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Consoles could use some extended rework, some ideas.
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Member Posts: 88 Arc User
I think the current console mechanics are extremely limited and dont help bringing diversity into the game. Unfortunately STO doesnt have specific "roles" as most MMOs have (the holy trinity, tank, DPS, suport). This alone brings a huge problem as the entire community bends into the easiest/fun (for most) role MMOs have, which is DPS. Today STO is build around DPS, TFO = DPS, Story mode = DPS, PvP = DPS, there is simply no reason to play different in this game. The game concept alone doesnt help bringing diversity, and the gear/ship equippment system isnt different, but I think if a few changes were made in the console system that could help bring in some diversity to ship builds.
People only care about consoles that improve damage (thats not a surprise due to the reasons above), so consoles that increase damage, crit, power transfer/levels, passively or clicking are all that matters. Any other console, specially click consoles, that play doesnt help increasing DPS somehow are wasted. The same 2 minutes recharge for all consoles and ship restricted consoles are the villains in this story.
1) What if consoles had different cooldowns (again)? They clearly have different purposes and efficiency capacity, then why do all of them have the same cooldown? Long time ago consoles didnt work like that, their cooldowns were based in their efficiency. Less efficient, older and situational consoles are long forgotten due to extended cooldowns that are not on pair with their efficiency, ship consoles are the core of every build, if they are not useful they are trashed. Take Barrier Field Generator console for example: https://sto.gamepedia.com/Console_-_Universal_-_Barrier_Field_Generator Im probably the only player crazy enough to sacrifice a ship slot for a console that doesnt do anything but cast a barrier every 2 minutes! Thats a long cooldown! Now Im not asking to add passives to this console, I think its nice and fun, thats not the point! Long time ago this console had 45 seconds cooldown (reason I bought the ship that had it), making it a lot more appealing than now. They ruined this console (along so many others) when they set every single click console in this game to have the same 2 minutes cooldown. Im pretty sure many people would be willing to exchange some DPS consoles for some variety/fun consoles, lets face it, DPS is currently so high it wont matter if most drop one or two damage focused consoles for some fun/situational consoles, but they need to be at least usefull, and one way to make them more appealing is making their cooldown worth it, you wont blow up enemy ships by casting barriers, placing healing drones or teleporting forward with a console, but you will add more variety/fun to the game and builds.
2) What if there were not so many ship restrictions to consoles? Everytime the Devs make a new ship and consoles they spend a lot resources making them different and unique, but unfortunately most these consoles will be forgotten when a new ship comes out, players cannot bring them into other ships! I think this is bad business for the company and us. I dare to say the majority ship restricted consoles are not being used at this moment, specially old T5 or lesser consoles. They are either underpower (also due to cooldown) or are restricted to a ship you dont care anymore. Last week I made the mistake to buy a Dyson Reconnaissance Science Destroyer, a T5 ship (and I have countless T6s). Why? I tought I could place the Proton Destabilizer Module console on my T6 ship! Well too bad for me, that console can only be equipped in Dyson ships.. who uses a Dyson ship these days? Who really uses this console these days? Nobody does.. same goes for so many other older ships/consoles, RIP all of them.
I cant see how so many restrictions help improve the game. They dont, they only make the game linear. Thats why people only care about plain and simple DPS, Fire at Will everything with massive damage. Most dont care about anything else, nobody stands out for fun/different builds or playstyle anymore and this is really sad. It would help if consoles were more flexible, equipeable in most ships, had cooldowns that actually reflect their usability/efficiency, people could really stand out for being different without sacrificing so much. My ships are all about versatility, my DPS is not so high, but its still enough. I cant solo advanced/elite TFO, but playing as a team isnt the goal of these matches?
Please consider these things, make the game more fun and less DPS focused.
People only care about consoles that improve damage (thats not a surprise due to the reasons above), so consoles that increase damage, crit, power transfer/levels, passively or clicking are all that matters. Any other console, specially click consoles, that play doesnt help increasing DPS somehow are wasted. The same 2 minutes recharge for all consoles and ship restricted consoles are the villains in this story.
1) What if consoles had different cooldowns (again)? They clearly have different purposes and efficiency capacity, then why do all of them have the same cooldown? Long time ago consoles didnt work like that, their cooldowns were based in their efficiency. Less efficient, older and situational consoles are long forgotten due to extended cooldowns that are not on pair with their efficiency, ship consoles are the core of every build, if they are not useful they are trashed. Take Barrier Field Generator console for example: https://sto.gamepedia.com/Console_-_Universal_-_Barrier_Field_Generator Im probably the only player crazy enough to sacrifice a ship slot for a console that doesnt do anything but cast a barrier every 2 minutes! Thats a long cooldown! Now Im not asking to add passives to this console, I think its nice and fun, thats not the point! Long time ago this console had 45 seconds cooldown (reason I bought the ship that had it), making it a lot more appealing than now. They ruined this console (along so many others) when they set every single click console in this game to have the same 2 minutes cooldown. Im pretty sure many people would be willing to exchange some DPS consoles for some variety/fun consoles, lets face it, DPS is currently so high it wont matter if most drop one or two damage focused consoles for some fun/situational consoles, but they need to be at least usefull, and one way to make them more appealing is making their cooldown worth it, you wont blow up enemy ships by casting barriers, placing healing drones or teleporting forward with a console, but you will add more variety/fun to the game and builds.
2) What if there were not so many ship restrictions to consoles? Everytime the Devs make a new ship and consoles they spend a lot resources making them different and unique, but unfortunately most these consoles will be forgotten when a new ship comes out, players cannot bring them into other ships! I think this is bad business for the company and us. I dare to say the majority ship restricted consoles are not being used at this moment, specially old T5 or lesser consoles. They are either underpower (also due to cooldown) or are restricted to a ship you dont care anymore. Last week I made the mistake to buy a Dyson Reconnaissance Science Destroyer, a T5 ship (and I have countless T6s). Why? I tought I could place the Proton Destabilizer Module console on my T6 ship! Well too bad for me, that console can only be equipped in Dyson ships.. who uses a Dyson ship these days? Who really uses this console these days? Nobody does.. same goes for so many other older ships/consoles, RIP all of them.
I cant see how so many restrictions help improve the game. They dont, they only make the game linear. Thats why people only care about plain and simple DPS, Fire at Will everything with massive damage. Most dont care about anything else, nobody stands out for fun/different builds or playstyle anymore and this is really sad. It would help if consoles were more flexible, equipeable in most ships, had cooldowns that actually reflect their usability/efficiency, people could really stand out for being different without sacrificing so much. My ships are all about versatility, my DPS is not so high, but its still enough. I cant solo advanced/elite TFO, but playing as a team isnt the goal of these matches?
Please consider these things, make the game more fun and less DPS focused.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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^^ Get real.
But yes, the ridiculously long cooldown on many consoles makes their value questionable. There is a newer space trait that lets you lower the CD on consoles when using a control power, and it is quite useful if you can slot a few control powers. That can make it a problem to mess with CDs too much unfortunately.
I think a bigger problem with universal consoles is that they are just useless most of the time. Really they should have the stats of a normal console. Say your barrier generator gives you +8 shield power all the time, like using one of the engineering consoles that do the same. Its useful, and has a bonus clicky. They did start adding some passives to uni consoles for T6 ships, but most of them are really pretty weak and don't justify slotting the console even with the click power.
Another issue is the sets are pretty hit or miss. The T5 Scimitar set 3 piece is awful, and always was, though 2 is helpful. On the other end you have the Valdore/Mogai set, which is pretty attractive at 2 or 3 pieces, given that the Valdore console is so good.
Subspace Jumper, Protomatter Field Projector, Shared Processing Integration, Subspace Integration Circuit, are all consoles I run on multiple characters, depending on their builds.
The main problem a lot of the older consoles have is that they don't scale with the increased level cap(s). If Barrier Field Generator, for example, scaled with your stats instead of being a flat amount, I can think of a lot of useful applications for it. It's not really an issue that's exclusive to older consoles either, because Universal consoles cannot be upgraded. There was a time where some set bonuses were effectively an extra console worth of bonuses, but now most bonuses are less than half of what a single dedicated console could do.
As for exclusive consoles... I'm on the fence. While it would probably be amusing to fit Lances, Spinal Disruptor Cannons and Torpedo Point Defense System consoles on every ship, it would also probably be kind of stupid too. (TPDS alone can make the servers cry if you build a certain way.)
I wouldnt like to see that, not everything need to give damage boost or power boost, I belive consoles can useful thing on their own, the Barrier Generator and Substace Jumper for example, they are good on their own, but 2 - 3 minutes cooldwn is absurd, they are situational and defensive. They should work like a trade, you sacrifice some ship performance for a useful ability, but that ability cant have several minutes cooldown, its just not worth then.
They can do both. It is a balancing act which is obviously needed. Some can have quick cds, others long, but get some good passives. I think, though, that defensive consoles have a far greater need for passives than offensive, given that you aren't likely to need them as often as you'd want to use an offensive clicky almost as often as you can.
Keep in mind, though, to do that is a bigger balancing act than simply giving consoles some useful passive bonuses without touching the CD, thus more work, thus less likely to happen.
The problem on exclusive consoles is that they have a short lifespam, they become less used as new ships come around. How many T5-U ships you actually see these days? Some amazing consoles are no longer seen because they are bound to old vessels nobody cares about.
Why have content in the game nobody uses? Why have ships for sale nobody cares anymore? This could be even good business for the company, old ships nobody purchase would become more interesting to acquire, people would have more tools to play, more tools to build their own play style, more tools to be -unique-;
The game's balance point felt much better pre-Delta Rising. There was challenge, teamwork, ship roles without the excessive gambling and ridiculous amounts of everything.
That fine balance was thrown out the window as everything was stretched to extremes without any proportions, without internal testing, and just general carelessness for the sole purpose of selling more.
What did they expect? I no longer care for STO and find it hard to log in regularly anymore.
Other games are actually fun without being grindhouse casinos that repeat the exact same multiplayer content in the exact same scripted way. How? Their developers actually care about community feedback, they take game balance extremely seriously, and make sure that fun engaging challenging gameplay is the primary goal to retain and attract players which in turn pay the bills and make realistic profit. They also don't walk all over whatever IP like STO does over ST since said IP universe is the lore and a big part of why it's fun to play online with/against others.
Consoles are out of place now indeed. It's just a small part of it everything that's been going wrong.
I don't DPS-chase, but use plenty of space-magics to drain, reduce Rez etc. The variety is there, and I totally agree with you about 'roles'. Unfortunately, each-to-their-own on this game.
Yeah, Im also tired of it. Even with all inflated NPC HP you can still see solo ships melting through Adv or Elite TFO.
There is no teamwork, no challenge, no FUN. The classic example are those Vaadwaur ships that solo melt any Adv or Elite TFO, whenever I join a team and there is one of those dreadnoughts I know its gonna be an extremely boring run.
Thats why I brought this console issue, if people didnt care so much about DPS and damage meters the game would be a much more team friendly place, some people would love to play tanks, others would love to play support, but thats just not an option these day, because basically that is not needed or desired by any, people just wanna min/max and blow everything with Fire at Will.
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 still use and Fly t5us..Specifically the Romulan variant the Dyson.
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
Exactly, but dont forget the massive waves of enemies. STO is all about single ships dealing massive damage to hundreds of enemy ships at once, they work so hard to keep reference to ST universe and yet the game play style is absurd.
Its great a few people still use the Dyson Ships, of course its viable, but thats not the point. The problem is the lack of reason/incentive to use old ships and consoles due to long cooldowns or ship restrictions and how those limitations affect the players creativity, making them focus almost exclusively in DPS DPS DPS DPS builds, ignoring so many equipment and ships that are rarely seen these days.
Feels like the game is just DPS races and there is little room to "play different" these days.
Compared to endless sources that teleport forward, that have existed long ago, including singularity core ability, temporal warp core ability, pilot maneuvers on super short CD with all dmg immunity, etc.
I don't have to point out how popular J.L. Picard is in ST, and the ST Picard show coming out that's about him, but yet in STO they make such abilities something to laugh at. I have no idea how CBS is even okay with the state of the game.
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> The 'photo collage' of your T5U Dyson that you recently posted in the build section was very interesting. Lot's of things to look at there - food for thought and exploring synergies. The variety that people show in combining things that work well together helps keep things fresh. Thank you for your efforts and sharing^^
Lol I actually thought no one saw that.Glad to hear you appreciated it.
It literally was my highest dpsing sciship toon until recently..Even then my highest dps toon is only 25k more (tac toon)
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
> (Quote)
>
> Its great a few people still use the Dyson Ships, of course its viable, but thats not the point. The problem is the lack of reason/incentive to use old ships and consoles due to long cooldowns or ship restrictions and how those limitations affect the players creativity, making them focus almost exclusively in DPS DPS DPS DPS builds, ignoring so many equipment and ships that are rarely seen these days.
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> Feels like the game is just DPS races and there is little room to "play different" these days.
I will say..I have 1 sci ship that uses all the consoles restricted to it..The Alliance Multimission 4 peice..I cant say anything negative about running all 4 in those ships..Makes those particular ships difficult to wipe out.
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
I don't even remember what the console does, but it must be totally game-breaking if it's so limited.
Yeah, lets say you like those consoles, but you enjoy playing a support Carrier or a Voth ship, a massive Dreadnought or anything else but those Dyson ships. You cant, there is no room for creativity like this. You have to play as its designed to be. Out of 200 available ships in the game, you can only use those consoles in 3 of them. That is the story of STO. Do you really find that fun?
I belive every single Zen T6 ship consoles are restricted to their own ships, almost all other Zen T5 or lesses ship consoles are also restrict to them.. where is the fun there? Almost every single console in this game have the same 2 minutes cooldown, no matter if they are useless or extremely powerful.
It gets pretty hard make a themed, creative build out of this, are they viable? Of course they are, but due to the fact most nobody care and only stack DPS the game content has turned into a DPS race, and you will find yourself struggling in Adv or Elite TFO, being a dead weight for the team.
Should have been just two Salvage no increased Dilitium cost.
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.'
Standardizing the console cooldowns to 2 minutes was actually a smart move. Undoubtably it hurt some consoles while buffing others in that regard. Before the cooldowns were standardized it always pushed people towards the shorter cooldown consoles, which isn't to say people don't look for the shorter cooldown now, but it's not as imperative today. If you have console A and console B that did the same thing virtually, but Console A had a 5 minute cooldown and was the more effective one, but Console B had a 1.5 minute cooldown and was less effective, people often went for console B and only console B. This led to situations where builds weren't as effective as they otherwise could be and consoles not being used as much as they would like all because of cooldowns to the point there was no reason to even have Console A at all depending on the situation. Standardizing the cooldowns gave folks a reason to have both Console A and Console B on their ship, and while it did slightly nerf console B, it greatly improved the desirability of Console A meaning Console B was no longer THE answer in all cases. Which brings me to my next point. Certain consoles and items being THE answer in all cases were part of why the "nerfpocalypse of season 13" took place. Prior to that everyone including their brother, their sister, their cat and their dog all were running Plasmonic Leech, and the Plasma Exploders from the embassy, whether you were a tank, dps, or a space wizard. If you weren't running those consoles and similar you were doing it wrong. Certain items and abilities had gotten to the point they were pretty much mandatory no matter the build you were doing, which is a situation no developer wants to see. When an item or items get to that point they're going to get nerfed. While it nerfed certain items, you also see a good bit more build diversity than you did prior. Now instead of only builds A B C being possible and worthwhile you have A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O and P.
While the game lends a great many tools to pure DPS builds and such, there is also a role for tanks as well as space wizardry. I would argue to some extents STO does have a trinity though not the holy trinity of dedicated tanks, healers, and dps. With STO you have DPS, Tanks, Space Wizards. Though I suppose you could consider the Space Wizards a subset of DPS making it a holy Duo in the case of STO but that's more a philosophy debate for another day. Tanks aren't needed as much for ISA, but the top 5 HSE all had tanks in the run. In fact a few of them I talk to on a semi-regular basis have all said they needed a tank in the run to get their records. While there is certainly a place for DPS builds, there is also a place for other builds in game today as well. The game isn't perfect, but it's alot better than it used to be in terms of build variety imo.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
My character Tsin'xing
There's little reason why consoles like those from the Sutherland or the Intel ships (like the Phantom's Phaser Lance) should be restricted to a single ship (or family of ships). Even if they made it such that the passive bonuses don't apply if it's equipped on another ship than the standard ship that the console comes with (to maintain some reason to play specific ships), it'd be a huge improvement.
They're moving in the right direction with consoles that are newly released, but it'd be great indeed if they could also look at older ones.
As for the fact that most players only choose consoles that boost damage output: that is true, but that has to do with the objectives in most missions, not so much with the consoles. The only serious incentive to use defensive consoles would be to change that underlying fact and make defensive consoles more important to the achievement of objectives / the completion of a mission.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
Yes, I honestly think most players would enjoy being able to pick console from restricted ships and place them into their favorite ships.
And you are right, the game doesnt push players into avoiding damage, escaping situations, supporting other ships caught into holds, etc.. making defensive/support consoles very irrelevant.