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voxlagind
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adjudicatorhawk,
Your time and efforts on these forums the last few days has been greatly appreciated. We rarely get this level of transparency and insight into the thoughts of the designers, and as passionate as our responses may become, we are thankful that you took the time to be honest with us.
It's easy to be passionate about a game we have all made into an online community. Most of that passion stems from our greater understanding of how the game works and flows, and just how much potential it has to make the leap from "almost there, but just missing the mark", to one of the best available MMO's in it's genre.
We recognize and accept that, like any MMO, Star Trek Online has to cater to the largest group of players first: the casual players. We don't think that you're mistaken in that mentality. However, we do feel that in balancing the game around casual play, you make it impossible to balance the game at high-end levels.
Most casual players eventually start to evolve to become more interested and invested in the game. Instead of having a diverse, stable end-game for more skilled players, the game starts to funnel them into a place where they realize that the options for success are actually very few. There aren't many things that work exceptionally well when facing off against an actual challenging opponent. It becomes frustrating to the evolving casual, because it isn't much fun.
What the casual player didn't realize before was that it would benefit them more for designers to balance for a stable end-game, and then work backwards to ease the slope of the learning curve for the casual players. They don't realize that balancing for the casual player is what leads to such a huge imbalance when playing with or against more highly skilled players. The casuals play a game where every ability is effective, so when a higher-skilled player who knows better comes around, they get absolutely crushed. This is why casual players often feel that high skilled players must be hacking. This is why there is so much complaining about skilled players sharing the same queues as casual players.
This is exactly why PvP and end-game PvE are where they are now.
This is where our community can help you!
It has become apparent to us that the developers feel that PvP and PvE are two completely unrelated entities. But they're not. PvP is actually a huge indicator when it comes to the parts of PvE the developers are constantly admitting may need some reworking.
An example (from your own admission in another post) is the technician duty officer, where you feel the recharge rate might be too high. But you're worried that changing it will have a negative effect in PvE. And you should be worried. What you're figuring out now is what the PvP community has known for a long time: Cruisers are as good as other ships in the game only after you effectively DOUBLE all their bridge officer abilities with technicians. Without technicians, no one plays a cruiser outside of a healing role (which right now is a role that isn't needed for PvE) because they just aren't good ships.
This isn't a new discovery, and anyone following the bleeding edge of PvP would already know this. And this is just one tiny aspect of the game that top-level PvP has insight into. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that PvP is the best testing ground in the game for balance, as it offers the most difficult and challenging opponents. Not only that, but our community rigorously tests EVERYTHING to understand if it can provide an advantage.
We can help, we want to help, and we are a free resource just waiting to be tapped. Star Trek Online needs only minor changes to go from a casual-only game to a serious contender in the genre. Believe it or not, we want that more than you probably do.
It doesn't begin with us telling you what to specifically change. It begins with you starting to ask us for better understanding of where the game is now, and accepting that it's in a pretty tough spot.
We're ready to go.
And if you stay as involved as you've been so far, we're glad to have you around.
Your time and efforts on these forums the last few days has been greatly appreciated. We rarely get this level of transparency and insight into the thoughts of the designers, and as passionate as our responses may become, we are thankful that you took the time to be honest with us.
It's easy to be passionate about a game we have all made into an online community. Most of that passion stems from our greater understanding of how the game works and flows, and just how much potential it has to make the leap from "almost there, but just missing the mark", to one of the best available MMO's in it's genre.
We recognize and accept that, like any MMO, Star Trek Online has to cater to the largest group of players first: the casual players. We don't think that you're mistaken in that mentality. However, we do feel that in balancing the game around casual play, you make it impossible to balance the game at high-end levels.
Most casual players eventually start to evolve to become more interested and invested in the game. Instead of having a diverse, stable end-game for more skilled players, the game starts to funnel them into a place where they realize that the options for success are actually very few. There aren't many things that work exceptionally well when facing off against an actual challenging opponent. It becomes frustrating to the evolving casual, because it isn't much fun.
What the casual player didn't realize before was that it would benefit them more for designers to balance for a stable end-game, and then work backwards to ease the slope of the learning curve for the casual players. They don't realize that balancing for the casual player is what leads to such a huge imbalance when playing with or against more highly skilled players. The casuals play a game where every ability is effective, so when a higher-skilled player who knows better comes around, they get absolutely crushed. This is why casual players often feel that high skilled players must be hacking. This is why there is so much complaining about skilled players sharing the same queues as casual players.
This is exactly why PvP and end-game PvE are where they are now.
This is where our community can help you!
It has become apparent to us that the developers feel that PvP and PvE are two completely unrelated entities. But they're not. PvP is actually a huge indicator when it comes to the parts of PvE the developers are constantly admitting may need some reworking.
An example (from your own admission in another post) is the technician duty officer, where you feel the recharge rate might be too high. But you're worried that changing it will have a negative effect in PvE. And you should be worried. What you're figuring out now is what the PvP community has known for a long time: Cruisers are as good as other ships in the game only after you effectively DOUBLE all their bridge officer abilities with technicians. Without technicians, no one plays a cruiser outside of a healing role (which right now is a role that isn't needed for PvE) because they just aren't good ships.
This isn't a new discovery, and anyone following the bleeding edge of PvP would already know this. And this is just one tiny aspect of the game that top-level PvP has insight into. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that PvP is the best testing ground in the game for balance, as it offers the most difficult and challenging opponents. Not only that, but our community rigorously tests EVERYTHING to understand if it can provide an advantage.
We can help, we want to help, and we are a free resource just waiting to be tapped. Star Trek Online needs only minor changes to go from a casual-only game to a serious contender in the genre. Believe it or not, we want that more than you probably do.
It doesn't begin with us telling you what to specifically change. It begins with you starting to ask us for better understanding of where the game is now, and accepting that it's in a pretty tough spot.
We're ready to go.
And if you stay as involved as you've been so far, we're glad to have you around.
[SIGPIC]http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/image.php?type=sigpic&userid=93695767000&dateline=1347284393[/SIGPIC]
Lag Industries STO/TOR Guild
Lag Industries STO/TOR Guild
Post edited by voxlagind on
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There are some elite pve-ers who test things as extensive as the best pvp-ers but they do it in the dominant environment of the game.
Just because we don't pvp doesn't mean we aren't as obsessed about every little bit of performance we can get out of our ships.
Though I agree the devs need to ask for help these days. They aren't doing a great job of fixing the games problems by themselves.
I do admit, that I was writing this to stir the feelings of PvPers (as I wrote in in the PvP forums). I didn't mean to imply that there aren't some amazing PvE'ers out there too. I'm sure you have probably found the same thing that we have: the higher you progress, the less you actually have to work with.
No offense was intended
EDIT: I facepalmed after re-reading the line I wrote: "the higher you progress, the less you actually have to work with", because it sums up my entire wall of text in one sentence. I need to be more concise.
Lag Industries STO/TOR Guild
That's something that's oft overlooked in many of the PvP vs. PvE arguments...there are PvE folks that hate the state of PvE more than anybody else.
It's not so much a PvP vs. PvE thing...it's not even a case of Hardcore vs. Casual - what Cryptic's doing, although it may very well be what's keeping the game afloat and allowing further development...it's gone well beyond Casual. Even average/casual gamers are wondering what's going on...Cryptic's gone that far with it and there's no end in sight.
Well said, and I agree.
There is a difference.
This is coming from someone whos background in MMOs is one of the performance obsessed, PvE environment crushing, 40 to 80 man raid games, etc.
That's right, I'm a reformed PvEr. :P
When many objectively minded PvPers evaluate something, they ask if its balanced - because whatever it is, it can be used on them as well as their opponents.
PvE lacks this dynamic. PvErs only use their powers on their opponents.
It should be no surprise that the PvE forums focus on
A) Powers/ships/abilities they feel underperform.
It's exceedingly rare that they ever go into "X is too powerful" outside of players who only play 1 ship/captain type and have a grudge against other ships/captain types.
Generally they might say the opposite, the elite ones anyway, "Y content is too easy". They like their power, they want to keep it. They "earned" it, now they want to crush new, harder enemies with it.
Elite PvErs who test things are more conerned with crushing the hell out of PvE, finishing things in record times. More power to them, go for it and have fun.
They very rarely report those things, they'll share it amongst themselves, word spreads - and if a nerf hammer ever comes down its usually because it becomes such common knowledge even casuals are posting it or because the devs in their datamining see a pattern they think is out of line with their design goals.
Not for nothing, ask a dozen PvPers if Double Tap beam overload is overpowered and you will have a knock-down drag out forum war.
Ask a dozen PvErs and they will probably tell you beam overload sucks for DPS.
So there really is quite a difference.
I respect your opinon, I just don't think that the game is really that far gone. I don't think major overhauls or entire new concepts or additions to the game are necessary. All the pieces are in place, now they simply need to be rearranged to form a more solid foundation. Once the foundation is solid, the rest of it almost builds itself.
I understand that there will always be people who aren't happy with it, and it will never be perfect for every person. I also fully understand that a game 3+ years old is NEVER going to be completely overhauled without ruining itself.
What we want, and what we need are two very different things now.
Lag Industries STO/TOR Guild
They need to stop making the mistakes in the first place.
-proper testing: they don't
-responding to feedback they ask for in a timely manner: they don't
-stating contradicting ideas: I remember a guy recently said they didn't give the Rommie time ship a singularity core because it'd be power creep, yet the entire line of Rommie ships have then and better stats/bo layouts and arnt power creep?
I could go on.
A few fixes here and there when we cry for attention the loudest? Been there done that.
Do you even Science Bro?
As an example of what I have done, I tested the heck out of the EWS modifier on an elite core. Most people had already dismissed it, going for AMP, but still never actually looked at EWS.
I tested it considerably, both in PvP and PvE, pretty much saying that it was totally pointless in both, there was almost no reason to run it (and any reasons that you would, you would probably want AMP more anyways).
(If anyone wants to read more on that, just click my sig)
Point from that being, yeah, you are right, we are willing to test things to their most extreme limits. And we are willing to help, they just have to be willing to accept it and actually use that help.
Tricobalt mines too good? Nerfed to uselessness.
Mine spam rampant? 12 second shared cooldown = nerfed to uselessness.
Double stacking BO too good? Made impossible.
Every time they stop something from working at all because they can't be bothered to balance it properly they push us all closer and closer to all cannon/turret escorts because it is the only thing that still really works.
And even that has only avoided the crushing nerf-hammer because Stahl is scared of the outcry they would receive if they actually implemented a change to bring cannons into line.
This is partially why the game is in such a sorry state. This and unprofessional TRIBBLE like revamping the skill tree and leaving a whole class that gets none of their captain abilities boosted by anything. Or ignorance about balance like thinking singularity cores are worth -40 power.
We the people: Told you so!
Devs:.....please hold the line.....
Im 100% with mai on this one.
It's not only a time and differences of perspective problem. It's a procedural one. Either STahl commands his minions to fix PvP as part of their job, or whatever Hawk gets done in his free time for the good of the game, will be dwarfed by systems latest stroke of genius.
You know those guys giving you the BO doff, expecting it to be used by beam bank cruising engies. So should Stahl decide to fix pvp, open conversation with the community would be great, but based on past experience very unlikely.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
Let us take the upcoming nerf to BO double/triple tapping. Everyone is throwing a hissy fit that it fails to fix the real issue and that it shouldn't be done.
Yet a few months ago when they were about to eliminate the always on EPtS that is one of the most OP bridge officer abilities in the game everyone began to throw a hissy fit.
So what is it, do you want their to be gaps in a players defenses that can be exploited to kills them, or do you not?
But I digress. The true issue is the game lacks a cohesive vision, philosophy, or design. Is it trinity? Is it DPS focused everyone is equal but different? Should captain type determine role in a group or ship type? Or both? Heh.
How does cryptic want the game to be, what is their vision for PvE, PvP, ship setups, etc etc, until that question is answered everything else is just noise.
The EPTS gaps were bad, because hard gaps followed by hard coverage continues the trend of spike damage being king and pressure/attrition damage being marginalized.
That has always been the thrust of the conversation of the handful that really have the best grasp of mechanics - many of suggested reducing the resistance that EPTS provides as a better solution than simply having on/off periods with huge swings in resistance levels.
Nowhere is this demonstrated better than TT. TT on vs. TT off.
If we really want to normalize the extremes then the ON/OFF yo-yo mechanics need to stop and resistances, healing and passive mitigation needs to come down.
If you want that the first place to look is shield regeneration rates being tied to shield power and how stupid they scale.
The second place to look is the complete lack of target shield resistance debuffs aside from a few corner cases, one of which was recently nerfed.
The third and true place to look is the extreme disparity between damage output, damage healed, compared to base health.
But then again if they wanted to get rid of yo-yo mechanics I would think it would have been done by now. Do the Devs consider them a true problem?
Ok, PvP players do have a certain Ego. But PvE players rarely ever cycle Tactical Team, or carry an excess amount of resists. Nor is heavy amounts of Team Work Required to complete any given objective. Let us be honest, after you play Hive Onslaught Elite a few times, you figure out just how to Rofl Stomp the Borg without ever putting yourself in Danger. Doing all this while achieving Optionals, is more about playing the same way every time, then adapting to a dynamic enviorment. I am sorry, but PvE, even Elite PvE is still easy mode. We do more Damage in 2 seconds then the Tactical Cubes will do in 1 minute. We are deadlier then the Enviorment, since we think, adapt, and even cheat to win. So please do not say that PvE is equal in skill to PvP. As a player that has never PvPed will get Rofl Stomped in PvP. But the inverse is NOT True. Example of Builds used for PvE vs PvP.
PvE Scimitar Build.
DHC x5, mods do not matter
Turrets x3 mods do not matter
Rare Deflector
Rare Engine
Rare Core
Rare Shield
Consoles... does not really matter
I can spend 1 million EC and be just as effective as 90% of players in PvE...
My PvP ship costs me 180 million EC and is effective as 70% of players in PvP... but my DPS is in the upper 3% easily.
PvP Build
Disruptor DHC x5 (acc)x3 mods
Disruptor Turret x3 (acc)x3 mods
Very Rare Deflector
Fleet Advanced Engine
Fleet Elite Core
Fleet Elite Shield
Consoles
Tycho, Shield Adaptive
3 Piece Scimitar set
Disruptor Induction coilds x5
The difference is in design, please do not take it as me saying I am better then you because I PvP. I am saying that I am better at this game, because I have opened my horizons to play all aspects of the game. Which affords me more experience in developing my own playstyle and tactics. Everybody can be good at PvP, but if you do not try to be good at all aspects of the game... Can you really say that you are as good at the game as somebody who does? I think the answer there is no. PvP is a test of one's skill in game against another. Nothing more, nothing less. And before I started PvPing, I thought the Galaxy X was the best ship in game... Just to share with you, I was still completing Elites... in a Failaxy X... I didnt even use Tactical Team...
Play all aspects of the game, to be truly good at the game. As there is not one PvP player that does not PvE. We have to in order to grind.
Bit of a contradiction there as PvE and PvP are the only 2 aspects of this game.
I always expect posts from pvpers to come down to "I'm better than you because I pvp" and i'm never disappointed.
Could you tell me exactly how pve is different from most pvp? Sure pvp has more abilities but tends to use them back to back the way NPCs do. People may try to out-maneuver you but keeping someone in your firing arc is the same in both pve and pvp. If a borg sphere moved and turned as fast as a player, had 7 weapon systems, 12 BO abilities (including 2x TT, 2x EPTS etc) and a couple of gimmick consoles there would be very little real difference between that and a player because the fundamental game system is so simple. Sure the NPCs don't cross heal much (some Elachi do) but give them the same tanking capabilities as a player and see what would happen.
I'd rather be in the top 5% of pve-ers than the top 20% of pvpers. Much larger pool to excel in. Just because you are in one does not mean you would make it into the other. Either way round. I suck at pvp. Mainly because I refuse to spec into all the TRIBBLE necessary to excel at it. I also refuse to play a tactical captain despite how much Cryptic seem to want us all to.
This. So much this. The key reason for the game being such a mess is the lack of direction at the most basic level of development. Something that has been lacking since they were forced to release the game way before it was ready.
Not to nitpick but that would be false.
Their is also the merchant aspect (buy/sell/farm/whatever), the DOFF aspect, and so on. In the end I likely spend more time doffing than anything else.
In my eyes it is the only question. You cannot get good feedback if you don't ask the proper questions and honestly I blame the overwhelming quantity of noise in the feedback to be because of that.
How many times has it been asked that the devs make truly challenging PvE content that requires healers and tanks without even considering if required roles is a design goal for any content eh?
I don't think that is the case.
Some of the more vocal forum pvp'res, including myself, throw out potential solutions over which there can be disagreement. The same goes for the priorities which we all approach from a personally biased POV. However, as far as the problems are concerned there is generally agreement, that goes back long before the F2P forum merger.
One example: I certainly remember the pvp forums begging cryptic to introduce shield distribution to at least one NPC. PvE being to easy not teaching new PvP blood this most basic of STO;s features. This was STO at release.
Nothing of that sort has happened, and it is now part of lesson one curriculum of boot camp. I see countless PvE not balancing their shields every day.
The problem: Cryptic thinks PvE is fine, where as the large consensus for the last three years on the pvp forums has been it is not. We then might debate how to best introduce harder mobs, and shield distribution into PvE. But that is obviously useless, if Cryptic refuses to admit that the problem exists.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
As far as I know, everyone is okay with or even hoping for a nerf. The issue people have is that the tactic isn't being nerfed -- it's being flat out removed -- and that removal may also have long reaching repercussions.
Nobody was against a nerf to EPtS or a buff to other EPtX skills, the disagreement was about having a built-in hard coverage gap.
Agreed.
I also personally think the spike damage tools we have that actually require timing and skill, such as Beam Overload and Torpedos could both use improvement.
As much as I'd hate to respec all of my characters and find some way to spec into projectiles, I'd love to see Photon & Quantum Torpedos make a proper comeback
You answer your own question.
Do you even Science Bro?
rethoric question? hmmm....
simple answer:
npc's may use 3-5 abilities. unskilled, tweaked, whatever. their ai mostly is kinda poor. given that most players are more intelligent than that ai the odds are not equal.
they try to level that out by numbers and strenght (borg hy torps, hullpoints, etc.).
so we see it's not really fair, at least due to lack in ai.
other players on the other hand start from the same point as you. in the beginning the odds are even.
other players give a challenge. they try to be better and actually use what the games gives to them. as much as possible (npc's don't).
they take their choices after testing, reading and such things. for a decent pve build u don't have to do that in that manner. best proove for that is the fact that most 1st time pvp'ers gettin vaped so hard (like myself).
pve teaches nothing about game mechanics, pvp forces to learn.
that, for me, is the most remarkable difference.
The core theme I wanted players to discuss was game design: should design and balance be prioritized for high-skill play, or continue to follow the trend that caters only to the casual level?
Lag Industries STO/TOR Guild
What I personally desire...is contrary to what I believe is best for the game. Trippy, eh?
Personally, I'd prefer that it was prioritized for the high-skill play.
However, look how the game has "grown" as Cryptic has continued to lower the bar left, right, and center - eh? It's increased revenue - increased development...going the route they have has kept STO alive and is even allowing it to grow.
Does that mean both PvP and PvE folks that prefer the other are going to take issue with that design path? Yep...see it from both sides.
In the end though, they continue to add more and more power...while not only not adding more difficult content, but actually making that content easier. The backlash with the Elachi was the "players" speaking...so the game is going to be what it is.
In wanting to grow the endgame for customer retention and continued revenue...and...with PvP being a part of endgame, we shouldn't be surprised that the bar will be lowered there as well - made more casual.
Good point, and a good call trying to move the thread back to its original intent.
I think the truth is that it depends if you want your game to have depth and longevity, or if you want your game to cash in big, but fizzle out much faster due to shallow play and no room for real player skill growth.
sry, couldn't resist :rolleyes:.
(once upon a time, i heard someone whisper the word..... balance)
in the long run it should be high-skill-play.
the more casual the game gets, the more it will loose in the long run.
(adding p2w with uber-powers, rommies, bad ai, etc.)
the higher the quality is, the more it will gain (less qq, more players attracting, ...).
i absolutely believe that going for a non-sick balance is the way to keep this game alive for a long time.
the direction right now only feels like hole-digging
just my 2ct
This is where I must disagree with you. Crypic is correct about PvE difficulty and the player base has already voted upon that. The metrics on content played clearly demonstrates this and the fact that the game player base has continued to grow rapidly drives the point home.
The average player does NOT want
- To learn the method of creating keybinds and then doing so
- Learn all the ins and outs of the game mechanics
- Heavily invest into their build to make it top tier/competitive
- And so on
They want to join the queue, do some pew pew and have some fun. With luck they get a prize when they are done. PuG stomping is the absolutely most toxic thing for a growth of the PvP playerbase.
The PvP forum community, and I mean no disrespect, is the vocal minority of the player minority. Therefore all feedback must be looked threw the lens of 'is this the direction Cryptic feels the game should go'.
Which is why there's a difficulty slider right? To make the pve more challenging? Why not actually use it to do that?
Do you even Science Bro?