Star Trek Online: A New Blog, New World & New Mission

Tactical Officer. Current rank Lieutenant Commander Galo.

My second command and new teir 2 ship a Vesper Class Cruiser. U.S.S Ardent. I got one named U.S.S Defender too.

Space the Final Frontier, exploring space in search of Adventure, New Missions and Exploration.

Yes I'm currently playing Star Trek Online (STO). And I started a new Blog as well to chart course in a New World in Interstellar Space.

Shields Up.

Update 02/12/10 - Update Blog Link to new name and url link to: Deflector Shields.

Star Trek Online: Exploring New Worlds

It's been a very long time since I played another game besides WoW since I started playing WoW years ago. I'm open minded enough that I'm not afraid to try my hand at adventuring at something new. From journeys and chronicles of adventures in mythical lands In need of a change I look up to the heavens always wondering about exploring brave new worlds in deep space. With the recent launch of Star Trek Online I decided to try the game as well.

So with open mind pick up Star Trek Online (STO) over the past weekend and so far have found the game enjoyable so far despite a few problems here and there. I'm actually enjoying the game quite a bit overall. And I'm glad it's not WoW nor do I expect it to be either like some people do. I've made it to Lieutenant 10 or LT10. I'm over half a level away from making my promotion it to Lt Cmdr Galo and current Captain of the USS Ardent my starting game light cruiser. I can't wait to make Lt Cmdr at which point I get a shiny brand new command ship a Escort ship as a Tactical Officer.

I'll be starting a new Blog on Wordpress "Shields Up" to chronicle making way around Star Trek universe as Captain of the USS Ardent. I didn't link the blog since I'm mobile blogging and haven't had time to set up the new blog as yet either. Been more fun exploring sector space on patrol and nailing Birds of Prey and other enemy vessels breaking through Shields with my Photon Beams and Torpedoes which is more fun than starting a new blog. But hopefully will get it up soon. Hopefully I can figure out how exactly to take screenshots by then as well.

WoW Vacation

Not feeling the urge to log on to do anything or that I have to log on and play WoW either at this point. So not motivated to log on and do anything.

And I don't think I'll be missing much to do either.

Taking a long WoW vacation while its early and there is plenty of time to do other things for a while. And while I'm at it maybe play other things that's new and fun for a change.

In other news bought me a new Mac Pro laptop earlier today, to somewhat upgrade my Mac G5 desktop I've been using a few years now which still works fine. I guess wont be putting WoW on it for a while either.

Anyway taking a long WoW Vacation.

Not Really Motivated

Not much to talk about this week. Since I've barely logged in and played WoW much all week and from the weekend, not that much to really feel motivated to talk about or passionate to spend several hours writing and constant correction even writing about something.

I don't have any goals either at the moment to feel driven to accomplish and though I can maybe think of many too long to list, I'm just not feeling motivated and motivated to make any. I like to play and do whatever motivates me to do so and to my own internal beats.

Often its a struggle with some form of balance in having a life and playing WoW. Its good to have a job, its good to be employed. But some days I'm just so damn tired after work and that feels like all the time that is. I'm up at 4am in the morning for my long commute and have to be at work by 6am. I don't get home till by 8pm usually. Its the same when that flips and work at nights. Its quite often physically draining and mentally spent.

Last thing on my mind on those days thinking about sitting on my PC and trying to write something interesting to update my blog is not that close to mind. Logging into WoW and dealing with all else that comes with logging in and dealing with guildies and their constant drama is not something I want to have to deal with when I really want to unwind and get a little peace of mind or be left alone. So I don't feel that motivated to want to log on at such times.

But day by day I fall behind on my 2 daily Frost of Emblem that I can gain from Heroics daily or even the weekly quest. I'm ever so slowly getting falling months behind on that since I'm slowly not feeling internally motivated to log on daily to do so.

I'm just feeling tired from work life and the daily grind of going through life and being damn tired and feeling too tired to do some other things while needing to do other things or besides WoWing.

Many a times I've thought about logging in to play after a long day at work. But a few mins on the couch to slowly unwind and before you know it a complete new day or too late and never even made it to playing WoW let along Blogging. So I slowly fall months behind on things and on my Frost Emblems and day by day it feels even less motivating to even try and catch up. The reality of things is i'll continue to fall behind and thats not motivating to me.

A bit hard to be that motivated at time. Just the reality of life for one guy playing WoW. So goes my Life and Times. Life keeps happening to you while doing everything else, even while trying to enjoy playing WoW whenever that is.

We all have some form of real lives or complex lives each of us all and that has real impact on how much or how we even play the game itself.

Signs of Things to Come, Tank AE and AE Tanking

And interesting WoW Forum thread and some thoughts from GC in this thread about Protect Warrior possible dps increase yet relevant as well to all tanks as a whole and possible signs of things to come in the future at some point. Clearly some things here are on Blizzards radar. Such as the oversimplified use and style of AoE tanking everywhere all the time and the whole AoE Tanking game.

A few things:

1) We're much more concerned about tank single target dps than we are tank AE dps. Especially in Icecrown, there are virtually no fights where the tank's dps contribution on an AE fight is really going to amount to much. You can make an argument that the single target dps can be relevant on e.g. Festergut (though again, I still don't think there are that many cases where the difference between success and fail are the tank's dps).

2) You may find Devastate boring, but Devastate is a very easy ability to buff because even small tweaks have large effects given how often it is used. Buffing say Shield Slam (or even Def Stance) would make the PvP balance we're trying to solve even worse. You'd have to buff Revenge enormously to see a difference. Any buff to Heroic Strike affects dps warriors in PvE as well who aren't hurting at all. Some of the ideas about e.g. Rend are interesting, but we're pretty sure the last thing the warrior needs is yet another ability to manage while tanking. Long term that might be the kind of thing we consider, but given that we're looking for a safe and easy buff, that's not the kind of thing we want to mess with now. (Consider that even if we did a PTR, who is going to be on there when the competition is new bosses in Icecrown?)

3) There are differences in how tanks generate AE threat, and therefore damage. Warriors are jealous of the DK and especially paladin persistent area-based damage, and the others are jealous of the warrior's burst AE threat on incoming adds. Druids are jealous of anyone with more than one button. :(

So, yes, one way of handling this is to give every tank a burst AE attack like Thunderclap, a sustained AE attack like Consecrate, and a mass taunt like Challenging Shout just for good measure. That's the kind of thing we are really reluctant to do though because it just works against the justification for having 4 tanking classes when they all perform the same way including using the same kind of tools. Now, on the other hand no tank should be horribly gimped in any of those situations, and except for rare exceptions they really aren't. We're mostly talking quality of life issues here. (One such exception: DK offtanks on Yogg had trouble picking up adds and the dps couldn't afford to wait. As long as there aren't a ton of fights like this though, we don't think it's a systemic flaw.)

4) Long-term, the paladin manner of generating AE damage and threat is probably too good, especially given how simple it is. To be honest, we have very mixed feelings on the whole AE tanking game. We brought the druid and warrior more in line with the paladin for fear of recreating the Shattered Halls / Mount Hyjal experience, where other tanks just weren't competitive. What that has led to of course is the AE tank + AE style of damage for almost every pull. You need the tools to be able to tank legitimate adds fights (imagine lots of incoming mobs), but does that mean every pull needs to devolve into that? We'd like to see less AE overall, so buffing everyone's AE tools isn't going to be tops on our agenda. That does however mean that we really can't afford to have a "best AE tank", and while things are more fair there than they were in BC, they aren't fair enough.

Sorry for going off topic here, but these kinds of questions have come up a lot lately, so I figured I'd just share some of our discussions publicly.

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Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer

I guess if you read GC's comments that it can be read different ways to different people. Such is as everything else in WoW. Anyway Paladin Nerf incomming! ETA Dunno!

Seems to me that's the AE Tanking style that is now may not be as quite intended by Blizzard or probably somewhat out of hand with some imminent changes for the future. But the issue and more is on Blizzards radar for Cataclysm in whatever form changes may come with a less AoE form of Tanking perhaps. Who knows! And I guess in a way this is somewhat related to the debate that's going around with Tank AoE and CC. As well the thinking that everything now is just AoE with all tanks. Tanking without much thought required, unintelligent mob trash packs that are just all AoE all the time it seems, especially in Heroics and some raids. Elite trash mobs just don't feel all that elite anymore, more like pushovers with everyone AoEing all the time.

What I really would like to see for Cataclysm with tanking is not everything being a AoE tanking grind like it is now, that's just boring at some point. Nor would I quite wish to see a great amount of CC return to the overall game, yet some measure of it for relevance in intelligent trash pack design to return for the sake of intelligent tanking among all the tanking classes and some form of intelligent dpsing as well as a result. Much of that is missing in WotLK. See Blessing of Kings as well for some intelligent thought here and older posts.

As far as Heroics and maybe some raids it don't even feel all that heroic anymore when all some tanks do is just run into a pack of mobs as a tank with no consequence whatsoever of anything or abilities a pack of mobs can do. Add some form of intelligent reaction required to how a tank reacts or intelligently pulls a pack of mobs for a challenge as well challenge the dps as well. It was good to give all tanks viable tools to AoE dps yet much of that has lead to just AoE Tanking with much lack of thought and with many dps who do much the same.

Its to be seen how things will turn out, but it seems its on Blizzards radar for the future and Cataclysm to focus on less AoE overall. Be interesting to see how that all turns out as well as it relates to Tanking. Who knows what Blizzard will deliver in the future....

Hoping Blizzard can deliver a fun expansion with Tanking with a bit more Intelligence and with more a lively challenge required for the often bored dps as well.