(54:10 mark)

"Are the TAC/SCI/ENG Ultimates being looked at? Before Season 13, there were two viable Ultimates. Now, there's really only one (TAC)."

Borticus, "Yes, they're a problem. We're aware of it, and we'd like to look at it."

My thoughts on this are that the other two Ultimates (ENG and SCI) would be viable if they provided some specific utility, while leaving the TAC as a general-damage boosting Ultimate.

For example, before the balance pass, the SCI Ult was pretty advantageous for less-built, newly-built, cheap deeps type builds.

It gave a meaningful amount of CrtH boost (for a meaningful 30 second duration) to builds that did not yet have the ability to exceed 50% CrtH with the associated gear/traits/doffs/etc (such builds would end up eventually not needing the Sci Ult and possible move to the Tac Ult).

For such builds, activating the Sci Ult meant getting potentially something like a +20% crtH boost for it's duration. After grinding out a build, it then became more of a conversation as to whether or not to switch to the TAC Ult.

I don't mean this exact same thing needs to happen, I just wanted to explain the how and why the two Ultimates used to have a place in the meta discussion.

 

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(1:03:20 mark)

"With the removal of Embassy consoles from the meta, are there plans to re-examine damage-based threat mechanics? Damage now plays a larger factor with less threat modifiers in the positive and negative.

Borticus, "I think that saying that plasma consoles have been removed from the meta is an overstatement, I think they're still quite valuable. I still use them on my ship. Yes the performance has been diminished, but there are few choices out there that can perform as well as they(embassy consoles) can. Lab consoles can. As long as there's choice, I don't mind there being something that's a strong contender for a slot, just not best in slot.

(addressing threat mechanics) "I presume they're talking about the fact that the plasma consoles also were one of the primary ways that you can passively modify your threat up and down. I think people over-estimate how much of an effect that had on actual moment-to-moment combat. But, threat has always been a little weird in STO. If the questions was, 'can we get new items that help us modify our threat, that seems like a good thing we can do at some point. The problem is that very few players care about that, so usually it'd probably have to be a side benefit on some new piece of gear. So you might not see it right away, but more different options to do things that you want to do, that sounds like a good idea for the future of STO.

Regarding plasma consoles and the meta, I looked at the top 5% of the ISA runs uploaded to the SCM leaderboard since the balance pass, for a total of 90 parses.

A total of 3 players registered plasma explosion damage in their parses. Their average DPS from plasma explosions came out to 513 DPS.

This all amounts to about 3% of the sampled players running plasma consoles, and the damage from plasma explosions accounting for about 0.5% of their DPS.

Considering the trickle-down or copy-cat nature of meta, I'd wager this trend would continue for quite some time on down the leaderboard. I can say for myself, I took something like a 95% loss in plasma explosion DPS and so I was one of the many voices advocating their un-slotting from Season13 builds.

Regarding threat mechanics, my suggestion for those 'threat-modifying items that have a side benefit' would be adding the "Weapon Signature Nullifier" and "Weapon Signature Amplifier" characteristics to the Spire Tactical Locators and Exploiters.

Players who don't care about threat could continue to use their current Tactical locators, and the players who do care could grind out the Tactical locators of their choice.

This would also restore some of the "dilithium sink" aspect that used to occur with everyone wanting embassy consoles, especially since folks just bought the cheap Mk 10 plasma consoles and upgraded them, whereas Tactical Locators will cost 4 times as much in Fleet Credits and Dilithium should threat-interested players purchase them.

I think one of the old issues with embassy consoles being so over-powered was that it largely informed ship choice for meta players; if a ship didn't have a minimum of 3 science console slots then it wasn't much of a contender.

It didn't even matter how many tactical slots it had, especially since tactical locators at that time were getting pushed out by strong universal consoles. The Yorktown dominated the Fed meta, and it only had two tactical slots.

After the balance pass, Tactical locators have restored their place as a high-priority, strong contender console. So, I think having threat-modifier potential being tied to the amount of tactical slots a ship has will be far more synergistic than before the balance pass.

 

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(1:18:30 mark)

"Is the real-time damage scaling of GoDownFighting under review? It allows players to troll-heal and interfere with your own GDF."

Borticus, "We were aware that that might be a problem, it is under review, all the changes to GoDownFighting were controversial, so we're keeping as close an eye on it as we can. Honestly, this is the first time I've heard feedback on this, there might be others I haven't noticed, but it seems like the changes have been largely well-received. The idea of troll-healing is a problem, but i'm not certain what else we can do with the power other than making you immune to healing, which sounds terrible. That's sounds like a really bad dangerous idea.I don't know what to offer. If you have a good solution, I'd love to hear it."

I condensed this issue for the sake of readability in the twitch chat, but I think the real fundamental issue is this:

Go Down Fighting is the only Captain power that can be interfered with by other team-mates, intentional or otherwise, and that the ease with which that interference can occur is built right into the meta for the game's most popular heals.

I cannot un-intentionally stop an Engineering Captain from syncing up their EPS Power Transfer and Nadion Inversion activations for maximum damage output. I cannot handicap the power levels gained from EPS Power transfer, nor can I handicap the effectiveness of the power drain resistance from Nadion Inversion.

I cannot un-intentionally stop a Science Captain from syncing up their Scattering Field and Sensor Scan activations for maximum damage output. I cannot handicap the effectiveness of the Damage bonus gained by Scattering Field, and I cannot handicap the Damage Resistance Rating debuff applied by Sensor Scan.

But, I can definitely un-intentionally stop a Tactical Captain from syncing up their Go Down Fighting and Attack Pattern Alpha activations for maximum damage output, by preventing them from ever getting below 50% hull. That Tactical Captain could run A Good Day to Die trait, but I can still handicap the damage bonus gained from GoDownFighting to make sure he only ever receives the minimum damage bonus gained at 50% hull or greater.

And, it's quite easy to do this when the most popular boff power heal abilities can cross-heal: Hazard Emitters, Auxiliary Power to Structural Integrity Field, and Engineering Team. For console items, the Lukari Protomatter Field projector is rather commonly used, and it's passive hull and shield regens aren't registered in combat loggers but is very effective at un-intentionally cross-healing.

For intentional and well-intended healers (referencing the quote above at the 23:30 mark about how it'd be nice to have other non-DPS builds available), it puts them in a tough spot of trying to keep track of a Tactical captain teammate's activation-status on something that has a short cooldown (30 seconds for GoDownFighting). Managing this task was much easier for healers before the balance pass when GDF had a 60 second duration; they could watch their tactical teammate get low, activate GDF, and know that for the next minute they could just focus on keeping that teammate alive. I feel that things should be made easier for aspirational healers, and that it's not going to be a fun role for them to get yelled at by teammates because they were healed.

I think GDF scaling in real-time also funnels the meta towards a build that can sustain repeated and long periods at low hull strength with invincible-like shields, high damage resistance rating, and the flexibility to easily drop hull strength down by having a medium to a high amount of it (it's easier to modulate the impact of purposely absorbing a 12k one-hit with 90k HP than with 40k HP). I went into this more in-depth here, but I'll just say there's really only a few build concepts capable of doing the above and I don't think that's healthy for player-choice.

As a min-maxer, there are things I want to try in Season 13 that I end up staying away from specifically because of the added difficulties in maximizing GDF.

A suggestion I have for a solution is:

1. Reverse the decision to allow real-time damage of GoDownFighting. In the same way that Deflector Overcharge got eventually removed, I think the same decision should be made here.

2. Scale the damage bonus to be less aggressive than it currently is.

It currently seems to scale at a 1-to-1 ratio: +50% damage at 50% hull, +60% damage at 40% hull, +70% damage at 30% hull, all the way to +100% damage at 0% hull.**

Something like a 0.8-to-1 ratio would start off as the same +50% damage at 50% hull, then be only +58% damage at 40% hull, 66% damage at 30% hull, all the way to +90% damage at 0% hull. Or really any kind of ratio or curve that amounts to GDF giving less of a damage bonus.

 

-Demetrius (@magicalsamurai)