Insane Damage on Display

[Sin]

Hello,
I am relatively new to the game so it is difficult for me to judge what I am seeing:

Advanced TFOs (like the conduit) where everything (and I mean everything) is getting destroyed before the first salvo of the attacker is even finished.
Just today I was in the conduit (advanced) and the TFO ended in less than 40 seconds with even the gate and tactical cube just beeing blown up immediatly, the explosions couldn't even clear the screen fast enough.

Is this kind of damage output achievable without cheating? Hate to ask it, but it seems .. a bit much.

[jonnin]

Yes, its not from cheating. I am not aware of any cheating problems at all.
Its a power creep problem, some players can do these things due to having played for over a decade and knowing all the damage increasing build details etc.
It takes time or money to get all the toys to build like this, but time they have had, and many, money as well :)

Don't sweat it. Just keep doing these, more often than not, you will get to fight. On normal mode, about 1 in 5 or so has some guy that blows up everything, the others everyone contributes a bit better. On advanced, I don't know the odds as well.

I am far from the best -- yet far better than a new player -- and here is a quick damage sample from the iupiter iratus event run today.
This is a science ship and the spore infused anomaly bombs are hitting most of the ships in an AOE for large numbers repeatedly (my ship is a raider with all its officers except 1 set to science seats...!)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2813319854

[Shaila]

most of them use builds from this site, take a look, i think they have cheep builds to on that site

https://www.sto-league.com/ship-builds/
if you're not into grinding / spending money much id look into the discount builds. They use mainly gear free to obtain, to get with a minor amount of EC from the exchange or to get from your fleet.

[Eggy]

You like that? A few months ago, I was playing the Hive Onslaught TFO. I got matched with some people who were armed for bear! The opening battle was just about over before I could reach it, then the cut scene ... when we came out of the cut scene, we were already battling the queen! Mind boggling. I thought myself fortunate that I didn't get an AFK penalty.

If you look back through the forum, you might find a thread entitled W-T-F just happened?! ... or something like that. That was me asking the same question, and I'm one of those players who has been around for close to a decade.

[wirednight]

Originally posted by Sin:

Is this kind of damage output achievable without cheating? Hate to ask it, but it seems .. a bit much.

Absolutely. It just takes time and effort to do so. A lot of us have been playing for years. I've been playing since beta. After all those years, I've gone through dozens of ships and consoles and skills. Once you get there though, you're practically unstoppable.

As others have mentioned, the game in general isn't that badly unbalanced for the majority of players. But it is fairly easy to break as well with enough resources.

[wilder125`]

I guess some day I should work on an actual build lol. I just throw a bunch of neat stuff on the ship and it handles story play effectively

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by wilder125`:

I guess some day I should work on an actual build lol. I just throw a bunch of neat stuff on the ship and it handles story play effectively

A general suggestion:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2735967242

[Sin]

Thanks for the answers guys, power creep isn't nice but acceptable, cheating would have been sad. :)

[wirednight]

Originally posted by wilder125`:

I guess some day I should work on an actual build lol. I just throw a bunch of neat stuff on the ship and it handles story play effectively

Sometimes a bunch of neat stuff can be exactly what you need. How do you think half of these builds are built. They through a bunch of neat stuff on, see what works, take off what doesn't, and throw some other neat stuff on.

Not everything has to be cookie-cutter from a guide. It's just a matter of knowing how you like to play, a few basics, and going from there.

Finally, not everyone needs to have super-ships that can explode entire fleets in 2 seconds. If you're having fun with your current build, then have fun with your current build.

[mmille14]

Originally posted by wirednight:

Originally posted by wilder125`:

I guess some day I should work on an actual build lol. I just throw a bunch of neat stuff on the ship and it handles story play effectively

Sometimes a bunch of neat stuff can be exactly what you need. How do you think half of these builds are built. They through a bunch of neat stuff on, see what works, take off what doesn't, and throw some other neat stuff on.

Not everything has to be cookie-cutter from a guide. It's just a matter of knowing how you like to play, a few basics, and going from there.

Finally, not everyone needs to have super-ships that can explode entire fleets in 2 seconds. If you're having fun with your current build, then have fun with your current build.

While I appreciate the work it takes in getting a super build, I have more fun in a ship I have to shoot and maneuver than simply doing a massive alpha strike and boom, battle done. In PVP I am sure its a different thing.

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by wirednight:

Originally posted by wilder125`:

I guess some day I should work on an actual build lol. I just throw a bunch of neat stuff on the ship and it handles story play effectively

.....

Not everything has to be cookie-cutter from a guide. It's just a matter of knowing how you like to play, a few basics, and going from there.

.....

I want to highlight this. I, personally, detest and hate cookie-cutter building. It's why I never post a complete build (anymore; I did once but I stopped about three years ago).

Why? Because people end up with a build that they don't understand, (it works but they don't know WHY or HOW it works), so when something new comes along, or there's one piece they can't get, or they want to transition it to a slightly different ship, they don't know which pieces they can add or subtract to improve it, or to have the minimal downgrade.

Take for example the recent Dominion Captain bundle. The clone-Weyoun BOFF is a best-in-slot option (its space trait is differently named but is equal to the Jem'Hadar Vanguard Science BOFF's, which is the previous best-in-slot for any non-Romulan captain, and since both are limited to one, if you're running a two-sci-BOFF build, these two together is the best you can get). But someone who is running a cookie-cutter build wouldn't know that swapping that BOFF in would be an improvement.

(Also, the STO Academy template doesn't even record BOFF species/traits....)

Better, to learn the mechanics and put together your own build.

[wirednight]

Originally posted by mmille14:

Originally posted by wirednight:

Sometimes a bunch of neat stuff can be exactly what you need. How do you think half of these builds are built. They through a bunch of neat stuff on, see what works, take off what doesn't, and throw some other neat stuff on.

Not everything has to be cookie-cutter from a guide. It's just a matter of knowing how you like to play, a few basics, and going from there.

Finally, not everyone needs to have super-ships that can explode entire fleets in 2 seconds. If you're having fun with your current build, then have fun with your current build.

While I appreciate the work it takes in getting a super build, I have more fun in a ship I have to shoot and maneuver than simply doing a massive alpha strike and boom, battle done. In PVP I am sure its a different thing.

See that's kind of the thing I was trying to say. Fun is the key to any MMO. Some people have fun playing raids, and needing certain builds to compete. Others just want to play and run dungeons and socialize. Others want to solo.

Your builds should reflect who you are and who your character is. I can tell you probably a 100 ways to make a super-ship escort.

I hate escorts and don't play them. They're not fun to me, and if I do play and escort, I can tell you it'll never be how the cookie-cutter builds say it should be, because I don't like to play that way.

Play the way you want, don't let anyone tell you how to play.

That said, sometimes just throwing stuff together will make a very powerful build, and you don't know why exactly until you look into it. But who cares why. Are you enjoying playing your ship? Then who cares why, just play it.

[mmille14]

Originally posted by wirednight:

Originally posted by mmille14:

While I appreciate the work it takes in getting a super build, I have more fun in a ship I have to shoot and maneuver than simply doing a massive alpha strike and boom, battle done. In PVP I am sure its a different thing.

See that's kind of the thing I was trying to say. Fun is the key to any MMO. Some people have fun playing raids, and needing certain builds to compete. Others just want to play and run dungeons and socialize. Others want to solo.

Your builds should reflect who you are and who your character is. I can tell you probably a 100 ways to make a super-ship escort.

I hate escorts and don't play them. They're not fun to me, and if I do play and escort, I can tell you it'll never be how the cookie-cutter builds say it should be, because I don't like to play that way.

Play the way you want, don't let anyone tell you how to play.

That said, sometimes just throwing stuff together will make a very powerful build, and you don't know why exactly until you look into it. But who cares why. Are you enjoying playing your ship? Then who cares why, just play it.

Yep, just have fun, and STO gives you so many different ways to do so. It has something for everyone. :)

[wirednight]

Originally posted by mmille14:

Yep, just have fun, and STO gives you so many different ways to do so. It has something for everyone. :)

Now all that said. If you want to go into advanced TFOs like the OP and be competitive and not just a spectator, you're going to have to understand how things work and why they work, like Cap said. It can be surprisingly indepth, from soft caps, hard caps, boffs, skills, consoles, global cool downs, individual cool downs, and the like.

[wilder125`]

One good thing is you can save up to 10 loadouts on the chosen ship. so you could find a build you want to try, find all the stuff that goes in it. slot it in. save the loadout. then load a different saved loadout as needed

[cap-boulanger]

Originally posted by wirednight:

Originally posted by mmille14:

Yep, just have fun, and STO gives you so many different ways to do so. It has something for everyone. :)

Now all that said. If you want to go into advanced TFOs like the OP and be competitive and not just a spectator, you're going to have to understand how things work and why they work, like Cap said. It can be surprisingly indepth, from soft caps, hard caps, boffs, skills, consoles, global cool downs, individual cool downs, and the like.

Yeah. Take, for example, critical hits.

There's two stats - Critical Hit Chance and Critical Severity - that are important. CHC determines the frequency of making critical hits, while CSev determines how much extra damage they do, so both are important.

However... the ratio of CHC to CSev that is available as weapon mods, is different from the ratio available on fleet tactical consoles, as well as most other sources. This makes it more math-efficient to stack up CSev as much as possible on your weapon mods, and CHC elsewhere (in cases where you have to choose between them).

And then, as I mentioned above about BOFF species/traits. The most popular build site doesn't even have a place to record these in the build... and yet, depending on circumstances, including player character faction and the ship... it's possible to get as much as +12 CHC and +30 CSev *just* from your BOFFs.