player options is actually a type of Bandwagon fallacy. "I don't like using all beam builds and it needs to be restricted because you shouldn't like it either," is essentially what it boils down to. Folks are certainly entitled to that opinion, but it holds no weight in reality. Secondly what was posted above was not even close to an Appeal to Tradition. An example of an Appeal to Tradition is, "every woman in my family has been a nurse or a doctor, therefore I as a woman must also be a nurse or doctor." Thus in that example the woman believes her only course of action is to be a nurse or doctor because every woman in her family has been a nurse or doctor. In the instance of this thread, no one is suggesting that we turn everything into stone and never change anything again. What's being asked of the OP and others such as yourself is WHY the proposed change should be made. OP thinks we need more weapon restrictions because EVE Online has them. Since the proposed change would effect everyone in the game, myself included, I want to know his logical reasoning behind it.
As for your "was it there yesterday" example, there are times and places where such a thing is absolutely valid and this is one of those times. If I were to go to bed tonight with an all beam array build, and all 8 of my slots allowing me to equip what I want, only to wake up to find half my slots have been restricted and I'm being told I must now equip weapons I have no desire to use or so on, then yes that's a bad rule. Don't tell me I can equip all 8 of my slots with anything I want, then try to change the rules on me just because you don't like the choice I made. At that point you're absolutely changing the rules to try to force me to play the way you want me to play.
Wanting these equipment restrictions is like little Johnny and little Susie trying to change the rules just because they don't like that little Timmy prefers a mace and crossbow instead of the shield and sword they prefer. It's the same principle as the flight vs no-flight in World of Warcraft. If someone didn't like flying the solution was always in front of them, use your ground mounts. In this case with the OP he doesn't like all beam builds, then don't run all beams. Slap a torp on there or something. The point is, why implement sweeping changes when there are already solutions to the issues the OP describes? Why should my ability to run all beams be stolen from me because he or someone else doesn't like it? Why should little Johnny and little Susie get to tell little Timmy he can't use his mace and crossbow when it has literally no effect on the 2 of them? Personally I despise the Tal Shiar ships because I've always had bad experiences with groups where those ships have appeared. At the same time I'm not going to deny folks the right to fly that ship. Likewise why should my right to equip all beams on a ship be restricted to appease the OP or anyone else? What logical purpose does it serve?
That's one thing the anti-flyers in WoW could never answer without their answer being 100% pure opinion, and also one thing I'm seeing here.
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"We've always done it like that"/"We've never done it like that" certainly shouldn't be an argument on its own merits, I agree with you there. So asking "wouldn't it be better if builds had to include torpedoes instead of being beam/cannons only?" is perfectly valid. I don't think it would be, as evidenced in this thread others agree, the OP thinks it would, and again others agree. We could have a perfectly fine argument about that. And there probably is no correct answer since it also includes things like taste, and in the end could go either way.
However, and here the "tradition" part comes in, not on its own, not "pure", but additionally, we're not discussing, what a new Star Trek game should or shouldn't include, but we're talking an existing one. And as has been stated, many players have sunk time and money to put into a build that works, either as a DPS ship or as something they just like to fly because of the rainbowy color scheme. Even those who are in favor of a change probably have done so. And invalidating this time and money is a massive negative. Of course, we all know that sometimes it has to be done, to include new stuff into the game, to fix broken builds. But it remains a negative, and for a change to do good to the game, the new version doesn't need to be viable alone (which it would be) but would have to have serious positive effects on the game to be even viable.
The opposite case would be different: if torpedoes were forced until now and somebody asked to remove this restriction, nobody's build would have to change. Here it has to (which is why somebody suggested it would be seen differently if we were talking about an additional torpedo slot instead of taking an existing one). But even in that instance I would ask for some major improvement and not just "this would be viable, too".
In the end, it wouldn't really matter. PvP, where build quality matters, is a non issue in this game. Avoiding AFK penalties because of inferior damage will arguably not be affected by this - either the affected player has more basic issues or he was unlucky to be with some uber players, which would be a case of tribble happens. And in PvE enemies will still melt down at a useful rate for gameplay, even if players cannot utilize the torpedo properly. But many players who are not chasing the current meta and thus not constantly rebuilding would be forced to do so, to think of how to cope with this. And even though I generally would like some more restrictions on builds and similar for various reasons, and working within restrictions instead of a pure sandbox can be fun, too, I can see nothing here that outweighs this negative.