I agree. Even if beam damage remained the same or close, adjusting the power drain would balance out the disparity somewhat.

My apoligies then as it came off as another post with hidden agendas hidden withon agendas as they all tend to sound like after a while.

Uh, provided that you build a cruiser right, I can find little to no difference between a beam shot and a cannon burst. A fleet excelsior can MATCH (Not almost, MATCH) almost any escort I have for firepower. A Fleet Assault Cruiser will be able to sustain that firepower, even in broadside.

Beams are fine. They're just not loved right.

No. Successful PvP is fun, that is all. We don't need any dogmas.

Especially not with a game that has this IP in its name. Only a handful of TV show battles were anything but 1v1.

Moreover, the overwhelming amount of PvE content is 1vN engagements, with a good share of 1v1.

A game that wants to be that IP needs to be able to support both single-player and team gameplay, even in PvP.

Uh? Where do you read that from this:

"I would like to point out that escorts can do a cruiser's job much, much, much, much, much better than a cruiser can do an escort's," etc.



Edit: Reading the above, I must say this all drifts too much offtopic. The important conclusion from this thread is that many people seem to agree that beams need some adjustment to improve them. How exactly that adjustment should be done is probably best decided by the development team, but since so many people agree on the basic problem, I find it very likely that there actually is one.

Actually I'm beginning to wonder if beams are underpowered.

Or are turrets overpowered? I vote we remove turrets, or increase their power drain to 10 and cut their damage in half. This is half sarcastic.

What is the sense of equiping DHCs on a KDF battle cruiser if you don't have the turn rate to use them in PvP? Every escort will simply park in your back, where only the turrets tickle their shield, while the majority of firepower, the DHCs in the front, cannot unload their damage. Even normal cannons are useless, because they also don't fire backwards.

Sure, in PvE, the KDF battle cruisers are superior in damage compared with the Fed ones, because of cannon damage. In PvE you can even equip the BortasQ with DHC. PvP is a quite different thing.

In PvE, only if Fed cruiser using the Aux2Bat build, they can match the damage with beam arrays. However, for this they need to give up alot of tanking ability, while KDF battle cruiser can go heavy tank and do good damage.

I agree with the beam power drain mechanic being bugged. But I also agree with this from OP:

Ok, FAW is affecting all beams. But what about BO and Target Subsystem? Make those "all beam" abilities (assault cruiser firing 8 BO3, or sci going with 16 Target Shields) would buff their damage dealing significantly. Would also bring the beams back to escorts.

Of course BO would have power drain issues, but well, some drawbacks are needed.

One thing that occured to me, is if beams and turrets for that matter do not actually "help" the defensive embassy console procs. The dmg output is low, mitigated by shield resistances and they can proc shield or hull heal, hence in effect actually helping the target.

I kind-of agree with this - kind-of because BO whilst being able to deliver a phenomenal single strike only really adds up to the DPS you'd do firing all your beams anyway - it's good for punching through a shield facing but you don't really do any extra DPS with it.

But if all 6/7/8 beams hit with the same force? You'd vaporize whatever you hit fun, but sadly not practical.

I've largely stayed out of this debate since it's been going on pretty much since the game went live (although the disparity is greater now). Personally, I think on a well-built Fleet cruiser beams do DPS just fine - I'd like to see their power-drain reduced but that's it really.

1.) Beam arrays don't fire backward either. A cruiser equipped with beams will either have 3 arrays and a torpedo, or 4 arrays, to shoot at the escort riding their six. Which would do exactly nothing to it.

2.) The 5% of STO players that specialize in PVP should have a 5% stake in the game's balance decisions.

Here's my problem with this kind of thinking. When you ask these sort of people how to "properly" build a cruiser, they will be all to happy to describe how they run weapon batteries, nadion inversion, EPTW, BFAW-doffs, EPS Transfer, and the preserved heart of a witchdoctor, to power their beams.

All of this, to be only moderately weaker than dual cannons instead of catastrophically crippled by power drain.

Meanwhile, where's the people running dual cannons having power drain problems? They don't exist.

If you can seriously look at ship A, which is devoting half of its capacity just to not fall flat on its face when it tries to fire its weapons, and compare it to ship B which plugs in a set of weapons and sets power to maximum and then never worries about it ever again, and not realize that this is a serious gameplay balance problem, then I don't even know how to talk to you. It's like trying to explain the principles of mathematics to somebody who thinks the counting numbers are one, two, purple, dog, squish.