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Now that we have Gearbox heading up STO, Time to address a major issue.
captyoung01
Member Posts: 311 Arc User
A few issues I see need addressing. However for this post I am going to start with this one.
This Game needs to be better Balanced! Period!
Personally I am getting sick and tired of warping into an Event/TFO and finding it quickly completed because some OP Science decided to show off! Mind you I get this mostly always happens on normal, only very few times have I seen this on Advance. Still this is getting sprightly annoying.
When STO first started out even with a slight balance issue at the time, at least Science was a support that what it was intended for. Now it's Sci this Sci that, Sci ship. I am tired of it.
This is an issue that Gearbox has to look over. Cause in this game no other Class gets the kind of DPS on a boss the way a Sci does. Why not have an Engineer come with more abilities for DPS, This Class is suppose to be generating threat, doing so via Threat Generation ability isn't enough in many cases, this is one idea anyway. Nerfing the Sci abilities big league and returning it to "Support" as intended would be another. Or maybe the community has better idea's. All I know is this game needs to be better balanced out in big way. Other wise this game is not becoming very enjoyable to play.
Many sf's won't hear other opinions, and neither will I, don't expect me to respond to any query's here cause I don't have time for them. I am just bringing an issue I see to attention.
This Game needs to be better Balanced! Period!
Personally I am getting sick and tired of warping into an Event/TFO and finding it quickly completed because some OP Science decided to show off! Mind you I get this mostly always happens on normal, only very few times have I seen this on Advance. Still this is getting sprightly annoying.
When STO first started out even with a slight balance issue at the time, at least Science was a support that what it was intended for. Now it's Sci this Sci that, Sci ship. I am tired of it.
This is an issue that Gearbox has to look over. Cause in this game no other Class gets the kind of DPS on a boss the way a Sci does. Why not have an Engineer come with more abilities for DPS, This Class is suppose to be generating threat, doing so via Threat Generation ability isn't enough in many cases, this is one idea anyway. Nerfing the Sci abilities big league and returning it to "Support" as intended would be another. Or maybe the community has better idea's. All I know is this game needs to be better balanced out in big way. Other wise this game is not becoming very enjoyable to play.
Many sf's won't hear other opinions, and neither will I, don't expect me to respond to any query's here cause I don't have time for them. I am just bringing an issue I see to attention.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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You can put a Tac or an Engie in a Science Ship and still get some good performance. Hell... I like to say that you get a tanky escort by sticking an Engie in it.
And as mentioned above, Gearbox is not the Developer. Cryptic still is. Gearbox just signs the checks.
Here's my general question then-as it's been a while, how best to distribute your skill points? In favor of your class, or for the ship type you tend to use?
you are clearly new to the game. very early on, in PVP, sci dominated, you were shut down power wise the sciboat waltzed over, took the booze out of ten-forward then pounded you to scrap. if you had a vape build, there were ways of using FBP so you vaped yourself. it all got nerfed into the ground. then we had a year or 4 of Escorts online. if you were not in an escort you were not helping your team at all. then the dragons came about. it was pretty much that way till the recent boosts to get science parity back. Yes, my Intrepid is a decent ship for what she is, but I am no where near the class of DPS you see out of escorts and Gagarins. I think right now is as close to DPS balanced as it's been among the three classes. Now if you are saying Sci should be a cleric Escorts wizards and cruisers the armored up warrior who takes the heat.. yeah this game never paid much attention to the trinity. oh I forgot about the REAL inbalance in the game.. full cruisers with 2 hangar decks.... thaey have made the true carriers pretty much obsolete.
I personally would say go with what resonates with you the most. Me, I think I leaned a bit more balanced, but also a bit on the engie/sci side even on my Tacs. Romulans probably need to lean a bit on the Engie side if they plan to run Warbirds because increased base power can help offset the native deficit Singularity Cores have compared to Warp Cores.
If you post the same question in The Academy section of the forums you should be able to get some extended answers
An entire class of ships shouldn't be nerfed just because you don't like those ships and what they do. Players vaporising everything before someone else can fire a shot is a real issue, but that's a general thing and thus entirely different from 'Sci ships are OP!'
It seems the OP wants to fix a problem before he has determined what the problem actually is.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
[6/12 9:59][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 24097 (13711) Physical Damage(Critical) to Elite Tactical Drone
And it isn't hard to do, none of my ships have even a fraction of the one-hit wonders out there. It just kills things slower.
Yea... I always panic a bit when I see a Vaadwaur Juggernaut.
Since it has become more available i have seen more "Juggernaut" perform very poorly.
Seems like many cannot seem to master the peculiar way of piloting needed for a vessel like that.
First up, define what you mean by "balance". Simply because you don't like how something functions currently doesn't mean the game isn't balanced. No matter what you do in a game like STO there will always be people who are able to do far more damage than other people, and there will always be people finding ways to push the envelope of 1s an 0s even further than before. If you think something isn't balanced, then name that something and explain why you feel it's unbalanced as well as your solution to said problem. You're free to request changes within reason as long as said request is given respectfully and civilly.
I highlighted 2 bits in bold here as they are the root of the issue here. First, Event TFOs and Red Alert maps are ALWAYS set to normal mode difficulty. This was done awhile ago to help normalize the difficulty curve and guarantee all players could participate in the event and not get blown out by the foes in said event being too strong. While this may help lower level players and toons who don't yet have access to alot of gear, it also has the side effect of creating the problem you're describing here by forcing maxed out players into lower difficulty content they otherwise wouldn't touch. When that maxed out sci guy sees that an event is going on he has a choice. Either he goes into content knowing full well he could end up causing someone to get an AFK penalty, or he doesn't participate and misses the reward. I'm sorry but I'm not missing out on an event because I MIGHT give someone an AFK penalty.
The solution here is two fold. Folks above a certain gear level are allowed to complete events and red alerts at a higher difficulty level. Those below that gear level are locked to normal mode only.
Who said science was only supposed to be support? Who said Engineers were supposed to be Tanks only or that tac was supposed to be DPS only? Unlike more traditional MMOs that utilize the holy trinity system of Tank, Healer, DPS, STO doesn't do that. In STO if anything its more of a holy duo of Tank and DPS with ships incorporating healing into their builds as needed. Any of the 3 captain types Sci, Tac, Eng, can be made to do great damage and be an extremely durable tank. Any ship in game that's t5u, t6, and most of the t4s can accomplish these goals. It's simply a matter of what you put on the ship and how you use it.
I personally play as a tank in game. You might think I'm an engineer main, but I'm not. My main toon is a tactical captain who can put out heals rivaling and surpassing those of an engineer captain.
Also this needs to be said, you are not the arbiter of what is balanced/unbalanced in this game. Nor are you the authority on what each of the captain types in game are "intended" to do. Simply because you don't like something the way it is now doesn't automatically make something unbalanced. I would suggest you take some time to examine those builds and learn the ins and outs of what they're doing and how they're doing it before you start casting judgement on what you view to be unbalanced. Once you have a better idea of how the builds work and why they work, not only can you offer actual suggestions as to how to improve said builds and potentially the game, but you will also have a broader knowledge base to improve your own builds.
If you would like to learn more about some of the ins and outs of various builds I will help you in that department if you wish. Otherwise at the end of the day, simply saying something is unbalanced doesn't make it so.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Given that I am one of those Science guys, I do disagree with his idea that we need to be nerfed into oblivion, especially since Cryptic never applies the Nerf Hammer with a gentle touch. Indeed, I would argue that GW in particular has already been stealth-nerfed to a quite noticeable degree.
I would also point out that Drain abilities, including Tyken's Rift and the once hugely popular Plasmonic Leech console, have already been brutally nerfed into irrelevance.
As one of the OP Scis that this thread is about, my Tac Skills are 3 in Projectiles, 1 in Shield Weakening, and the 3 Coordination. I don't have a use for any of the other Tac Skills. The Coordination isn't even for me; those are there for the other team members.
Control, EPG, Drain, Scientific Readiness are all maxed. A couple of points spread through a few Shield Abilities.
I use the Crossfield Refit with 7 Science Consoles
Gravity Well 3, Subspace Vortex, and the rest of Sci Abilities are drains and AOEs that trigger Mycelial Spore Burst. One slot is used for Photonic Officer, though.
I have a suite of special Tricobalt Torpedoes that don't have a same-type shared cooldown that I use for AOEs and Rift generation. Concentrate Firepower for the kinetic shield bypass and auto-applying High Yield Torpedo for more tricobalt rifts and to trigger Subspacial Warheads. Kemocite-Laced Weaponry add AOE Radiation and resistance debuffs for every torpedo hit.
I could probably drop all of the Tactical Skill Points and not have too much of a negative impact on my overall DPS.
I have seen on the zen store a new dominion ship during the 2nd of 4 campaigns this year. it was wiping out targets so fast by the time my character fired the enemy was dead. I asked the player what was he using, he said Dmgx3 on his cannons. I do agree the end game bosses who use to cause a team to fail (and of course after a while you find you are the only person left in the tfo or whatever and have to worry about afk penalty as no one is coming back to help).
That Borg final boss for red alert I can remember being on teams that failed and before long there were so many Borg regen spheres, it was hopeless. I remember Borg Cubes being able to hold up a team, now people solo them. Tac Cubes that required a team effort, now are just Borg Cubes with more shield points and hit points and are now usually solo'd. What I do find weird, is that you can take down a Borg cube but struggle to take down a Borg Sphere. That is when I think something isn't right at this moment, if I can take a cube but can't take a sphere or two.
You might say all the bad guys we fight need a Nitro boost in their stats but then it would only take a short period of time and then there would be the players who can take them down quick, just add a min or two to completion. I don't honestly know if I want to go back to the old days for tfo's, stfo, red alerts and campaign events where you could face having to get an afk penalty, a failed mission or taking 4x the estimated completion time (I have been in those where 3 bail, then the 2 remaining just keep dying but eventually win, 30 minutes later).
I much rather see the episodes bad guys better so you actually feel like you are truly facing a delay instead of the enemy being no more than a speed bump. Of course with all the gear, rep, univ consoles/kits, and rewards for events, I don't see what can be done short of giving those same special items to the bad guys in the episodes like the weather vortex from the Rixian Science Ship, that would slow a player down.
So it is an interesting issue to bring up but in the end, someone will be happy and someone won't. Personally I would still like to see them working on more items that can be stacked. An example, if I have four specialization point bonuses that are bound to the account, why do they require 4 empty slots instead of only needing 1 slot. However of course I look in my bank and see pets, non-combat, and other trinkets that I don't want to get rid of but they serve no purpose anymore. Give all reward ships a shipyard slot included with the ship. In the past had to wait till zen store sale to pick up more shipyard spots to add reward ships.
Okay I am done.
What constitutes an OP ship though? By what measuring stick do we use?
When I play STO, I tend to stick to story missions and patrols, my shields and weapons are pretty good but not upgraded to full epic tier sets, this way I can chip away at the enemy and actually have to think both defensively and offensively to ensure the safety of my ship and crew, the one hit and done attitude of TFO's just feels a little bit like cheating to me.
Yeah I know it means I'm missing out on potential goodies like new ships, ground gear, weapons, pets etc but I'd rather not be rewarded for quick shotting my way through particular scenarios.
Do I think TFO's should be changed, rebalanced or whatever - The simple answer is no, STO is a game that caters for nearly every kind of play style out there. Solo players, group players, fleet management tycoon types of players, you name it and you can probably find someway to fit that play style in to your game play. If like me TFO's aren't for you then there's plenty of other content in the game to keep you occupied for hours,
I unfortunatly don't have any answers for you as i personally don't play the game for dps or any of the numbers stuff, i just purely play it for the ships and the mission stories and the TFO , although not so much the TFOs anymore as because of the OP thing coming in and zonking(The kids still use that phrase, right lol), everything in 45 seconds, sometime even before my ship has crossed the map from the start point, i don't even use those key spam, one press does it all, things, as i prefer to click each buff myself, makes me feel like i am a concert pianist of the stars.
Someone finds doing so fun then cool
Someone prefers to do their own thing that that's cool
Red alerts should ever be considered a valid measure of player power, they're very quick and very dirty and barely long enough to be even thought of as filler.
Balance is certainly an issue though, us vs the AI isn't even a contest on advanced with even a moderate build these days. Used to be somewhat tricky but now we have 15000 OP consoles etc that make it a cinch and a great deal of those are on C-store ships.
I disagree with another posters assertion there's plenty to do for "hours" other than TFOs, there isn't. Unless you happen to like repeating long winded story arcs over and over, I don't.
Since the rep change there's barely a point to doing TFOs anyway for my long serving 7 toons who have at lowest a month or two of dil anyway.
My current fun is speedrunning dailies, I got it down to 31 minutes (doffs, admiralties etc).
The higher difficulties only help if they actually get used. When someone's used to power fantasy and facemelting damage numbers for so long it's hard to persuade them into a mode that might lower that.
Competitive rep engines are the biggest help, also the disposable devices you build with Engineering R&D, Surplus Dilithium something? The icon is like a silvery cylinder.
Just be sure you select carefully which Engines from the Competitive rep you choose, there are several and they trigger off different things.
Its Deuterium.