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A thought to resolve many issues
eisaakaz
Member Posts: 112 Arc User
I am new to the forums but in the last few weeks I have seen a lot of the same general issues keep popping up.
I am sure many would hate this resolution but Perfect World could implement one single feature and fix 90% of the complaining. I personally think that Cryptic made a huge miss-step when they did not institute a punishment system with the game release.
If you die, you should lose loot, experience/rank, and maybe inventory items. Here is why:
1. many of us have experienced players in Elite STFs who have no business being there, they spend a majority of the match in respawn cool-down. If they lost experience and maybe rank, they would be more careful to upgrade their ships correctly and they would be more likely to learn the missions before they jumped into them.
2. When people complain about the sci ships/skills, or how the cruiser is obsolete, if all the DPS heavy escort captains were punished for their deaths, they would be more likely to build a better rounded ship. I know everyone feels they are Ubber Leet and their 12K DPS is the bomb, but so many die and die and die that in the long run they do very little damage overall. To clarify, ALL deaths should be punished expect in PvP but you would force the players who sacrifice every shred of defense to simply gain DPS to rethink the way they play.
3. Some people are unhappy with certain consoles. Again if you are punished for dying Cryptic would be re-introducing the need for defensive consoles to stay alive. the sci ships would be more important and the tanking cruiser would go back to being the Battleship of the line it was always designed to be.
4. Perfect World cash flow needs. By putting in a punishment system you will get many players who will start buying better ships instead of showing up to missions under prepared. Yes some players would leave, but they aren't spending money as it is so Perfect World could care less whether they come or go.
For the record I love DPS as much as anyone but it isn't the end-all-be-all of the game and I think many players have forgotten that. They have turned STO into a first person shooter in space.
...... and discuss.
Eisaak
I am sure many would hate this resolution but Perfect World could implement one single feature and fix 90% of the complaining. I personally think that Cryptic made a huge miss-step when they did not institute a punishment system with the game release.
If you die, you should lose loot, experience/rank, and maybe inventory items. Here is why:
1. many of us have experienced players in Elite STFs who have no business being there, they spend a majority of the match in respawn cool-down. If they lost experience and maybe rank, they would be more careful to upgrade their ships correctly and they would be more likely to learn the missions before they jumped into them.
2. When people complain about the sci ships/skills, or how the cruiser is obsolete, if all the DPS heavy escort captains were punished for their deaths, they would be more likely to build a better rounded ship. I know everyone feels they are Ubber Leet and their 12K DPS is the bomb, but so many die and die and die that in the long run they do very little damage overall. To clarify, ALL deaths should be punished expect in PvP but you would force the players who sacrifice every shred of defense to simply gain DPS to rethink the way they play.
3. Some people are unhappy with certain consoles. Again if you are punished for dying Cryptic would be re-introducing the need for defensive consoles to stay alive. the sci ships would be more important and the tanking cruiser would go back to being the Battleship of the line it was always designed to be.
4. Perfect World cash flow needs. By putting in a punishment system you will get many players who will start buying better ships instead of showing up to missions under prepared. Yes some players would leave, but they aren't spending money as it is so Perfect World could care less whether they come or go.
For the record I love DPS as much as anyone but it isn't the end-all-be-all of the game and I think many players have forgotten that. They have turned STO into a first person shooter in space.
...... and discuss.
Eisaak
Post edited by eisaakaz on
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Comments
Great points skollufr. I did forget about the instakills and if this was ever implemented, it would instantly turn Hive Onslaught into a ghost mission.
I have been on 2 minute respawn timers once or twice, when I was pushing attacks I had no business pushing, and before I learned to fight gateways and Donatra's ship. She has a steep learning curve.
But I would willing to sacrifice a few points to bring up the skill of other players a bit.
I love STO and this DPS focus has just gotten out of control.... I have become a tad hyper sensitive with the addition of the Andorian Escorts. I have one and I don't die every 30 seconds in it, but I do spend a majority of my time running from fights now and then. I see other Adorian Captains make no attempt to avoid in-coming damage and use death as a hull/shield heal skill.
Eisaak
No, thank you.
Don't get me wrong - you present a good analysis and I'm sure some people would love your proposed changes. I just don't think Cryptic (and probably most of the players?) want STO to become like EVE.
From my own perspective as a casual gamer, I would never play any content where I might lose anything I had to grind thru one of the rep systems to acquire.
If dilithium refining wasn't capped, I might feel differently. But probably not.
R.I.P
The first thing that happens is that players stop helping each other out in situations where death may happen because they have to "save" their exp for when they die in endgame events. For example several times I had to turn down helping a buddy since I knew I had to run Dynamis (endgame raid type deal that had guaranteed deaths no matter how good you were) and needed all my exp so I didn't lose my levels. After those deaths I had to turn down helping again since I had to go grind exp to regain what I lost so that I could be prepared to lose it again the next time. Sounds strange, but that's how it was.
The next thing that happens is that experienced players stop teaching newbies how to run the big endgame style content. Why bother bringing in some newbie that has no idea what to do and will probably lead to me losing my exp? I can just run with my normal crew and not risk it. I found many times that despite wanting to learn and follow directions, the more advanced players simply didn't want to take the risk of training some noob.
This all causes a huge divide in the game community. The elite players section off that content for themselves by refusing to run it with anyone who could risk their exp. That leaves little to no room for up and coming players to break into the endgame scene. It took me three years to break into endgame in XI just because I was playing a class that the elite community deemed "unworthy." I see the same thing happening here. Not a tac in an escort? Get out of my STF. (I've already seen this a little bit here.)
Now for this point here:
STO is already very successful, so no need to worry about PWE's cash flow. In a recent interview Dstahl said that STO is one of PWE's top performing titles. I can find that link later if you need it. Also it wouldn't be "some" players that leave, it would be a whole lot of them. I can't tell you how many people heard about the exp loss in FFXI and just said "lolnope" and never played it. Just as many people played through the lower levels and then just left the game. Yes, that game was successful in it's own right, but it never ever reached the massive populations some games have these days. I think at it's peak it had 500k and then settled down around under 200k. Exp loss is a mechanic for niche games, not large mainstream titles like Star Trek.
I also have to ask what makes you think that the people who would leave aren't spending money? All those rainbow oddys, while really bad, spent $50 on the pack to fly their rainbow crusader. All the new andorian captains who fly straight at the tac cube and then blow up and wonder why spent money on those ships as well. Buying ships doesn't make you a better captain. You can do perfectly well in the freebie ships you get at RA.
Now don't get me wrong...I totally understand your frustration trying to run ESTFs with people who really don't belong there. I've had more than my share of runs that left me banging my head against my desk. But exp loss just isn't the answer you think it is. I've seen the effects it has on a game community and it does far more damage than it does good.
Mine Trap Supporter
Cryptic doesn't care if noobs crowd the elite queues. They want those guys getting the borg processor drops so they spend dilithium on rep gear. W
Cryptics answer to the terrible elite PUGs has always been the same (and I agree with them): Don't like PUGs that suck? Roll with fleeties or form a private queue for an elite STF.
Solves absolutely nothing because you'll get players piggybacking on others.
If you want to really exclude elite STFs to those who are at least semi-competent, restrict the thing to organized teams only. Exceedingly harsh and draconian measures to punish incompetency is not conducive to the development or goodwill of a playerbase.
It's not so much about the quality of gear as it is about how that gear is put together, how the toon is built, what BOFFs are selected, how one pilots the ship, how one times abilities, how one pays attention, etc, etc, etc.
You could outfit a group of five folks with the best ships/gear/character build/etc/etc for a particular ESTF...and that group could still eff it up. You could take another group in TOS Connies and they could complete it.
Gear will help you get it done in 5 min instead of 10 min or even with 2 folks instead of 5...Hell, even alone, eh?
Most folks are massively overgeared for ESTFs because there's no progression. You don't need the STF gear for STFs. There's not the content (outside of NWS) that does.
However, they're massively underskilled - because the PvE up to that point, as easy as ESTFs are - has basically required they play with their pinkytoe while watching YouTube.
Don't get me wrong, here - there's various ESTFs I won't run on my various toons. Some just aren't built for it and with some, lol, I just suck with them for that kind of thing. So I'll stick to a mix of ESTFs/RSTFs with them.
That being said though... imagine if there was actually progression - not gear progression, but content progression.
You do RSTF-A a certain number of times and you can do ESTF-A or RSTF-B.
You do ESTF-A or RSTF-B a certain number of times and you can do ESTF-B or RSTF-C.
You do ESTF-B or RSFT-C a certain number of times...etc, etc, etc.
Back before S7 and Rep, it's something they probably could have done starting at 45...eh?
As it stands now...well...find a team, don't PUG, etc, etc, etc...or hope that Cryptic does something about some sort of content progression.
Perhaps if they do content progression, they could even do some sort of gear progression...course, they'd need to reduce the costs drastically were it a case of going Mk X->Mk XI->Mk XII...
And I agree with the general response that it wouldn't work and/or would change nothing.
I did add the piece about profit for Perfect World because they will not even consider a change that didn't equate to a cash advantage.... they are Ferengi after all!
I have also thought about putting a "pass/fail" requirement on the ability to play Elite missions and agree with the reasons that won't work as well.
Thank you all for the feedback!
Eisaak
Also, since ejecting a player would reduce the chance for a successful or timely completion of the STF, it would dissuade players from voting for an ejection on a whim.
That's not a bad idea T1 Omega is very easy to reach, but it would be a requirement, and any time you have a requirement for something, it reduces the number of people doing it.
In UO (one of the older MMO. Meridian 59 is "technically" first Graphical MMO) When you die, you lose EVERYTHING you carry. I cannot remember if you lose skill points, but all items are gone (even your clothing, you run around in your underwear)
It was pretty harsh (and fun in some days. banks become the place to store everything.
Later the game moved toward more casual and people can protect their item and now even bind them so they won't lose them.
There has been other game that you lose EXP. EverQuest was one of them. At high level, if you lose a level, it will take you months to get it back. It was very grindy and not casual friendly.
I don't think that should be the case with STO. Maybe make STF have to do repair like elite, might be doable (but in elite there are greater reward and heavier damage) but losing exp and items...... I don't think that would fly very well.
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.
This sounds good.
I played PotBS from beta. It had a loss of gear penalty which was hard to stomach if you were a casual player. Between that and the gankfest from involuntary PvP, it went dormant within 2 years of being rolled out. PWE is all about the money, and forcing players to grind even harder or P2W every time someone dies or gets killed will have players bailing like rats off the Titanic.
Romulans: left one homeworld, lost another, third time's the charm?
In the long run, there's a reason newer MMOs didn't adopt EQ's type of DP - and honestly (and as someone who endured it for 4 years); I'm not sad to see it gone. YMMV.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I totally agree
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.
I have been around for 20 years myself, I beta tested Ultima Online and EVE and even played EQ for awhile. Star Trek is the first game I played that didn't have a punishment system. I agree that I don't mind seeing it gone, but I do find that using death as a shield/hull heal skill to be annoying as well.
This is one of the reasons I stopped playing PvP. If I did take out a evenly matched player, he just raced back in and finished the job before all my buffs kicked in. Wish there was a middle ground.
Eisaak
The injuries are already toeing the line of too annoying, the user interface is not only overcomplicated but entirely unnecessary to begin with (a repair item should be automatically used if I have them in inventory), and especially with the shuttle always being selected first I really do understand why some people just let them build up and fix them later.
Actually, outside of the NWS, you can do every mission and STF with DPS alone. And easier and faster as well. Why bother with all the 10% stuff and what else to complete ISE in 10 minutes, when you just can DPS everything down as quickly as possible and be done in 5 minutes?
The simple answer: because you are on a TEAM. the 10% rule is to make sure each member of your TEAM are ready to go.
The second answer which seems to be the most difficult for people to get. The 10% rule makes the mission, easy. No stress, no fuss, no mess.
The DPS rocket jocks, rush in and blow the generator or cube and then the rest of the team has to rush to catch up, or break off to stop the nanite probes. This divides the firepower of the team which slows the whole process down even more.
If you work as a team you 100% of the time will get the bonus, 100% of the time get the optionals, if you go solo guns blazing, you might get done faster but you can't 100% of the time get the bonus or the option.
Eisaak