Has damage got out of control?

bpharma

Title says it all really, but with players able to do 50k+ average dps and with others pushing half a million spike damage is this throwing a lot of things out of balance?

Sure min/maxers will always get the most out of things but when the max is so high and the min is so low, especially with very inexperienced players, it can really skew the numbers and experience.

Obviously so PvP doesn't become a tank off any reduction in damage has to have healing and possibly resistance nerfed with tweaking of NPCs to remove one shots.

Still is it time the amount of damage we do over the top and maybe needs looking at or even diminishing returns to homogeneity?

Edit:Here is where you can find the DPS channels combatlog reader and it even allows you to check how high your dps is and how high others are via the league table. This is the post about the DPS channels and what they are about.

Disclaimer:This is not to diminish what Mal Reynolds, Porch, Hellspawny, Dennis, John and many many others do. They're excellent pilots and do a lot of testing to reveal broken stuff.

capnshadow27

I can answer that by simply answering your thread title. YES. :cool:

adamkafei

I like to think I've done a decent job of min/maxing my skill tables but I've yet to break the 15k mark with any of my many build attempts, even the A2B FAW+APB spam attempt...

My answer would be to implement some kind of dps cap, that would only affect the top end min/maxers but equally it would result in much rage so it's prolly a bad idea. I think one answer to 50k dps-ers is to limit the number of times debuffs can stack on a target, I've never seen a ship 50k dps on it's own, it's always been with other 20k to 30k guys.

Another potential answer, in pve at least, is to give all insta-healing targets (nanite gens, transformers, gateways, relevant cubes) built in FBP... not Kax style of course :P That would end badly but rather strong nonetheless, perhaps 50% returned to owner? That would result in a lot of bleedthrough and a harsh end to the current "FAW is everything" attitude that has taken hold in the game recently.

The easiest way to implement this I think would be to make "Borg Repair Nanites" a passive effect (Not removed by SNB, blue icon) that carries said FBP, hell it would even make CSV pilots think twice, the only thing not affected would be science AOE like Grav wells and Tykens rifts though owned by the player own the damage done to them and FBP doesn't respond to it.

snowpig74

sorry, but this idea is stupid.

You want to nerf FAW-Spam? Just make each beam array drain 20 energy for hitting 2 targets simultaneously.



This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies. ~BranFlakes

stofsk

I think people here have just gotten a bit too obsessed with dealing damage, so they find all the ways to maximise that particular part of the game while minimising everything else, decrying other ways of playing as a 'waste of time'. To use an analogy, to a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

Bear in mind that yes, a lot of the power creep has made the top performers parse even higher on ACT. But it also lifts the less able players up from the 2k dps area and be a bit more effective. I'd be willing to bet these players constitute the largest bloc of players in the game, but they're not really represented here on the forums largely because they probably have better things to do unlike us :v

Maybe what they should do is revamp the endgame content a bit, give it a third difficulty bracket. Maybe demote what is currently called elite into 'advanced' and the new improved stuff can be the new 'elite'. Or get rid of normal entirely. But I just bet if they did that, people would QQ because they can no longer sleepwalk through ISE in less than 5 minutes.

bpharma

This is about damage in general, not dps channels specifically. There are people who can stack what must be close to a 1 million damage alpha strike in less than a second or two. That is just as game breaking as high dps especially for PvP.

I also am referring to how it's throwing out other aspects of the game like shield drains, energy weapons being used for hull damage over torpedoes, a short stun or disable is a death sentence in PvP and in PvE they have little to no meaningful effect amongst other things.

bitemepwe

As a casual PvPer who can barely dent a farmer in Kerrat, I say No.

Like myself if a player is not scoring high enough damage thrn somrthing is wrong in the application of attack, not the mechanics themselves.

adamkafei

snowpig74 wrote: »

You want to nerf FAW-Spam? Just make each beam array drain 20 energy for hitting 2 targets simultaneously.

Not nerf FAW spam, answer it. If I wanted to nerf FAW I would tie an extra 100% drain to it, no, what I want to do is to make constant FAW spam a bad idea, bring some gameplay into STO rather than endless spacebar spam everywhere you look.

bpharma wrote: »

This is about damage in general, not dps channels specifically.

Sorry if I gave the idea I was targeting dps channels, I wasn't. I was using the numbers as example figures to back my point.

snowpig74

bpharma wrote: »

This is about damage in general, not dps channels specifically. There are people who can stack what must be close to a 1 million damage alpha strike in less than a second or two. That is just as game breaking as high dps especially for PvP.

I also am referring to how it's throwing out other aspects of the game like shield drains, energy weapons being used for hull damage over torpedoes, a short stun or disable is a death sentence in PvP and in PvE they have little to no meaningful effect amongst other things.

damage in general is a result of high-dps weapons and dps-raising abilities. A solution would be to reduce damage values across the board, which would lenghten the fights. But
honestly: Who would voluntarily fight a borg cube for like 15 minutes just to take it down?

btw. this is a reason why the CE was nerfed and therefore a sign, that the designers are more interested in short, quick and dirty fights, instead of long, epic battles.

other aspects of the game like drains, VM have been nerfed because of the above and the forum-QQ of those, who found themselves on the wrong side of a VM/Tykens &c.

similar story with short stuns/disables/phaser procs: if people had - like 500k - 700k hp, nobody would fear a stun. But fights would tend to be very long &c &c....

minonian

As far i can tell hight (STF) damage builds have one sole reason. To go trought the daily dilithium grinding routine as fast is possible. Is this simple.

So no, i don't think DPS is out of controll. I think the game mechanism caused this. because the players only want to get over the STF rounds, wich ones is one of the best if not the best way to make dilithium, with multiple toons, but to do this with dunno? Let's just say 3-5 toon, is dull! Annoyingly dull.

And the faster we done with this sooner we can do something wich is actually fun.

ursusmorologus

bpharma wrote: »

with players able to do 50k+ average dps and with others pushing half a million spike damage is this throwing a lot of things out of balance?

Question implies that excess stacking is unintentional or undesirable, when I would say that the its one of the two main design elements of the game (the other being timed abilities). Sure its an almost unhealthy obsession with math (see flanking bonus and decloak bonus), but its a core element of the game.

Short answer: WAI

doffingcomrade

The only thing we're really seeing here is that teamwork is OP. None of these guys are pulling this stuff alone. It's when they run a team doing something that the numbers shoot through the roof. Teamwork is OP, and that might not necessarily be a bad thing. This IS supposed to be a multiplayer game, after all.

mightylepton

Good and bad players both have the ability now so yes, this is the case. Both the groups stepped over a boundry where before only vets and skilled players reached this.

Vets now focus more on gettinf 5 kills within a second

futurepastnow

Yanno. The people who get 50k DPS in ISE are really only doing so because they run with other people in the same range, and have compressed the length of the mission so much that spike damage is indistinguishable from overall damage.

And I'm not saying that to, like, question the validity of this result. It is what it is. My point is that these aren't random players joining public queues and hitting 50k. They're people who know each other, playing together and "DPS tanking" the mission.

Perhaps they need something more challenging to do- perhaps we all do- but I don't think this really indicates some endemic problem in STO. I don't doubt that the average damage of the average player has increased- but it's not increasing at nearly the same rate as the max damage of the min-maxers.

meimeitoo

bpharma wrote: »

Disclaimer:This is not to diminish what Mal Reynolds (...)

Hehe. Thinking of the man,

"We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... OP. We are just too OP for God to let us die."

:P

meimeitoo

bpharma wrote: »

This is about damage in general, not dps channels specifically. There are people who can stack what must be close to a 1 million damage alpha strike in less than a second or two.

I'm not one of those people. Nor is the vast majority of STO (which I can state with fair certainty), is my point. I'm in PUGs where ppl do ~3k DPS on average. And I used to be one of them, until recently.

Don't cripple *everyone*, just because there are a few gods who can do 50k. They do battle in strata I can't even fathom. I do not know them; and they sure as heck don't know me. Point being: they're not interfering with anyone, but themselves. Let them; and let me have my hard-earnt DPS at the lower end of the scale too.

angrytarg

What "got out of control", in my opinion, is the mindset players have due to the dps favouring gamedesign, especially if it means shouting down every little piece of thought on the forums that would mean the slightest change of paste, thinking or strategy to the game.

Many people don't actually play a game but lethargically watching counters go through the roof, most of the time using instances to parse in which the majority of the targets are even static and/or don't fight back.

I'm not here to insult anyone or any kiond of playstyle. I'm just thinking that this game kinda hit a dead-end. And in order to advance it should take a few steps back and look for a new route.

jellico1

Damage is so far out of control its stupid

dahminus

I think Mal could hit 30-40k in a pug tbh...

Besides the point, damage output is overkill in this game, there is no real use for it. The real issue is that the minimum to play the game is so slow. But the potential is so high.

Releasing harder content may force some to dps harder but would drive away the hyper casuals.

Ship has sailed, the fish on the barrel are chum, the maxers of min/max should put their gaming prowess to food use and put sto on the back burner and play a different game. One where the roof isn't so high but people will take notice of a gamer trying to push the mechanics.

rmy1081

I think damage should be normalized somehow. Maybe increase the base damage on tac consoles but put diminishing returns on them. That would boost a 2 tac console ship and give a 4-5 tac console ship more options like maybe using torpedoes. Just an idea. I could be totally wrong. I also like the idea of lowering the hull damage on energy weapons and boosting torpedoes some how. That's a lot more Treklike than we have now.

Also, just because something benefits you does not mean it is good or WAI. I'm not saying LTP at all, a lot of the people saying NO are good players here, but when a game becomes a DPS only, it dilutes the game and people start to get burnt out fast. It's already happening.

I pug all the time. I've found two ways to save a failing pug. One way is to just have so much DPS that everything melts. The other way is to add some CC and science magic to slow the game down so the pugs can keep up. I prefer method 2. For me, it's not mind numbingly boring. I have to actually make decisions on what power to use and when, not just cycling my tac powers on the spacebar.

So yes, something needs to be done. IDK what, I'm up for anything really, but something needs to be done.

hanover

I don't damage other players nearly enough, and they damage me way too much.

So yeah, damage is out of control. My control. RABBLE!!!

:mad:

reginamala78

Well yeah; how is this even a question? Look at how many missions in this game simply come unraveled when the average gets above 6k or so. Or the fact that with certain ships and friends its possible to farm NWS. Remember back when STFs were fun instead of a chore, because the badass escort drivers were the ones doing 8k, instead of being mocked today for 'only' doing the same?

stofsk

reginamala78 wrote: »

Well yeah; how is this even a question? Look at how many missions in this game simply come unraveled when the average gets above 6k or so. Or the fact that with certain ships and friends its possible to farm NWS. Remember back when STFs were fun instead of a chore, because the badass escort drivers were the ones doing 8k, instead of being mocked today for 'only' doing the same?

Jeez, do you remember when STFs were hard? And you might actually need to pay attention or else you'd fail them?

adamkafei

stofsk wrote: »

Jeez, do you remember when STFs were hard? And you might actually need to pay attention or else you'd fail them?

Fail an STF? What do you mean? Is it even possible?

I kid, I kid... I've been there and done that on occasion... I've even been close to it recently.

mimey2

Has damage gotten out of control? Not really. Sure people can DO a lot more damage overall, but at least in a PvE setting, no, damage isn't that bad.

Debuff stacking though has gotten out of control.

Even the most badass Scimitar out there, if he/she isn't using any kind of debuffs, there's only so far one can get. Eventually you WILL hit a rough, semi-soft cap on raw damage numbers, even with crits, you can only go to so far.

But debuffs? You can put as much as you want out, and blast your numbers on stuff sky-high, which is where some of these truly massive DPS numbers come from. Do note that this isn't a jab at people like Mal, Porch, etc, I do respect what they can do. I'm just saying that damage can only go so far without debuffs being added in.

ataloss

1. I've played some STF's with some ships that (I assume) did 20-30k DPS. While my JHDC was at a lowly 13-15K.

They really didn't make the STF fun because it was over so quickly. Matter of fact, they blew things up so quickly that they didn't even need to heal them self or anyone else.

2. I remember the Crystaline Event and how it was nerfed. I personally enjoyed the overkill of NPC's. It was such an exciting 15 minute, palm sweating fight for me that I spent the day playing it as much as I can (stupid timer :mad:

But as much as I enjoyed it, a lot of people complained about it. Therefore it was reduced back to "child's play".

3. Some people like to play a game only to unlock it's "secrets". Once they've done that, they exploit it or stop playing the game. To me (this is my opinion) the DPS addicts are those kinds of people .They want to achieve the highest level of DPS just so they can walk around feeling God like. They have no interest in any other aspect of the game. Those are the same people that talk down to those whom "aren't on their level".

4. We have a new Executive Executive Producer (here's the link), I don't know if he'll steer this game in a perfect blend of Arcade and simulation, but I for one want longer battles.

virusdancer

Two things...

The first thing...hrmm...take a look at this page, eh? http://sto.gamepedia.com/Damage_resistance

Or don't. It's okay, here's some numbers from that page.

DRR/DRM of 25 gets you 19.9% DR. 79.6% of the value.
50 DRR gets you 32.8% DR. 65.6% of the value.
100 DRR gets you 48.0% DR. 48.0% of the value.
200 DRR gets you 61.2% DR. 30.6% of the value.
400 DRR gets you 69.4% DR. 17.3% of the value.
800 DRR gets you 73.1% DR. 9.1% of the value.
1500 DRR gets you 74.4% DR. ~5% of the value.

So as a very rough (and random) example of diminishing returns and damage...say we had a cap of 5k before diminishing returns kicked in (so nothing up to 5k was reduced outside of damage resistance) and then we added in variations on the numbers above, eh?

5k gets you 5k (100%)
5k+2.5k=7.5k gets you 5k+1.99k=6.99k (93.2%)
5k+5k=10k gets you 5k+3.28k=8.28k (82.8%)
5k+10k=15k gets you 5k+4.8k=9.8k (65.3%)
5k+20K=25k gets you 5k+6.12k=11.2k (44.8%)
5k+40k=45k gets you 5k+6.94k=11.94k (26.5%)

That would the be the idea of there being diminishing returns on damage.

NOTE1: The above is not a suggestion on actual numbers. As noted, it's just a very rough (and random) example of how such a thing might work. The actual cap before diminishing returns and the amount would all have to be determined.

NOTE2: As bpharma mentioned, any such adjustments would require adjustments elsewhere - such as healing/damage resistance/etc. Everything would need to be rebalanced.

NOTE3: It's something where Cryptic could set that cap based on level, etc, etc, etc - and thus they could increment it as needed without very little adjustments needed otherwise.

NOTE4: It would never happen, because Cryptic is in the business of selling power. I don't want to get into the P2W discussion, but the P4P (Pay For Power) is obvious.

The second thing is the more likely change I see - cause it opens the door to allow Cryptic to do more P4P...and that's to address the stacking of debuffs as mimey pointed out. Which we've already seen the recent notes on Tribble about players and APB stacking. The more they address that issue...the more room they'll have for more P4P. Debuff stacking isn't making them money like increasing damage and power from other sources does.

bpharma

Yeah I've always wondered about something like that VD, probably not as low as 5k but yeah.

I know a lot of it is debuff stacking, it's also buff stacking and buff chaining that helps but it's still causing a lot more damage than the game is even remotely balanced around. I know not everyone is playing at that level but once you break 10k you realise damage is strong, when you get to 20k or near you realise it completes everything faster and has no downside.

I fly science vessels and I do enjoy them, same with cruisers but eventually after dorking around with some bizarre build I switch back to damage because, well, it gets the job done quicker.

jack24bau3r

Don't mess with my power creep.

kapla1755

bpharma wrote: »

This is about damage in general, not dps channels specifically. There are people who can stack what must be close to a 1 million damage alpha strike in less than a second or two. That is just as game breaking as high dps especially for PvP.

I also am referring to how it's throwing out other aspects of the game like shield drains, energy weapons being used for hull damage over torpedoes, a short stun or disable is a death sentence in PvP and in PvE they have little to no meaningful effect amongst other things.

A 1 million damage alpha strike?

Is that even possible and how?

I thought 50-70k were the high end of dps from A2B FAW Scimitars running Experimental Romulan beam arrays?

Can you Alpha strike with FAW?

Really like to see a video of that it would blow that scimitar solos ISE video outta the ballpark.

adamkafei

kapla1755 wrote: »

A 1 million damage alpha strike?

Is that even possible and how?

I thought 50-70k were the high end of dps from A2B FAW Scimitars running Experimental Romulan beam arrays?

Spike of that range is a BoP job, not a Scimmy, it's also only useful in pvp due to the excessive cooldown, if anyone can show you how it's done though, it'll be Thissler, you can find their videos in the pvp section of the forums, some are quite entertaining :P