Balance Tweaks Revisited: Just battleships with specials.

You feel like a battlecruiser is too weak or a race too strong? Go ahead and discuss it here :)
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posted on February 4th, 2011, 7:14 pm
This thread is to suggest that a handful of Battleships become more available without their specials.  I feel that certain ships (Sovereign, cough) are being defined by their special abilities and thus don't get used as often as they could.

So what I'm suggesting in return is to make their specials more expensive, and balance the ships so that they can more easily be used without the special researched.  For some ships like the Norexan, I definitely DO NOT suggest doing this.  I'm just talking about the bigger ones, one per race:

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Sovereign: being a ridiculously slow ship, I believe the Sovy should get either a cost reduction or a small stat boost.  I would be okay with removing the ablative plates and increasing defense in return, but as I don't play Feds I'm not certain how this would affect balance.  As Boggz put it recently, the sovereign "is a non-support ship with a support role."

Then make the Distortion field upgrade much more expensive and take longer to research, perhaps around the level of the level 1 defense upgrade.  To encourage players to build them without the special, and work their way up to it.

I would even go so far as to suggest increasing Distortion field's effect, making it cost more energy, and perhaps have it disable the Sov's engines or weapons for a few seconds when it's used.

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D'Deridex: Significantly increase Cloak Field's research cost and time, and increase the effect to 25%.  a 10% penalty against 10 ships means 1 ship is disabled...right now that means a lot of trouble researching and using the effect (and it can't be used very often) for very little effect, and it doesn't stack.

Alternately, you could make the effect 30-35% and have it cost ALL of a standard D'Deridex's special energy, meaning the ship cannot use it before or after cloaking until that 15 energy is regenerated or it ranks up.  This also gives a good reason to build Singularity Transmitters, to charge that last 15 energy while cloaked.

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V-13:  Once again, increase the cost of the research and increase the targets to 5.

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Negh'var: increase the research cost and decrease the torpedo disable time to around 10 seconds.

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My main focus is the Sovereign's uselessness without its special and the D'Deridex's useless special, but I think the general idea works for all of the "biggest" ships in Flops.  What do you guys think?
posted on February 4th, 2011, 7:22 pm
Last edited by RedEyedRaven on February 4th, 2011, 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
On the Sovereign I always thought the devs based it up on the fact that by the time of FO, the Sovereign is a more common explorer after it's already been around in Starfleet for 30 years... (that is similar to the age the Ambassador-class was when the Galaxy-class got introduced).

Another thing is that it gets a very unique and very cool officer-passive: polarizing hull plates.
These are totally awesome (especially because it is combined with ablative armour plates) and you can count on the fact that officer-Sovereigns are very hard to kill off (unless you play klingons and have some officer- and vet-Kvorts).

However, who knows what the faction-redo will eventually do with the Sovereign. It's entirely possible it gets sharper teeth.  ^-^
posted on February 4th, 2011, 9:37 pm
RedEyedRaven wrote:
However, who knows what the faction-redo will eventually do with the Sovereign. It's entirely possible it gets sharper teeth.  ^-^


It has teeth? I usually stay away from the large federation vessels, but the times i used a sovereign i was not impressed.
posted on February 4th, 2011, 9:41 pm
  Well the Sovereign has it's uses, but frankly the cost of getting up to them are not something that's necessary when massive fleets of the lower-level vessels will more efficiently do the job.  It's just a case of  "Awesome but Impractical".
posted on February 4th, 2011, 10:12 pm
However I still think the defensive bonuses are worth their price, although the last time I really used a Sovereign on Multiplayer was a year ago, in V 3.1.1 ...
posted on February 4th, 2011, 10:29 pm
:lol: Next thing I know they'll be a 'D'deridex, Negh'Var, V-13 UP thread' oh wait  :woot:

The Sovie is quite a powerful battleship (with Ablative Armor no less) as fitting for its end game role - it is not meant to be a core of the fleet, just as the Defiant is not (likewise the Sovie is quite cost efficient, unlike the Defiant). Incidentally the Sovie is speed 90 - which is faster than the vaunted Excel II  :woot: . Nonetheless, it is an excellent station demolisher with a special that is superb against a great many foes - hurting smalls and helping in retreats and stopping those fire-arc limited vessels? You betcha!
posted on February 4th, 2011, 11:02 pm
i agree, the sovvie is great even without its special. it adds more torps to your fleet and can take a fair amount of hurt, and laughs at short range. its like an even better e2.

the special just adds to the awesome.

the defiant adds pulse fire to your fleet.

both are definitely worth producing. with all late game top of the tech tree ships, dont expect them to be the core of your fleet, you should have akiras/e2 left over to be doing things like that. they were never core ships in the show as they are the top ships.

sovvie and big D are kinda similar, torps, good defensive traits. defiant and norexan are similar, to a lesser degree, both are mainly for hitting hard with pulses, the norexan is ok defensively, but the defiant is super at staying alive cos its so fast. you just cant dps them before they get away. i love the defiant.
posted on February 4th, 2011, 11:25 pm
Tryptic wrote:
Negh'var: increase the research cost and decrease the torpedo disable time to around 10 seconds.



You already need a whole station to research that special! And it is expensive already. And I see both the NeghVar and its special used very rarely due to the expensive imperial yard and need of ordnance depot. And the second NeghVar special (cloaking device ;)) costs incredible amounts of money.
Obviousely I can't agree with you here. I see the Souvereign quite often, at least in larger team games. Can't say that for Big D, V13(probably because of B-5) or NeghVar.
posted on February 4th, 2011, 11:33 pm
i think most people's issue with the neggie is that its not in klinks best interest to tech that high usually. vorchas do most jobs for the rest of the game. combine with sangs for extra torp, qawdujs for specials and you dont really need an imperial yard. also its cloak costs a huge amount

i personally like getting up to neggies for huge offensive power. they can really dish it out, and are fast enough to escape. kinda like defiants, but with torps instead of pulses.

neggies work great for countering too.
posted on February 4th, 2011, 11:51 pm
Yes, I can only agree. If you have invested 2600 fund for one Neggie(ordnance depot, imperial yard, NeghVarcosts) you get a vessel that's not much better than the Vor'chas you got already and doesn't even have cloak. Meaning you either send it alone(bad in late game) or send it with your fleet(bad, your enemy knows you're coming) or research large scale cloak(bad, you are left without ressources for another NeghVar or anything).

Nevertheless if you let me get 1500dil and enough supplies to not use that dil to buy supplies I'll definitely build my imperial yard :badgrin:. It doesn't have to be rational, it has to kick ass, it's Klingon. Rar.
posted on February 5th, 2011, 12:35 am
ah hahaha I tricked all you guys into explaining things to me by pretending to be stupid...?
:shifty:

:ermm:

:sweatdrop:

I was unaware of a lot of these concerns, like the sheer amount of money you have to spend to reach Neghvars...and as such I want to restate the OP:

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Sovereigns:  I still think they need a cost increase on the special and a large stat bonus.  Like Warpins, their price tag is much bigger than advertised, in this case because of Starship Chassis 3.  Alternately, you could reduce the cost of that research...it doesn't seem like a bad idea for level 2 and level 3 to be the same price, since level 3 is building on level 2's discoveries.  Right now it costs as much as a second Eraudi yard  :pinch:

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D'Deridex:  I still hold that the special should be made more powerful and harder to get, or allow it to stack.  Perhaps a stacking penalty could be used so that 5 of them going off at once only reduces damage by 30% or so.  In canon, Romulans love massing big D's, if you make game mechanics work WITH large groups of them instead of against, you'll see that more often  :D

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Thinking more about V-13, I actually don't think they should get the same treatment.  They're already a critical-mass ship, so perhaps a cheapening/weakening effect is in order, perhaps a weak single-target missile that takes very little energy so it can be used repeatedly.  The current special is a great idea, but in practice the balance is too sharp between "rather worthless damage" and "unbeatable sniping move."

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As for the Negh'Var, what about making the Ordnance Depot cost less, but still take a long time to build?  The BortaS already shows Klingons' approach to high-tech stuff: they like to Min-Max.  A long tech road to an expensive technology, but in return the actual ship is dirt cheap to produce.  Similarly, the Negh'Var route could take a lot of time (heck, it already does.  3 yards and a tech building) but the tech building and special research for it could be cheap.  This way a Klingon player can transition from Vorcha to Negh'Var easier.

Please, resume discussion,
posted on February 5th, 2011, 12:38 am
...and yet Negh'vars were once spammed by teching straight to them, with devastating effects  :woot: . And no, the only change to slow that down was made by lowering the defense of the Martok Negh'var - but it's still possible, just not as unstoppable  ^-^
posted on February 5th, 2011, 12:59 am
 Well I'm afraid I cannot agree with you on the subject of the V-13.  It's already remarkably powerful in it's own right and insanely cheap.  The special is one that scales up beautifully as you increase it's numbers and functions the same way that Multi-Disruptor does.  Get enough of them and they'll counter the things that are supposed to counter them (Leahvals, K'vorts, Intrepids, Bugs) because they can kill so many in the first Excessive Volley.  Since the V-13 is a battleship intended to be produced in large numbers it would be very harmful to increase the targets of E.Strike.

 While I feel that the Big D's special should be maybe closer to 12-15% for 20-30 seconds, I don't believe that 25% is necessary.  I've always been an advocate of a less support-esque and a more solo-combat oriented ability.  I'm not sure what that would be.

  The Sovereign is a great ship.  I don't claim that it's useless or underpowered or anything, I just feel that the amount of money that gets put into the research to get it and it's special is generally better spent on more ships that perform the same practical functions at higher speeds and with more flexibility.  E2's may be slower as Dom pointed out, but they require no chassis upgrades, no special research to fulfill their best use, and are cheaper.

  Negh'vars I really like and get them whenever I can, but since so much of the Klingon playstyle revolves around cloaking, the Neggie is left high and dry.  It's size, range, and passive also do not really do it many favors if I were to be asked.  It's a specialist, thus you only need it when you're facing something like S-7s (which will also do very well against the Negh'Var), Excels, or Dodes/Diamonds.  Throw in a couple others like Phalanx if you want, but most long range ships actually also counter the Neggie in some way:

Bombers - (FTC, no torpedo misses)
S-7 - (Extra vs. Large size)
Breen Cruisers/Batts - (Extra vs. Battleships + never miss)
T-15's - (Ablative Armor > TWA)
Sabers - (Torpedo Dodge + Cover Fire)
Canaverals - (FTC + Cover Fire)
Excel I/II - (Never miss, but still easy prey for Neggie)
Avalon - (Yummy yummy :D)
Phalanx - (Yummy yummy :D)
Sang - (Small size and won't miss)
Cho'naq - (Yummy yummy, if people used them :lol:)
Cehlaer - (Yummy yummy :D)
Rhienns - (Small size + Phase Plates)
Dodes - (Yummy yummy :D)
Diamond - (Yummy yummy :D)


  They're just too specialist for the cost required to reach them as of this patch.  Something they'll be your best friend, but only in maybe 2% of cases :D.  Just have faith that it will get some love after things like this are brought up ^-^



Ninja'd by Dom.

  Yes they were devastating when teched straight to them, but that was a problem that must be taken into account for any powerful ship as you know.  The solution for the future should not be to place them in a spot where they're a liability to reach in my opinion.  Change their function seems a better one to me :).
posted on February 5th, 2011, 8:48 am
That's a nce list you made there Boggz. I think the problem gets even worse if you take the other Kli long range counter(the B'rel) into account. Because that one will easily take out Bombers, Sabres, Canaverals and Breen cruisers, BUT the Breen Battleship, T-15(!) and S7 stay a problem. Wow, they are all Dominion  :ermm:. T-15 being the most used can be countered by Sangs and Vor'chas, though. And Breen Battleships and S7 are rare and expensive, they should be hard to counter.
During the last B'rel discussion I brought up the Kli long range problem already, I think it still needs work, since the B'rel is not really the ship you build in numbers when you have reached NeghVar already. And the NeghVar, as you pointed out, is slow, large, short ranged, hard to get and and therefor not the best option, too.
However, I don't want to get too far offtopic here ;).
posted on February 5th, 2011, 6:09 pm
who said neggie was slow. its faster than vorcha sang qawduj and as fast as a chargh. its only 10 slower than a kbq lol.

neggie is fast. and being late in the game it can escape.
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