DPS being king isn't by design. It's not Cryptic devs deciding Tac is just better than everything else and coding it that way.
Enemies have HP. In order to kill them, their HP must reach 0.
Whomever does the most damage, will kill these things the quickest. It's the nature of the beast, and it's unavoidable.
If you want conjecture about ways to mitigate this unalienable fact, then here we are on the forum, let that discussion proceed.
I would propose that character professions are unnecessary in the first place. Only 1-2 captain powers differentiate players. Everything else can be and play identical in every way.
So, get rid of professions. Your ship, and it's BoFF loadout is what determines your role. Let captain powers be modifiable via space kits, just like ground. Would even be cool if you could mix/max profession powers a little bit depending on your available slots.
OR
Your ships loadout is dependant on your profession. Doesn't matter what ship you fly, if you're a tac captain you get 2-3Tac, 1Eng, 1Sci stations. Eng captains, regardless of ship, get 2-3E, 1T, 1S. Same goes for Sci captains, 2-3S, 1T, 1E
But it's not cryptics fault there's a measure of life/damage, and expecting your healer/CC to be on par with a berserker is just nonsense.
DPS being king isn't by design. It's not Cryptic devs deciding Tac is just better than everything else and coding it that way.
Enemies have HP. In order to kill them, their HP must reach 0.
That is something I would call a sin of omission.
"No, we have lots of diverse ships that aren't tactically-focused! Look at the Risian Cruiser! It's just that the gameplay itself rewards killing things ASAP to get the end-of-mission reward!"
So, the high damage/dps meta is, in fact, by design.
It's just rooted in gameplay design, rather than ship design. People are looking for something to change, but they're looking for it in the wrong area.
You can forgo tactical team and you can forgo ap:beta
But if you think you will do good dps without bfawx2 through a second copy or doffs or ts/hyx2...I find your lack of comprehension disturbing.
If we are talking about tactical consoles...I'll still do 20-30k dps without them.
I think a big problem is that the definition of "good dps" is subjective and/or situational.
From my reading of the forums over the years, it seems the minimum acceptable amount has been enough to complete the optionals on a ESTF. That makes sense in that there is a reward for being able to apply sufficient amount of damage in a specific amount of time. Outside of that (and a couple of other instances like that) the vast majority of content does not have those requirements. So, what is "good dps" in that content? Only that which is required to complete the content within the time frame the player want to complete it in. However, most game designers are more concerned with throttling the rewards per a given unit of time of content consumption rather than worrying about the time the content consumption takes in total. After all, they want you to have a good time with the content, to enjoy the experience; completing it faster may be counter productive to that.
Power creep exists for two reasons; within the reward expectations of a typical MMO player, there are only so many things that can be created consistent with the IP that motivate a sufficient number of players to grind for them in a way that can be monetized. The most common of these expectations, and the easiest to satisfy in terms of content generation and game design, is the increase of damage output. Second, within the overall design of STO, there is very little disincentive to focus on pure damage application (the enemies are deliberately weak so that players can "Kirk it up"). That attitude needs to be fixed if power creep is to be mitigated.
Honestly, for my personal reward expectations, I have little incentive to get better gear than I have (and I definitely do not have the "best") because what I have is perfectly serviceable for the content I consume and the increase in ability better equipment would give me would be negligible to me (but not to a log parser).
You have Cryptic to blame for this. They have offered very little in the way of viability for support ships that aren't somehow focused in a tactical way.
You are correct in that anything less than 3 tactical stations is not required, but Cryptic has helped foster and nurture the idea that more damage/dps = better.
I've pointed out (multiple times) that support ships and their respective boff/console layouts are not the problem, but the DPS-focused 'meta' Cryptic has pandered to is the problem.
Dyson Science Destroyers, the Mogh and Avenger Battlecruisers, the Ar'kif, the Scimitar, the Andorian Escorts, the Tempest, the Fleet Galaxy Dreadnought.
These are all recent or semi-recent additions to the game which have a clear tactical slant to them. This is where Cryptic's innovation and creativity takes a steep nosedive.
In turn, players expect their ships to somehow resemble the tactical-focused ships we've had as of late. This means players prefer boff/console slotting with a tactical focus, regardless of whether or not it's necessary to progress (it isn't, but don't tell them that).
Their line of thought starts and stops at this point: "The only thing that matters in a mission is the end-of-mission reward, therefore the only viable ship/build is one that allows you to get through the mission as fast as possible. Since missions require things to be killed quickly, this means the current 'meta' is damage/DPS."
So, what has Cryptic done since coming to this realization?
"Good news for science ships! More tactical-focused science ships coming down the pipe!"
Instead of being creative and innovative in giving support ships a cookie in the same way escorts and other tactical-slanted ships get a cookie for killing things as fast as possible, Cryptic has decide to stay the course in simply making future support ships more escort-like.
Instead of making escorts wish they were more like science ships or cruisers.
Very well said, Iconians. This is why I recently joined the Star Trek Battles channel. I got so tired of my engineers and sci flying their traditional ships being sidelined because the rest of the team had melted everything by the time I completed my first firing cycle. With a team where high DPS is not encouraged, I can finally use my Excelsior and Intrepid the way they should be.
I used to think that people didn't heal in STFs anymore because of a general lack of teamwork and courtesy. While this is probably still partly the case, the fact everything is about DPS now is I think a large part of it. Who needs strategy, teamwork or communication when you can just spacebar the map clean? This race to finish ISE in 3-4 min to get the end reward to me takes all the challenge and fun out of the game, not to mention help continue the feeling that this is a single-player online game that just happens to have other people in it.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Cryptic: If you think the bugs are bad, wait until you see our fixes!
DPS being king isn't by design. It's not Cryptic devs deciding Tac is just better than everything else and coding it that way.
Enemies have HP. In order to kill them, their HP must reach 0.
Whomever does the most damage, will kill these things the quickest. It's the nature of the beast, and it's unavoidable.
Hit the nail on the head. All computer games that involve combat are is collections of numbers shooting negative numbers at each other until a certain number in one of the collections reaches zero. Coding that goes beyond that in ways that experienced game players would find different takes a level of effort that almost all game studios find economically non-viable.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,496Community Moderator
edited August 2014
My Assault Cruiser Refit averages around 5k DPS, and she does alright for a Phased Tetryon build. She's got some spike damage with the Wide Angle Quantum and Nukara mines too. She may not be able to nuke a cube in 3 seconds, but she does what she does very well.
For me, DPS isn't everything. I don't specalize in something while sacrificing things like survivability. I just can't do a Glass Cannon build at all. Yes killing the enemy faster means you live, but I'd rather be able to survive if something lives long enough to shoot back. Probably why my Engie characters fly Escorts and my main, A Tac, flies a cruiser. Balance out the Dakka with the Healy bits.
Very well said, Iconians. This is why I recently joined the Star Trek Battles channel. I got so tired of my engineers and sci flying their traditional ships being sidelined because the rest of the team had melted everything by the time I completed my first firing cycle. With a team where high DPS is not encouraged, I can finally use my Excelsior and Intrepid the way they should be.
I used to think that people didn't heal in STFs anymore because of a general lack of teamwork and courtesy. While this is probably still partly the case, the fact everything is about DPS now is I think a large part of it. Who needs strategy, teamwork or communication when you can just spacebar the map clean? This race to finish ISE in 3-4 min to get the end reward to me takes all the challenge and fun out of the game, not to mention help continue the feeling that this is a single-player online game that just happens to have other people in it.
I think the Star Trek Battles channel has been one of the most positive additions the community has given STO. I'm not a part of it, but I do like to keep tabs on what the players are up to from time to time.
That said, I wish the game wasn't skewed in such a way as to make the Star Trek Battles channel necessary to begin with.
I think Cryptic should stop phoning it in with "Hey guys! Check out this cruiser/science ship with more tactical capabilities! :-O!!", and go the extra mile into making flying a support ship just as rewarding and beneficial as tactically-focused ships are. Without going down the obvious route to simply giving them more tactical capabilities in the form of tactical/universal boff seating, fore weapon slots, cannon-capability, or tactical console slots.
This is one of those solutions Cryptic doesn't agree with me on (at least not to the point of decision-making), but it's one of those solutions that I think will make the entire game better for the whole.
It's getting to the point where more tactically-slanted ships just make me yawn. It's boring and unimaginative. I've played this game long enough where if I've flown one escort, I've flown them all. But that's just me.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,496Community Moderator
edited August 2014
I think a fleetmates "Megawell" Vesta says something about Sci ships...
I think Cryptic should stop phoning it in with "Hey guys! Check out this cruiser/science ship with more tactical capabilities! :-O!!", and go the extra mile into making flying a support ship just as rewarding and beneficial as tactically-focused ships are. Without going down the obvious route to simply giving them more tactical capabilities in the form of tactical/universal boff seating, fore weapon slots, cannon-capability, or tactical console slots.
The sad thing is they have actively made changes to discourage support ships.
Remember when you used to want a sci vessel around to power drain the boss NPCs down to nothing? Yup they now be nearly immune. That is just the first that comes to mind immediately.
But you are absolutely correct that the core problem is content design. Sadly changing the design of all the content with no direct method to monetize it means it will never occur.
To me any ensign station that isn't universal is a waste. But that is just my opinion.
To me any ensign station on a T5.5 ship is a waste.
When an escort can kill a cube in 2 seconds (taking negligible damage) and it takes a cruiser 2 minutes (having to heal to not die), we have a problem with balance.
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
What we need is a mix of enemies.... we need ones that have shields which block most bleedthrough damage and have high shield HP..... so you have enemies you are fighting where even with high DPS the damage is reduced to a trickle unless you have a teammate that can shield strip..... But yes, this mechanic of high dps which pretty much allows tac focused ships to pretty much bloe ships up (many times even before their shild can go down) is the problem. Everything is so tac focused and the issue may be down at the mechanics level of the game.
Don't worry OP its just sheep that can't figure out anything that someone else hasn't done first. Its like someone probably said somewhere you need 3 tac stations somewhere and everyone just lapped it up without thinking why or why not.
I noticed thats how half the playerbase works, so scared to try anything that hasn't been done first.
How many times you hear on zone chat "guys whats the best shield" or "which is the best weapon type", it just frustrates me.
Play they game, learn the game, then you will know what works and doesn't or what builds are cool without someone having to hold your hand first.
You do not need 3 tac stations to be good at DPS. I don't even know who or why is saying it but its bull****. The only possible reason is that you can take an extra rom operative for extra crit, but so what? 2% crit and 5% crit sev is nothing to get over excited about. Crit is so easy to stack these days.
EDIT: After reading some posts, no one seems to know what this thread is even about. Someone mentioned its mean to be any tac slot that is less then a Lt Cmdr, in which case they have a point. You can still do good DPS with them provided you have 4 or more tac consoles and enough engineer slots to run aux2bat and some offensive engineer powers, but you will never get a ship without a Lt Cmdr tac slot into crazy DPS levels.
" Experience is a hard mistress, she gives the tests first, and the lessons after... "
Comments
Enemies have HP. In order to kill them, their HP must reach 0.
Whomever does the most damage, will kill these things the quickest. It's the nature of the beast, and it's unavoidable.
If you want conjecture about ways to mitigate this unalienable fact, then here we are on the forum, let that discussion proceed.
I would propose that character professions are unnecessary in the first place. Only 1-2 captain powers differentiate players. Everything else can be and play identical in every way.
So, get rid of professions. Your ship, and it's BoFF loadout is what determines your role. Let captain powers be modifiable via space kits, just like ground. Would even be cool if you could mix/max profession powers a little bit depending on your available slots.
OR
Your ships loadout is dependant on your profession. Doesn't matter what ship you fly, if you're a tac captain you get 2-3Tac, 1Eng, 1Sci stations. Eng captains, regardless of ship, get 2-3E, 1T, 1S. Same goes for Sci captains, 2-3S, 1T, 1E
But it's not cryptics fault there's a measure of life/damage, and expecting your healer/CC to be on par with a berserker is just nonsense.
That is something I would call a sin of omission.
"No, we have lots of diverse ships that aren't tactically-focused! Look at the Risian Cruiser! It's just that the gameplay itself rewards killing things ASAP to get the end-of-mission reward!"
So, the high damage/dps meta is, in fact, by design.
It's just rooted in gameplay design, rather than ship design. People are looking for something to change, but they're looking for it in the wrong area.
I think a big problem is that the definition of "good dps" is subjective and/or situational.
From my reading of the forums over the years, it seems the minimum acceptable amount has been enough to complete the optionals on a ESTF. That makes sense in that there is a reward for being able to apply sufficient amount of damage in a specific amount of time. Outside of that (and a couple of other instances like that) the vast majority of content does not have those requirements. So, what is "good dps" in that content? Only that which is required to complete the content within the time frame the player want to complete it in. However, most game designers are more concerned with throttling the rewards per a given unit of time of content consumption rather than worrying about the time the content consumption takes in total. After all, they want you to have a good time with the content, to enjoy the experience; completing it faster may be counter productive to that.
Power creep exists for two reasons; within the reward expectations of a typical MMO player, there are only so many things that can be created consistent with the IP that motivate a sufficient number of players to grind for them in a way that can be monetized. The most common of these expectations, and the easiest to satisfy in terms of content generation and game design, is the increase of damage output. Second, within the overall design of STO, there is very little disincentive to focus on pure damage application (the enemies are deliberately weak so that players can "Kirk it up"). That attitude needs to be fixed if power creep is to be mitigated.
Honestly, for my personal reward expectations, I have little incentive to get better gear than I have (and I definitely do not have the "best") because what I have is perfectly serviceable for the content I consume and the increase in ability better equipment would give me would be negligible to me (but not to a log parser).
Very well said, Iconians. This is why I recently joined the Star Trek Battles channel. I got so tired of my engineers and sci flying their traditional ships being sidelined because the rest of the team had melted everything by the time I completed my first firing cycle. With a team where high DPS is not encouraged, I can finally use my Excelsior and Intrepid the way they should be.
I used to think that people didn't heal in STFs anymore because of a general lack of teamwork and courtesy. While this is probably still partly the case, the fact everything is about DPS now is I think a large part of it. Who needs strategy, teamwork or communication when you can just spacebar the map clean? This race to finish ISE in 3-4 min to get the end reward to me takes all the challenge and fun out of the game, not to mention help continue the feeling that this is a single-player online game that just happens to have other people in it.
Cryptic: If you think the bugs are bad, wait until you see our fixes!
Hit the nail on the head. All computer games that involve combat are is collections of numbers shooting negative numbers at each other until a certain number in one of the collections reaches zero. Coding that goes beyond that in ways that experienced game players would find different takes a level of effort that almost all game studios find economically non-viable.
For me, DPS isn't everything. I don't specalize in something while sacrificing things like survivability. I just can't do a Glass Cannon build at all. Yes killing the enemy faster means you live, but I'd rather be able to survive if something lives long enough to shoot back. Probably why my Engie characters fly Escorts and my main, A Tac, flies a cruiser. Balance out the Dakka with the Healy bits.
"Nothing you have will become obsolete. Ships, gear, nothing." - CaptainGeko
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I think the Star Trek Battles channel has been one of the most positive additions the community has given STO. I'm not a part of it, but I do like to keep tabs on what the players are up to from time to time.
That said, I wish the game wasn't skewed in such a way as to make the Star Trek Battles channel necessary to begin with.
I think Cryptic should stop phoning it in with "Hey guys! Check out this cruiser/science ship with more tactical capabilities! :-O!!", and go the extra mile into making flying a support ship just as rewarding and beneficial as tactically-focused ships are. Without going down the obvious route to simply giving them more tactical capabilities in the form of tactical/universal boff seating, fore weapon slots, cannon-capability, or tactical console slots.
This is one of those solutions Cryptic doesn't agree with me on (at least not to the point of decision-making), but it's one of those solutions that I think will make the entire game better for the whole.
It's getting to the point where more tactically-slanted ships just make me yawn. It's boring and unimaginative. I've played this game long enough where if I've flown one escort, I've flown them all. But that's just me.
The sad thing is they have actively made changes to discourage support ships.
Remember when you used to want a sci vessel around to power drain the boss NPCs down to nothing? Yup they now be nearly immune. That is just the first that comes to mind immediately.
But you are absolutely correct that the core problem is content design. Sadly changing the design of all the content with no direct method to monetize it means it will never occur.
To me any ensign station on a T5.5 ship is a waste.
When an escort can kill a cube in 2 seconds (taking negligible damage) and it takes a cruiser 2 minutes (having to heal to not die), we have a problem with balance.
Don't worry OP its just sheep that can't figure out anything that someone else hasn't done first. Its like someone probably said somewhere you need 3 tac stations somewhere and everyone just lapped it up without thinking why or why not.
I noticed thats how half the playerbase works, so scared to try anything that hasn't been done first.
How many times you hear on zone chat "guys whats the best shield" or "which is the best weapon type", it just frustrates me.
Play they game, learn the game, then you will know what works and doesn't or what builds are cool without someone having to hold your hand first.
You do not need 3 tac stations to be good at DPS. I don't even know who or why is saying it but its bull****. The only possible reason is that you can take an extra rom operative for extra crit, but so what? 2% crit and 5% crit sev is nothing to get over excited about. Crit is so easy to stack these days.
EDIT: After reading some posts, no one seems to know what this thread is even about. Someone mentioned its mean to be any tac slot that is less then a Lt Cmdr, in which case they have a point. You can still do good DPS with them provided you have 4 or more tac consoles and enough engineer slots to run aux2bat and some offensive engineer powers, but you will never get a ship without a Lt Cmdr tac slot into crazy DPS levels.