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A definition of problems: perceived elitism and perceived EZ mode
savnoka
Member Posts: 176 Arc User
Earlier today, there was an amusing troll thread about elitists in the game, which was locked in good order. Normally, I'd toss rambling like that back under the bridge from whence it came, but a few of the rambling points brought up by the troll are worth discussing.
Everyone knows that the later Romulan missions, particularly the Defense of New Romulus, are far more challenging than the "destroy four groups of badly set up PVE enemies" that were the fare for most of the non-featured series PVE encountered prior to that point. A few people have also found the remastered Klingon early series missions to be challenging. And consistently, we have no end of people in zone chat complaining about elite STF's and how 'noobs' come in and ruin them, or how low DPS types cause failures in the Fleet Alerts.
One concept that gets tossed into this repeatedly is 'elitism'. I've never really grasped the reason why people dislike elitism, and that's not because I have some over-inflated opinion of myself and think I'm 'elite'. An elite is just that: A group of people considered to be the best in a particular society or category.
The new PVE missions were not that hard for me to beat, but then again I was rolling around in a fleet ship for one and the adapted TSD for the other, with lots of high level gear since I have tons of Dil, EC and ZEN saved up.
That does not mean the missions are 'fair'. For a person just starting the game with no good history of fighting and knowing exactly how the skills work, I suspect the Defense of NR must be nightmarish. The PVE in the game leading up to that point simply does NOT teach a player HOW to handle situations like that (manuver, use the battle cloak and EM, let the self-repairing NPC ships soak, kill off the small fry and disengage when you get too beat up, heal outside 15k, etc).
There are guides and threads , but the common tone we get in conversations about these kind of missions is that people need to learn to play. And that's certainly true. There's a gigantic wiki full of information, dozens of threads, and plenty of fleets willing to help players be better.
On the flipside, though, this perceived elitism is not helping anything. Encounters in PVE tailored to the people who are experienced and geared out are just punishingly hard to those who are not. The counter arguments -- "n00bs won't listen / I got through so can they / back then the STFs were harder" -- are all valid, but they don't remove the reality of the situation.
I think there needs to be more content in the early part of the PVE storylines that teaches players how to handle tougher content. And there needs to be access to gear that allows players to participate in the STF's without being one-shotted constantly. I got my mk XI stuff for STF's in the old method in under a week. I dare anyone to play only a couple of hours a day and gear their toons up that quick with the current system starting from scratch.
Thoughts?
Everyone knows that the later Romulan missions, particularly the Defense of New Romulus, are far more challenging than the "destroy four groups of badly set up PVE enemies" that were the fare for most of the non-featured series PVE encountered prior to that point. A few people have also found the remastered Klingon early series missions to be challenging. And consistently, we have no end of people in zone chat complaining about elite STF's and how 'noobs' come in and ruin them, or how low DPS types cause failures in the Fleet Alerts.
One concept that gets tossed into this repeatedly is 'elitism'. I've never really grasped the reason why people dislike elitism, and that's not because I have some over-inflated opinion of myself and think I'm 'elite'. An elite is just that: A group of people considered to be the best in a particular society or category.
The new PVE missions were not that hard for me to beat, but then again I was rolling around in a fleet ship for one and the adapted TSD for the other, with lots of high level gear since I have tons of Dil, EC and ZEN saved up.
That does not mean the missions are 'fair'. For a person just starting the game with no good history of fighting and knowing exactly how the skills work, I suspect the Defense of NR must be nightmarish. The PVE in the game leading up to that point simply does NOT teach a player HOW to handle situations like that (manuver, use the battle cloak and EM, let the self-repairing NPC ships soak, kill off the small fry and disengage when you get too beat up, heal outside 15k, etc).
There are guides and threads , but the common tone we get in conversations about these kind of missions is that people need to learn to play. And that's certainly true. There's a gigantic wiki full of information, dozens of threads, and plenty of fleets willing to help players be better.
On the flipside, though, this perceived elitism is not helping anything. Encounters in PVE tailored to the people who are experienced and geared out are just punishingly hard to those who are not. The counter arguments -- "n00bs won't listen / I got through so can they / back then the STFs were harder" -- are all valid, but they don't remove the reality of the situation.
I think there needs to be more content in the early part of the PVE storylines that teaches players how to handle tougher content. And there needs to be access to gear that allows players to participate in the STF's without being one-shotted constantly. I got my mk XI stuff for STF's in the old method in under a week. I dare anyone to play only a couple of hours a day and gear their toons up that quick with the current system starting from scratch.
Thoughts?
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Post edited by savnoka on
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Just as you will have people by the millions paying for lottery tickets because a non-zero chance (however small) at a huge payoff is always better than zero chance, it's pretty much a given that you will have so-called "n00bs" skipping the relative chump change of the Normal STFs and going straight to the much more lucrative Elites.
Off the top of my head the only way I see to mitigate this is to buff Normal STF rewards and/or nerf Elite STF rewards so that there isn't such a great disparity between the two. One good way to do this might be to add Borg Neural Processors to the Normal reward mix. (IIRC, at the moment they are the only type of reward you can only get at the Elite level.)
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page
The flip side to that is what's to stop those who can easily rofl stomp Elites going and farming easy mode as it would be faster. Arguably as fast as some of the foundry exploits that's were such a no no. The OP raises an excellent point that the game itself does little to teach past point click spacebar. And don't even get me started on how poorly the game teaches builds.
Not true. While rare, I have obtained a total of 2 from non-elite STFs
::WARNING:: This game is not intended for use as a source of self-esteem.
Why would anyone play Elite STF's if the normals that are MUCH quicker and easier offer the exact same rewards?
Processors are Elite only because the MK XII sets aren't supposed to be easy to get, because people that have those sets are supposed to be somewhat decent at the Elite STF's they are intended to be used in.
This isn't a problem you can really solve, saying ''lock them out of elites until they've mastered normals'' is pointless, strategies that work in normal don't always work in elite, not using strategies at all in even ISE is a recipe for failure, while you can pretty much just do what the hell you want in ISN.
People need to educate themselves before trying Elites, read guides, watch videos.
The game teaches players how to make effective builds?? Where??
Ah, there's the rub. There's very little incentive for "n00bs" to educate themselves in that manner, as every minute they might spend doing so is one less minute they're spending, you know, actually playing. You certainly don't get any loot drops or dil from watching some video or reading some guide. So, quite understandably, they'd rather spend that time playing the game, and Cryptic/PWE would rather have them spend that time playing the game too.
(As a side note, I've found the difficulty gap between IGE and IGN to be even wider than for ISE vs. ISN, at least once you hit the final chamber. In IGE I have a devil of a time just staying out of the soup while moving between the center and the corners, whereas IGN has those forcefield bridges to make that task much easier.)
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page
thanks for making my point
When I was leveling my Roms (50 Sci and my Tac is at like 40 now), I only used gear that I found as drops and didn't buy any C Store ships.
It was just a horrible assemblage of different energy types of DHCs and turrets without any Tac consoles to back them. And you know what? I flew right through the missions without much sweat.
All you need to know is a basic understanding of how the abilities work and that NPCs are dumb. Seriously. CSV + Torp Spread melts every single group, every time, without fail. Just queue them up and let Autofire do it's thing.
'n00bs! Stay Out! 'Cuz I'm 'Leet an' u r Nawt!'
The disrespect shown by these sorts of threads is all too typical of the Internet everywhere. Because most of the people who display this attitude on the Webs view the rest of us as some sort of non person. Which the Internet encourages strongly. No one interacts with an actual human being. We all use our own computer to respond to something we see posted or listen to. The people with this attitude are thinking this way all along. Then, the Internet comes along and gives them a way to express their contempt for the rest of us without fear of the consequences such an attitude garners quickly in Real Life.
And when someone else reacts, or as is more common, over reacts to their display(mea cupla. In spades, lol), it reinforces negative behavior. The people with this perceived superiority suddenly have been handed power over someone else. Power utilized without self discipline or restraint corrupts.
There are people who play STO far better than I do. Always will be. There are people I play STO far better than. Always will be. I am willing to bet each and every one of the people who read this thread or post here are far better at one or two things than I am.
Good for them. I'm really happy someone found a place in life which treats them well. However, running around here crowing publicly over an alleged superiority over other STO players in some very specific parts of the game does not make someone, ahem, " 'Leet!". If the biggest accomplishment in someone's life is being an elitist about how they play a somewhat average PC game based on a forty five year old TV and film series which is sometimes badly written and poorly acted science fiction? Perhaps pity, instead of anger, is what we should feel when we read a thread about how special someone is.
I've said it once, i'll say it again; It's time for a PvE Bootcamp.
Because the way to solve this is to give people homework instead of letting them play the game.
yea I get that and I don't disagree, however there is no funneling mechanism to it. In my experience those who can't be bothered to check a website or ask around aren't gonna do bootcamp either.
Thanks to the rep/fleet system now there is absolutely no normal play progression anymore to get peoples feet wet.
This is the core of the problem. Both that creating an effective build is not exactly easy for a new player who is relying on information gained primarily by playing the game nor are many abilities even remotely balanced or obvious about how strong or weak they are.
Who would think that tactical team would be a more powerful defensive ability than engineering team just from the descriptions for example? Or that EPtS is significantly more effective at keeping you alive than TSS?
Anyway, yes, players can improve themselves by seeking out text or video tutorials, or participating in a hypothetical PvE Bootcamp. But they have to take the initiative to do so. To really solve the problem, you need to find a way to slowly bring people up to a decent skill level as the storyline progresses. Pretty much every new player is going to start by doing the storyline. What should happen is something like this:
1. As the player progresses, the "tutorial" should keep going. NPC contacts and pop up tips should be pointing out things the player recently gained access to. Just ranked up? An explanation of a few handy new Boff powers should be a part of the rank up mission. Story mission set for a minimum rank that would have just gotten a new Captain power? Explain it in the mission the way Tovan talks about THY in the Romulan tutorial.
2. Make people use what they've learned. Not bothering to read this stuff and thinking you can just spacebar through without actually leveraging your Boff and Captain powers? Well, you're going to have a hell of a time completing the missions after that point. Better go back and see what you're not doing.
3. Implement a comprehensive "build help" section in the in game help. This would give the basics of how to set up each ship class with (cheap) example builds for the free and +1 ships at each tier. Also, an explanation of Boff and Captain powers and how they relate to each other, basic tactics, etc. Advanced topics would include things like alpha striking, team support/healing, shared cooldowns and cycling of multiple copies of a power, etc.
4. If the player is still repeatedly failing the mission, two things should happen. First, it should give suggestions related to that particular mission. Tactics related specifically to that mission (kill this ship first, stay out of the firing arc of that weapon, etc). Second, it should link the player into the build help mentioned above so they can consider fixing up their ship.
Really, this isn't much more than what any single player game out there already does. If you're playing Assassin's Creed or something, it already introduces you to your tools and powers slowly, gives you a chance to play with them, then forces you to use your new skills. The only new quirk here is that STO is more complicated, so an online reference accessible in game becomes necessary.
Unfortunately, this would require extensive remastering of all the early PvE content, so I don't see it actually happening just as I've laid it out.
I have been floating in the top of the noob play style skill group. I have not put in the time to educate myself on all the STF's. I play the ones I have figured out myself or ruined for others enough that I don't TRIBBLE it up now. I know I should read the guides (my fleet has some) or watch the tube videos. But I'm also trying to teach myself how to lay gas line underground , learn how to use my new chainsaw and how to raise the winter temperature of my two car garage so that it does not get to 10 degrees again this Winter. Learning the game is ON my list, but there is a lot on my list. I still want to have fun, hear the pew pew, and advance.
What would Eite people do? WWEPD?
My largest impediment to learning this game is that nothing Cryptic says about their game is trustworthy. Beams have been broken how long? They stay mute and watch us load all this buggy, broken stuff on our ships because we don't know what works, what doesn't, and what works very differently than it appears.
There also appears to be one time to buy all the equipment you need. At the very end of tier 5 reputation. All the gameplay otw up is what, waiting? Making do? Loading second best?
The real problem is flying in and not knowing what to do. Each STF has a set of DOs and DO NOTs that can make or break the instance. Even my suggestions above wouldn't teach people those things, but a new player would at least be able to stay alive long enough to learn.
ozzie, if you really want to learn and have fun doing so, I'd suggest joining a helpful fleet. Or take advantage of the one you may already be a member of. There are many fleets out there (including our crew at SSOG) that are happy to run players through missions for training purposes. That way, you can do it without the pressure and incoming rage bombs you'd get in a PUG.
Slower leveling with perhaps a short exam before promotions to see if the player actually knows what is going on might help, along with tutorials that are part of the game play.
For example, before promotion and acquisition of the Tier II ship, you may have along the way met some NPC who explains how BOff powers work, along with the explanation of how a captain's skills enhance these powers. During the promotion process your character might be asked to complete an exam by explaining how to slot BOff powers in the tray and how to execute them in combat.
I'm sure you guys get the idea, and could probably write the missions yourselves if given the chance. The idea is to not have players go to level fifty and be slammed in the face by all they don't know
Private matches ofcourse should not have the seperation.
BUT thats a complicated bad solution to the main problem and the problem is learning how to do them and that comes with experiance. So the best solution would be to open them up earlier for players to start doing minus the reputation reward and give EC, Dilithium and a random item of green or better quality. Enough reward to make it worthwhile to do once a day. So this way they can do those like you can Starbase 24 or borg alerts at early levels and by the time you hit vice admiral you have done them before.
As for the borg alerts... Seperate them into level. 0-10, 10 - 20 etc etc. Or difficulty adjusted to lowest player and higher levels weapons are nerfed to make it equal.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
If gear is worth a nickel, then strategy's worth a dollar. With a good officer setup and knowledge of the STF, you can pull your weight with gear gained from levelling, even in Elites.
A newbie being overgeared can be just as detrimental to the STF, since any "shoot the wrong thing at the wrong time" problems are accelerated by higher DPS.
wait, no...it won't! most people still play horrible and have less than miserable boff setups.
Did alot of azura nebula these last weeks...it is sad to see people get blown up in there.:(
for farming omega gear, ISE is good enough even with PUG. if i wanted the optional accolate i'd ask in my fleet.
I am in favor of increasing the difficulty of the missions (if you don't fail, you don't learn what doesn't work well), and increasing the incentive to team (another thing sorely lacking in the game). My issue really is the disparity in difficulty between episode/story/leveling missions, and end game.
New players are essentially tricked into believing they are doing well, or exceptionally well because they can cruise through the PVE content... only to hit end game, and face the wrath of the trolls/griefers/elitists... I honestly dont see this as a player fault... i see it as a problem with difficulty on the way to end game.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
yup knowledge is pwr I've seen brand new toons(but with an old @handle) in full/partial aegis set & lvl 40 freebie ships completely own EStfs, and I've seen fully tricked out LB ships fair so poorly it makes you cry.
It's one of the reasons I think there were threads floating around about roms being OP, for awhile you had a lot of old hands flying new ships skewing the curve all at once.
While that works in theory, in practice there are all sorts of ways those calculations fail in practice.
What if I'm an experienced player rolling a new character? I can certainly hold my own in ISE the first time through.
What if I'm an experienced player who just knows how to set a ship up well? I can get acceptable results with green gear.
How, exactly, do you judge somebody's Boff setup? This is largely a matter of opinion and involves a lot of creativity. Do we really want to deny a clever build because it doesn't match a predefined set of acceptable ones?
If you care so much about these things than I think you need to re-evaluate some life priorities.
And this is coming from someone who logs about 40-50hrs a week in gaming so no 'casual' here.
I agree with this so much, the old EDC system was great for progression and Reputation is just to create a dilithium sink. If I didn't have 5 Alts churning out 8K Dil/day I wouldn't have been able to get my Mk X Assimilated set for my Romulan, and I am still struggling to get it back for my KDF (Who has Mk XII KHG).
Back then, if you were good, you could just start off on ESTFs, and grab a Mk XII set quickly because of how the drops were done. I did this with two of my earlier characters after I mastered the space STFs. Optionally, getting the borg set was only 15 EDC - which was possible for anyone. And we all know that the Borg Set is the best set in the game.
Now you need to pay 45K Dil for the same (?) set. (idk if the Mk XI set is the old borg set.). 45K Dil is 5 days of grinding STFs and not spending any Dilithium if you only have 1 character.
15 EDC was only a few hours of grinding normal STFs for someone who wasn't even Lv 50.
Also the Mk XII weapons (The [Borg] ones) allowed you to gear extremely quickly. The best option new players have is to grab Mk XII whites, but people think white = bad. But they aren't.
Now Elitism? I can do 2K DPS in a shuttle, I can do 20K DPS in a ship, and I can do 10K DPS with an Eng that can tank everything and keep aggro on everything in most things. And I never payed a cent on this game.
Yes, I'm elitist, but I am trying to tone it down a bit. Gotta be nice and pass my knowledge on because 99% of the community have no idea. No idea at all.
there is a Difficulty Option in STO, Cryptic needs to learn how to use it, and that is all there is to it.
They messed up the gameflow with this mission badly, they reacted and patched it 2 days ago.
If you want to discuss the new rebalanced version, go ahead, but there is no need whatsoever for a Elite-ism vs. Noob-ishness discussion.
Every game has its good and bad players, that is what difficulty options are for.
I think one of the side discussions going on in this thread actually has some merit though. The game does very little to assist a newer player in mastering certain facets during normal play. Unless that player is willing/able to learn from sources outside the core game (websites, video's, fleet mates, friends, ect) they actually have very little chance of reaching even a modicum of their potential.
Everybody makes mistakes, I have seen lonnnng time players do bone head stuff, including myself...it happens...If you do not like players that are on their own program then do not group with them...group with as many friends as possible and you wont have as many problems.
With that said...I have had uppity players say TRIBBLE to me that was uncalled for, its not helping when you are on your "pedestal" looking down at the little people being "ALL THAT". I have had players tell me off too for trying to help...It is probably the way it is taken over the chat channel to be honest, in the heat of battle sort of speak.
In closing...everybody was a "nOOb" at one time, give the new/casual player a break and maybe we will have a pretty cool game for decades to come.
coffee...black...keep it coming...:cool:
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