Topic: Race Balance - Romulan and FED weapons?

[Valerek]

I know that the SFCIII beta patch was suppose to deal with some of the balance issues between races, but now I think the romulans are way to powerful.  This is coming from some who plays Romulan!  I fire multi-volley plasma just about every time i fire, from a vetern officer up tp lengendary.  The plasma is the most powerful heavy weapon it multi volleys just about every time?  They tear through full shields and hulls like paper, even the Borg.   I won't even go into the Scimitar.  Is this realistic?  I am getting bored at the fact that I can take out 2 Sovs with a CA and not take any damage.  So I switched back to the Federation.  The Fed torpedo launchers only multi volley about 1 in 20, if that.  They hardly do any damage, even the quantums, and phasers can't scratch paint.  The "real" galaxy class torpedo launchers (there are 3, one forward, one aft, one aft saucer sep. fight ) are supposed to be able to launch up to ten torpedos.  This might be to much in the context of this game, but this patch only allows one torpedo per launcher 99% of the time?  You should have smaller launcher(less capacity) on smaller vessels and larger launchers (more multi volleys) on the larger, more powerful vessels, to be more realistic.  Thats just my opinion, but  It would be more exciting fighting FEDs if they had more bite, like before.  The easiest way to fix this would be to give them thier multi volley capability back.
 

What are your thoughts?    

[Credo Narth]

Don't think that the Roms are too hard, even after the patch. I think the game is much better balanced and the Roms are now simply more competitive.

Don't forget that the Roms are supposed to be able to cause a lot of damage, but less often. Plus when they're detected under cloak, and hit with multiple quantum toprs, they still rack up damage pretty quick.

 

[Aldaron]

Quote:
I know that the SFCIII beta patch was suppose to deal with some of the balance issues between races, but now I think the romulans are way to powerful.  This is coming from some who plays Romulan!  I fire multi-volley plasma just about every time i fire, from a vetern officer up tp lengendary.  The plasma is the most powerful heavy weapon it multi volleys just about every time?  They tear through full shields and hulls like paper, even the Borg.   I won't even go into the Scimitar.  Is this realistic?  I am getting bored at the fact that I can take out 2 Sovs with a CA and not take any damage.  So I switched back to the Federation.  The Fed torpedo launchers only multi volley about 1 in 20, if that.  They hardly do any damage, even the quantums, and phasers can't scratch paint.  The "real" galaxy class torpedo launchers (there are 3, one forward, one aft, one aft saucer sep. fight ) are supposed to be able to launch up to ten torpedos.  This might be to much in the context of this game, but this patch only allows one torpedo per launcher 99% of the time?  You should have smaller launcher(less capacity) on smaller vessels and larger launchers (more multi volleys) on the larger, more powerful vessels, to be more realistic.  Thats just my opinion, but  It would be more exciting fighting FEDs if they had more bite, like before.  The easiest way to fix this would be to give them thier multi volley capability back.
 

What are your thoughts?    

Multi-volley only does 125% the damage of a normal single torp if all hit, think of them as mini-torps.

[Tulmahk]

Show me a Rom player who thinks the Romulans are too powerful, and I'll show you a Federation player in disguise!

Federation players have been bitching and moaning ever since Romulan ships became competetive post-patch.

Although to be fair, I'll say there should be tests run to see how often a plasma launcher volleys compared to a quantum launcher, given officers who are exactly equal in skill.  I think those tests would reveal this to be a myth.

One could even argue that plasma launchers should multivolley more often, given they fire much less often, in order to give all heavy launchers an equal per-turn volley chance.  

[Blitzkrieg]

Erm ok I agree, now give me a cloaking device and ill be happy!

The think is Ive started seeing so many Rom players doing apparantly SO well, it does make me wonder.

YES I HAVE IT...

A great idea, one to satisfty everyone, and those who arnt satisified can not reply cause I love this idea!!! Ok here it is, the solution to the problem, the balancing act, the "end game", I have it.

We all agree that cloaking in takes far too long right? I mean 4 seconds you cant so anything, thats stupid, nothing like Star Trek either. Whats the point in cloaking if when you decloak your a dead easy targert for 4 seconds, right? I say make the delay between fully activating weapons and shields and decloaking be half a second, thats right HALF A SECOND.

Not only is this cannon but its pretty damn good for the cloakers to get the first strike in pretty much unmolested, RIGHT? Well that is the point of the cloak after all, dont cry at me because you disagree, read on instead.

Furthermore, and this I dont expect to be done but, I think probe detection should be reduced further, but when it works it works well, as the cloaker should be decloaked for at least 4-6 seconds, somewhere around that area. Also anticloak scan should never give off target locks (does it ever?), but instead should give out a warning, cloaked ship astern, and what not. This would mean that they would have an idea of where to fire the probes, but still nothing to fire at really unless they are lucky (seriously 1 in 4 chance here folks, thats direct probe hit, get your maths right PLEASE).

Ok sound good so far Romulan players? Everyone else want to rip my head of?

This is the real killer, what will make the game just perfect for everyone, its so just amazing I dont know if I can say it.



















Ok I can say it now, recloaking after the first decloak should take 8 seconds. Thats right, 8 whole seconds, in which your shields will be down you cant fire your weapons, however to compensate somewhat chance to hit should be reduced progressively through transition. This isnt cannon per say, but it is in the sense that in Star Trek how many ships did you find cloaking and decloaking constaly? None, why? Well because they would get there asses blown off thats why! Its just so perfect, once you decloak you better do a great hit and run as your going toe to toe with whoever your fighting against unless you can run for cover.

Here is another thing that will make it even more interesting, you can use the new increased asteroid and other entitie quantities to hide behind, a nebula would be perfect here. You hit, run, then find somewhere safe to recloak, otherwise you gota fight it out. To be honest, Feds, Roms and Klinks are hardly that much of a miss match anymore, sure the feds have the edge but really before the patch there were Rom players who could go toe to toe with a Fed and still beet them without using the cloak.

This will make the game extreamly far better balanced, gone will be the days of the annoying, 8 to 10 second window of opportunity to fire before they are gone, wait did I say 8 to 10 seconds? Well you know what I mean, I just think this will work better, hope my contradiction dosnt stop you from agreeing with me. I honestly beleive this will be sweet as hell, but I could be alone, lets find out.

What have you been smoking...
...because I want some, great idea man!
...its affecting your judgment badly, this just wont work
...I think you should consult a doctor emediatly you fool

 

[Valerek]

Blitz, I agree with the faster decloaking and slower re-cloaking times, great idea.  I guess that the point I am trying to make is that the Romulans are great now that they are more powerful.  They didn't have to make the feds weaker at the same time though.   Disruptors now do the damage they are supposed to, which is more than phasers(2 damage points).  I know for a fact though, that the romulan torpedo volleys and fed torpedo volleys percentages are no where equal with the same officers.  The first time i really noticed the romulans volley was after the patch, in my shrike!  Also, why can't the klingon polaron torpedo volley?  Its damage is only 12 compared to the romulans 20 for the heavy plasma.

Correct me if i am wrong, but it states that the heavy plasma does 20 damage points.  Would not a volley of three do about three times that, if they all hit?  Same with any other heavy weapon volley.  

I am all about being cannon, which i know is impossible to be exactly, but romulans should not shoot "green phasers".  They should fire more like the klingon disuptors.

Even with all of my complaining, i think this game is awesome, but with all things it could be improved.  

[Aenigma]

Did you actually test the multivolley percentages? I want to see data before i can say that the Romulan Heavy Plasma is overpowerful. And a volley does not give 300% damage (though i wish it were, instant fried Feds, yummy ), but only 125%.

Of course it's damn powerful, but the energy that goes into it is massive, which means we have to get big warpcores, or less shields/weapons. And we have the decay over distance, something that all other torpedoes don't have. We have to creep in to get a good, and powerful shot, while feds can fire at muchos range and still be able to do normal damage, which is great against the borg. The damage of the disruptor IV was never altered, and does the same amount of damage as the Borg CB H, though the range is shorter. In what way did the feds become less powerful? It was predicted that more people would be Rom after the patch, because they were going to be fixed, so if the smurfs lost some numbers, which was their greatest advantage, it would be explained by the fact they went Kermit.

The cloak and decloak times are fine with me. One stupid mistake costed and still costs your hull. Please don't Fedify the Romulan Star Empire, for the sake of racial diversity.

Aenigma  

[Alexander1701]

  Blitzkrieg, what you are suggesting is good in theory, however, in practice it would run into certain problems. Your desired outcome is how the klingon AI is programmed to act. This is the klingon cloaking trick, designed simply to get in the first hit. Romulans, on the other hand, use cloak not just to gain position, but to allow our weapons to recharge. Pre patch, many players outright removed their torpedoes because of the timing and accuracy issues. More players play with it now, but, for example, on mod servers where the k-phootn is available to romulans, many romulans opt out of the plasma. Remember that in our 2 volleys, you fire 3, or a half more. 20 damage to 13, a half more than 13 is 20, so it works out nicely.

As for multivolley, I have yet to multivolley post patch. I think you're estimates are flawed. It also makes little difference. If it really WERE 300%, then a sovereign would be obliterated in a single pass, as 1 volley against an unshielded target will nearly destroy even a starbase, and 1.5 volleys take out a level 10 shield, leaving 0.5, enough to take out the rest. No, it isn't that powerful.

Also, look at power. It takes a level 6 warp core to power engines, level 4 shields, and 2 Plasma-Hs. (see ship designs on www.battleclinic.com ) Conversely, even a Cl like a defiant can easily pack 2 quantums and still have room for pulse phasers. The Sovereign hosts 6 torpedo launchers, whereas the warbird only has 3.

The quantum torpedo is the superior weapon. The cloaking device makes it so as the Romulan commanders can deliver the damage in greater quantities.

Aenigma puts it in an interesting way, but it IS true. In general, the side with the more human players wll win. The pre-beta game strained the romulan side into pure expert (removing all of the non-expert), so Romulan tactics became widely known amongst Romulan players. I constantly teach the tactics we've made to newer Romulans. Gradually, as the fed skill begins to concentrate, new Federation tactics will emerge, and so on and so forth. It's an innevitability.

Alexander  

[SSCF Hooch]

How very odd, I seem to remember expressing this concern just a short time ago.

Here is a little suggestion for ya's, have the server admins allow Feds to rig a cloaking device and lets see how they do.

The Federation has the tech and did sometimes use it.

So let me have a cloaking device then. The pulse cannon was nerfed, volley fire for photons is a joke now, and they still have a rotten hit rate. The AI's seemed to alway hit, but human hit rates stink. So for the "sake " of balence allow me to cloak.

Hooch

[Wiz33]

  And the higher number of Fed player is a myth. The number you see on the server may be more but those are usually casual players trying out the game. They either get tired of it and leave or gain some experience and move to anotehr race if the game kept their interest.

  I run the Wiz's server and I can count the Fed regular in one hand, the rest comes and goes and some turns up in other empire after a bit . Easy way to tell is look at their ratings. Most of them is under 4K.  

[Aenigma]

I'm talking about before the patch Wiz, not after it. Now most feds are veterans. They got tired of being a fed? Hehe, i can speak from personal experience that being a fed, at least to me, was pretty boring. The Klingons and Romulans are much more interesting, and the Borg I do not play.

Aenigma  

[Wiz33]

  You made my point for me, didn't you? You started with Fed, got some experience and is now playing another race. Even after patch, a lot of new player still use the fed to get used to the changes and then they jump to another race.

  Perfect example would be earlier this evening. I got on my server and notice a bunch of Feds online and I told them about The new Fed BB (88K but all you get is a basic Sov, you just have more growth potential since it has more engine/weapon space) available and didn't get much of a response. turn out that most of them couldn't afford it as they are fairly new and the one person whom I thought can afford it (as he had a Sov for a few days already)  lost their ship in a fight with a Neghvar (mutual destruction).

  I then took a look at the other players, Of the 4 Rom online, 3 have Scimitars (100K+) already and out of the 3 Klings there were 2 Neghvar and one Vorcha within a few hundred pts of a Negh.

  The single Borg player on would be within 20K pts of a 250K cube if he didn't lose his ship earlier today.

  So the hugher number of Fed on the server didn't do anything. The Fed is still losing ground.

Regards
Wiz
 

[LongTooth]

Quote:
  You made my point for me, didn't you? You started with Fed, got some experience and is now playing another race. Even after patch, a lot of new player still use the fed to get used to the changes and then they jump to another race.

  Perfect example would be earlier this evening. I got on my server and notice a bunch of Feds online and I told them about The new Fed BB (88K but all you get is a basic Sov, you just have more growth potential since it has more engine/weapon space) available and didn't get much of a response. turn out that most of them couldn't afford it as they are fairly new and the one person whom I thought can afford it (as he had a Sov for a few days already)  lost their ship in a fight with a Neghvar (mutual destruction).

  I then took a look at the other players, Of the 4 Rom online, 3 have Scimitars (100K+) already and out of the 3 Klings there were 2 Neghvar and one Vorcha within a few hundred pts of a Negh.

  The single Borg player on would be within 20K pts of a 250K cube if he didn't lose his ship earlier today.

  So the hugher number of Fed on the server didn't do anything. The Fed is still losing ground.

Regards
Wiz
   

It depends what server your on lots of feds hang out on sfc3.net 4 corners server
While on the koth server we had very few feds
I fly rom but on the last 2 servers I have been on I have played for the races with the lest number of pilots(fed and borg in this case)
I started to fly rom when sfc3 first came out as the were an underplayed race and tended to be on the weak side(pre pacth)
Till we see some data we dont know whos right maybe its time for some one start testing
 

[Blitzkrieg]

Yeah well I play Fed when I go onto most servers, its not exactly boring but it does lack a little somthing. Being detoothed a bit helps add to the interest but I do fear the rath of the cloak now. Im going to go play Rom the next chance I get, try and bring back some experiance type tales to this bored. I expect that my experiance will be somewhat similare to that of the single player skirmish.

I dont want to take away from the Roms of what they are but seriously, what they are just isnt cricket my friends. Having 2 cloaking races dosnt help either, because they can both cloak and stay that way, sounds like fun lol.

"Further more I add... sigh... I just... dont fecking like getting my ass blown off and not being able to do anything about it. Where do you serious Roms play then, come on lets have it you cowardly punks, come on ill provide a nice target for you, ill even go maky myself a coffee while you get into position, wait no you can warp to me now so dont worry." Said in jest, also venting, dont worry Im not a complete [censored]. Seriously where do most of the serious Rom players play?

[Alexander1701]

  It is excellent that players are fleeing the Federation. The remaining fed players will be forced into coming up with new strategies, in the same way that the old Romulans were, therefore they improve drastically without having to change over their numbers.

Alexander  

[Valerek]

I was reading the post on   suggestions for the offical patch , and I got some ideas from there to deal with the ballance issues.

Right now the federation is at a disadvatage with it's BCH and DN's,  and it needs its TORPEDO VOLLEY BACK!!

FOR EXAMPLE, lets take the BCH and just look at the weapon mass limits,

Nebula,  1800
Vorcha, 2100
Raptor, 2100

(The cannon nebula class starship should be equal the the Galaxy, and actually carries more torpedo and phasers with its weapons pod.)  It could still have "weaker armour", but it doesn't hae the extra weapons that the weapon pod should.

In the case of this game I think the Nebula needs to have its mass limits increased to where the Galaxy is now.

It is not fair that the Federation and the Klingons do not have a BB, the Roms and Borg do.  (The cube could be even stronger)


To solve this, increase the galaxy to match the current sov, and recreate the sov as a BB- This is supposed to be Starfleet's most advanced ship.

The klingons will need a new BB as well.  Their   Polarons must volley  to be fair.

The romulans are great now after the patch, but the cloak sould be even harder, way harder to detect, especially with the probes!
This would make the klingon and romulan cloaking advatage more realistic.  In TNG they have a very difficult time detecting cloaked vessels.
 
The feds do have an advantage with their light ships, CL's and CAs, the other races could be beefed up here.

I think that these suggestion would help a lot!

again, what are your thoughts?

       

[Alexander1701]

  Valerek: 'Hey guys! I have an idea! Lets make all the races EXACTLY the same, that way NO one could complain about balance, or that pesky variety issue.'

Sorry, but really, the IDEA is that the federation is easy to start with, but losing out midway. The klingons have the strongest frigates, the federation cruisers, the romulans heavy cruisers, the borg DNs. Thats just how it is.

Alexander  

[SSCF Hooch]

Quote:
  Valerek: 'Hey guys! I have an idea! Lets make all the races EXACTLY the same, that way NO one could complain about balance, or that pesky variety issue.'

Sorry, but really, the IDEA is that the federation is easy to start with, but losing out midway. The klingons have the strongest frigates, the federation cruisers, the romulans heavy cruisers, the borg DNs. Thats just how it is.

Alexander    

Golly lets just get ratty because other people have thier own thoughts on a subject that aren't yours.  

[Valerek]

Quote:
  Valerek: 'Hey guys! I have an idea! Lets make all the races EXACTLY the same, that way NO one could complain about balance, or that pesky variety issue.'

Sorry, but really, the IDEA is that the federation is easy to start with, but losing out midway. The klingons have the strongest frigates, the federation cruisers, the romulans heavy cruisers, the borg DNs. Thats just how it is.

Alexander    

OK easy, the excuse " that is the way it works and deal with it", just dosen't hold up.  If that were the case there would not have been a beta patch in the first place.

Each race will never be the same, they have different weapons available, shields and warp cores- each with strengths and weaknesses.   Some will be able to cloak, others not.  The overall class of each ship needs to be more equal. (I also think that the cloak should be nearly undetectable.)

I would like to ask you, who wins a battle or server because they have strong frigates, come on.

I know for a fact that Romulan, Klingon and Borg players jump on every sov they find because they are easy targets.   They are under powered, slow moving cows that don't have enough fire power.  I can here you now, but Romulan weapons are slow to charge and take a huge amount of power---BIG DEAL.  A heavy plasma has a damage rate of 20, charging rate of three, quatums have a damage of 13, charge rate of 2.  By the time the quatum fire enough time to catch up to the damage rate of the plasma, they are dead.  Again, I would be totally fine with this if the fed torpedos could volley, to help keep up with the damage that the rommies dish out.  The cannon quatum was developed with an explosive yield of approx. twice that of the regular photon.

The Feds spent some serious time and resources developing anti-Borg weapons, and were involved in a long long war with the dominion.  Do you reallly think that the outcome of these events would result in their BCH's and DN's becoming weaker?

Why should the Romulans have a BB, the Scimitar is Reman.  Perhaps Valdores......

You should know by watching TNG, that the Klinks, Feds and Romulans are all pretty much equal, if anything its the borg who should be more powerful.

I do not want the races to be exactly the same, there would still be plenty of variety with my suggestions.  I just think that they would make the game better.  Obviously you can disagree, but take some time to think about it.

   

[Sethan]

What I find really amusing about this is that certain members of the Anti-SFB crowd were absolutely certain this sort of argument would never happen in SFC3, since there was no SFB ruleset.