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Reflection on elitism, exploiting and DPS Leagues
ezriryan
Member Posts: 150 Arc User
Greetings Captains,
This is the non-Video related discussion that ensued, which basically always comes up when people say anything related to "DPS".
Its almost depressing how far off some people are, when they say the game changed to exactly what we asked for.
We never wanted that the game in general becomes overly difficult for the majority of people, we never asked for advanced (which was supposed to be the old elite) to be a 4 times increase. We asked for a new difficulty that would actually be challenging. These videos serve the purpose of showing, that the difficulty is not being increased by sliding the HP multiplier up. We, as well, never asked for the decrease in dilithium and neural processor gains from the STFs, Cryptic decided to do that on their own, and they can have all the credit for it.
Also this is to prove the point of "leveling 17 times faster", which they call an exploit. Well, if you can find it... tell us. Because we mostly didn't even level in Tau Dewa and stil got most of our points removed. My Federation toon was 2 mins 30 secs in a Charraya patrol at level 51, does that justify taking like 20 spec points away?
On another note, these videos may be used as a guideline, along with our guide videos where we explain how and why these builds work. But they do at no point force you to play anything like this. This is a suggestion and a practical display of how things can (!) be played, but not neccessarily have to be played. Therefore no one needs to feel vilified.
We offered talking to.. basically everyone of the staff we could find. To little/no effect at all.
Even though on the podcast one guy claimed he would like talking to us, trying to get into contact has thus far not worked. There have been some informal "yea we should talk" things, but as stated, nothing real ever came of it.
So we do this to raise some more attention.
I personally dont care how good or bad you play. It's a teamgame, if you deny your responsiblity towards the team, why should I feel in any way related to you?
What most people dont understand/try to ignore to make a point is, that in order to maximize dps even the good players have to make some trade-offs from survivability. So if you dont at least play halfways along these ships cant take the heat forever. We fully know and understand that. That is why we take those highly specialized builds into certain missions. We prepare and exploit teamplay, if that is too much cheating, or effort for you. I am sorry, but I dont see how I am supposed to talk about your personal preferences.
Specializing in certain things allows you to achieve far higher results though... 2 Men no win scenario is a good example... Why can we beat it with 2 players, while most cant with 5?
The DPS-Channels are not there to differentiate between people I like, versus people I dont like. Its about people that apply themselves and share a common goal about gameplay.
The general mindset of players usually divides into these subcategories:
Players that will work things out, do some testing and get the mission done..
versus people that will then take those results and get the mission done;
versus people that you need to take by the hand and walk through it, but yet willing to improve;
versus people that don't yet know where to get help and dont have the funds to figure it all out immediately;
versus people that explain to you, why you are the real problem and they dont want your solution, even if you clearly showed that it worked.
To differentiate the last two groups Let me actually quote a book:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win
If you want to become a better player, you need to try out new things, specialize in certain things and compare/gauge how you are doing. If you don't do that, you'll not improve, and therefore be left behind by everyone willing to improve.
We offer assistance to players across the board: DPS-public is the entry level channel, and doesnt require you to do a test.
We don't force anyone to play the way we do.
If you decide that what we do is all wrong and against you playstyle thats fine, but please realize that we can not be forced to play with you even though we do it every now and then (random Qs for fun).
This game is an Arms-race by definition, timers on mission fail if you don't deal X amounts of DPS within the timelimit, sure it has been kinda low so far but the hp-scaling further enforced that point. You were taught over the last 2 years that being in the mission is enough to be rewarded, and they are breaking that mindset now. Sure its painful for everyone who was satisfied with how nice their ship looks. We just optimized on getting the job done. Can this all be done very slowly, in an inefficient way that someone might personally find satisfying? Probably yes. But our goal is the opposite. Winning the STF is basically a foregone conclusion for us, we want to optimize within the completion of the STF. When we win ISA in 2 minutes 6 seconds, that gives another group a competitive reason to continue playing this game. To see if they can beat us on the time record. And as stated earlier, difficulty doesnt come with lengthy HP bars, but with mechanics to work with.
I like to compare PvE to Golf.
Its almost impossible to play perfectly, but that doesnt keep us from trying. On the course you fight yourself. Strive for perfection, wouldn't under par be awesome? When its done, you compare numbers.
Getting the first kill on a difficult mission is a race. Holding the speed record on a mission is a race. Holding the damage record on a mission is a race.
While on the course we enjoy good competition, when its done though, we sit down with the other competitors and drink coffe/earl grey depending on preference and reflect how we liked it.
We understand that this is highly elitist and dont force anyone to participate in it, but you have to understand that the mindset of competitive gameplay has helped us really improve on all the challenges presented, to a degree, that most people don't even understand what we are doing.
best regards
RyanSTO
To increase readibility removed other player quotes and personal answers to that and changed wording to clarify certain -out of context- quotes.
This is the non-Video related discussion that ensued, which basically always comes up when people say anything related to "DPS".
Its almost depressing how far off some people are, when they say the game changed to exactly what we asked for.
We never wanted that the game in general becomes overly difficult for the majority of people, we never asked for advanced (which was supposed to be the old elite) to be a 4 times increase. We asked for a new difficulty that would actually be challenging. These videos serve the purpose of showing, that the difficulty is not being increased by sliding the HP multiplier up. We, as well, never asked for the decrease in dilithium and neural processor gains from the STFs, Cryptic decided to do that on their own, and they can have all the credit for it.
Also this is to prove the point of "leveling 17 times faster", which they call an exploit. Well, if you can find it... tell us. Because we mostly didn't even level in Tau Dewa and stil got most of our points removed. My Federation toon was 2 mins 30 secs in a Charraya patrol at level 51, does that justify taking like 20 spec points away?
On another note, these videos may be used as a guideline, along with our guide videos where we explain how and why these builds work. But they do at no point force you to play anything like this. This is a suggestion and a practical display of how things can (!) be played, but not neccessarily have to be played. Therefore no one needs to feel vilified.
We offered talking to.. basically everyone of the staff we could find. To little/no effect at all.
Even though on the podcast one guy claimed he would like talking to us, trying to get into contact has thus far not worked. There have been some informal "yea we should talk" things, but as stated, nothing real ever came of it.
So we do this to raise some more attention.
I personally dont care how good or bad you play. It's a teamgame, if you deny your responsiblity towards the team, why should I feel in any way related to you?
What most people dont understand/try to ignore to make a point is, that in order to maximize dps even the good players have to make some trade-offs from survivability. So if you dont at least play halfways along these ships cant take the heat forever. We fully know and understand that. That is why we take those highly specialized builds into certain missions. We prepare and exploit teamplay, if that is too much cheating, or effort for you. I am sorry, but I dont see how I am supposed to talk about your personal preferences.
Specializing in certain things allows you to achieve far higher results though... 2 Men no win scenario is a good example... Why can we beat it with 2 players, while most cant with 5?
The DPS-Channels are not there to differentiate between people I like, versus people I dont like. Its about people that apply themselves and share a common goal about gameplay.
The general mindset of players usually divides into these subcategories:
Players that will work things out, do some testing and get the mission done..
versus people that will then take those results and get the mission done;
versus people that you need to take by the hand and walk through it, but yet willing to improve;
versus people that don't yet know where to get help and dont have the funds to figure it all out immediately;
versus people that explain to you, why you are the real problem and they dont want your solution, even if you clearly showed that it worked.
To differentiate the last two groups Let me actually quote a book:
David Sirlin, Playing to winThe Scrub Mentality
"Scrub" is not a term I made up. It sounds like kind of a harsh term, but it's the one that was already in common usage in games to describe a certain type of player, and it made more sense to me to explain that rather than to coin a new term.
A scrub is not just a bad player. Everyone needs time to learn a game and get to a point where they know what they're doing. The scrub mentality is to be so shackled by self-imposed handicaps as to never have any hope of being truly good at a game. You can practice forever, but if you can't get over these common hangups, in a sense you've lost before you even started. You've lost before you even picked which game to play. You aren't playing to win.
A scrub would disagree with this though. They'd say they are trying very hard. The problem is they are only trying hard within a construct of fictitious rules that prevent them from ever truly competing.
"That's Cheap!"
Scrubs are likely to label a wide variety of moves and tactics as "cheap." For example, performing a throw in fighting games is often called cheap. A throw is a move that grabs an opponent and damages them even while they're defending against all other kinds of attacks. Throws exist specifically to allow you to damage opponents who block and don't attack.
As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it's meant to be there—yet scrubs construct their own set of principles that state they should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. Scrubs think of blocking as a kind of magic shield which will protect them indefinitely. Throwing violates the rules in their heads even though it doesn't violate any actual game rule.
A scrub would not throw their opponent 5 times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimize your chances of winning? It's "cheap," though, throwing is cheap. And it's not just throwing, it's also a long list of somewhat arbitrary maneuvers. If you keep a scrub away from you by zoning them with projectile attacks, you'll probably be called cheap. If you do one move over and over, that's cheap. If you get a lead, then do nothing for 30 seconds so that you can win by time-out, that's cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap.
Let's specifically consider the case where you do one move over and over. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Are they such a poor player that they can't counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn't you be a fool for not using that move? The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. The game knows no rules of "honor" or of "cheapness." The game only knows winning and losing.
"It's Not Fun To Play That Way"
This might be true, or it might not be, depending on the game. The scrub mentality is to make this claim for basically all games though so beware of that."
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win
If you want to become a better player, you need to try out new things, specialize in certain things and compare/gauge how you are doing. If you don't do that, you'll not improve, and therefore be left behind by everyone willing to improve.
We offer assistance to players across the board: DPS-public is the entry level channel, and doesnt require you to do a test.
We don't force anyone to play the way we do.
If you decide that what we do is all wrong and against you playstyle thats fine, but please realize that we can not be forced to play with you even though we do it every now and then (random Qs for fun).
This game is an Arms-race by definition, timers on mission fail if you don't deal X amounts of DPS within the timelimit, sure it has been kinda low so far but the hp-scaling further enforced that point. You were taught over the last 2 years that being in the mission is enough to be rewarded, and they are breaking that mindset now. Sure its painful for everyone who was satisfied with how nice their ship looks. We just optimized on getting the job done. Can this all be done very slowly, in an inefficient way that someone might personally find satisfying? Probably yes. But our goal is the opposite. Winning the STF is basically a foregone conclusion for us, we want to optimize within the completion of the STF. When we win ISA in 2 minutes 6 seconds, that gives another group a competitive reason to continue playing this game. To see if they can beat us on the time record. And as stated earlier, difficulty doesnt come with lengthy HP bars, but with mechanics to work with.
I like to compare PvE to Golf.
Its almost impossible to play perfectly, but that doesnt keep us from trying. On the course you fight yourself. Strive for perfection, wouldn't under par be awesome? When its done, you compare numbers.
Getting the first kill on a difficult mission is a race. Holding the speed record on a mission is a race. Holding the damage record on a mission is a race.
While on the course we enjoy good competition, when its done though, we sit down with the other competitors and drink coffe/earl grey depending on preference and reflect how we liked it.
We understand that this is highly elitist and dont force anyone to participate in it, but you have to understand that the mindset of competitive gameplay has helped us really improve on all the challenges presented, to a degree, that most people don't even understand what we are doing.
best regards
RyanSTO
To increase readibility removed other player quotes and personal answers to that and changed wording to clarify certain -out of context- quotes.
Post edited by ezriryan on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
It's rather ironic cryptic decided to punish a majority of their highest Dps players for running elite with 20k Dps. Let's see, elite was 5x XP, at 5x the rate of gain to a scrub with a (high for a scrub) 4k Dps.
Yeh cryptic. If all the Dps players leave you'll really know the meaning of dead queues. I was already getting sick of having 3 players with 2k Dps. But this whole ****ting on your community?
Good luck keeping the game alive. I won't be around to care.
DPS Channels / League Info (STO Forums)
I get what you're saying and I have bumped into a few of you in game so I've seen you help others. But someone who is a bit more diplomatic could really get the message across with more success. Some folks will only hear what they want to, theres no way to reach them. but there are a lot of other people who are open to being helped.
I wish I was at home with my computer so I could tweak your post to show you what I mean.
In particular, getting communication with the devs, have you approached the stoked radio or priority one guys about setting up a three-way podcast?
Some of us sci captains (Drainers, Part gens, and Grav Gens builds) perfectly understand how overspecializing can make a ship's survivability suffer since those builds do the same thing DPS builds do, but concentrating on maximizing a sci skill instead of damage, CrtH, and CrtD. I personally take offense when someone with a 25K DPS ship captain comes over and says "Your ship sucks because it can only do 2.5K DPS". My tac toon is build for that kind of DPS, but my sci build is more PvP oriented. If I take it in with slight modifications (to increase DPS a bit) into PvE, that's my choice and to hell with what the others in my team think. Lucky for them, my drain ship can significantly lower the NPC damage to the rest of the team.
Advanced Queues are for slightly more skilled players. It still doesn't take much to meet the minimum requirements.
Elite Queues are for the best of the best.
The problem pre-DR was that you could take a T1 or T2 ship into an Elite queue and do passably well.
Now you will need at least 9k-10k DPS. This isn't an insurmountable goal. It can be done by any career of captain fresh to level 50 in any T5 ship with mk XI blue/green gear.
See my Basic DPS Guide: the path to 10k-15k
"scrub"
"carrying skills"
its not advice
nor is the names of these channels anything but what they are
condscending and not particularly objective
Now I have some high dps stuff and i have a guy that is pretty bad in a t4 ship but I would never with any of my guys ever join a group that uses such terms.
so feel free to help its actually not hard to get a ship geared up to do the advanced q's but please change your outlook because its belittling and condescending as a result of the terminology you have so carefuly chosen.
I'm reminded of a great quote by Jeff foxworthy where he said that it's not that southerners are any dumber than the rest of the world, it's just that they haven't learned how to keep the worst among them off the news. And how for every Alan Shepherd or Buzz Aldrin there were ten other astronauts NASA didn't let do interviews because they were such jacka**es.
Some people Need to be silenced.
Why would you bother commenting on Ryan's post if you didn't even read what he typed out?
Well if you are that hyper-sensitive, then the dps channels are probably not for you. But if you ever want to join the channels, you will always be welcome.
The name structure is designed for call outs so you know what to expect from someone responding. If semantics is bothering your heightened and easily offended feelings, then understand that this was never intended.
DPS Channels / League Info (STO Forums)
EPS actually boosts your DPS. Anything that ups your Power Transfer Rate will also increase your DPS.
I find that odd, because they changed the way weapon fire works in regards to energy levels years ago. Loose a set amount of weapon power until the next firing cycle. EPS only worked when BO still drained weapon power or when changing energy levels.
While i agree with your categorization and that 8-10k DPS is not that hard to pull off, the devs bascially force players to play on advanced and not normal. Normal does get you very little dil, no chance at very rare crafting mats and most importantly no reputation currencies aside from marks. The game might as well call normal mode the you get nothing mode.
Power refills at the Power Transfer Rate (from overcap) while you are shooting. EPS boosts the Power Transfer Rate.
might be insulting, but... it's the truth.
said by a low dps player (around 17k)
we've broken all our bonds, but life kept going on, what a time, what a time it was..." - Clem Tholet
Ah, yes. Energy levels above 125 that aren't visible, I see. Thanks for clearing that up.
I still have much to do to figure out a good balance. In the end it all comes down to skill and ingenuity. With everything Cryptic manage to TRIBBLE up with this expansion, this experience has been one of the few bright spots DR has brought for me.
I agree that the rewards are currently borked. Advanced should give at least the same reward as the old pre-DR Elite just simple because it take 3.75x the effort to complete.
The new Elites should give better rewards. As for Normal... you don't need any rep gear to get to 10k+ but they (the devs) could introduce a rep project that converts Omega marks into BNPs.
Ohh, I failed at being a jerk. . . isn't that good. That means I'm not a jerk--thank you! It's this over-sensitivity-you-are-not-allowed-to-offend-me attitude that is so pervasive in society today that is destroying everything. It is like you guys walk around with a chip on your shoulder just waiting to scream "Gotcha." Then you shut yourself down to anything else the person has to say.
The name of the channels is simply a name. If it offends you then the issue is within you. Do you really think we sat around and said, "Let's form a DPS-League, and to make sure we alienate as many as people as possible, lets actually call each channel the name of the threshold to get into them. This will really TRIBBLE off everyone, thus we deem this good. Is everyone in agreeance? Fine, then so shall the channels be named." That is exactly how it went down--seriously.
How about instead of treading through life looking for things that could offend you, you actually realize that they are just words. In other words, grow a set.
DPS Channels / League Info (STO Forums)
Our moto is we are as strong as our weakest link so helping them makes us stronger.
I even help other players in sto when they ask for it. When I started playing it was just me and my brother playing with no help. But when we asked on the zone about 10% ISE ( old one) nobody said anything until one day the admiral of the fleet we are on told us ( just happen to be listening to zone chat). Now we are vice admirals of fleet and having a good time helping new players. ( even giving gear to players that need it for nothing)
I used to pug a lot just help players so they can get the stuff they needed to get better but that was before DR. They destroyed pug que now lol.
There is a private queue option specifically for people who want a no-angst run done their way. I'm pretty surprised it's not used by more folks in the high end, honestly.
Now, the chat issue. I've run across many people who don't answer the team chat, and I'm pretty sure I've done it myself. I have a habit of closing down the chat box and completely forgetting about it in social zones when I get tired of some of the chatter going on. I assume most people who don't answer have done the same. I don't complain to/about them because A.) I have no idea what's going on on their end, and B.) It would make me a hypocrite, considering -- like I said -- I'm guilty of the exact same thing.
I've been screeched at in queues before when I do have chat open. Yep, I see what you wrote there. But not all of us can type & work the keybinds in combat at the same time. That's a reality a lot of "overly verbal", to put it politely, players need to understand. You'll get a reply out of me when I have a just enough of a break in combat. I can't do both, simple as that.
Finally, and frankly, I have zero idea what my DPS is or how to easily find out. I've been playing this game for several years, and don't know my DPS. Sue me, I guess. You know what people ranting on about DPS numbers sounds like to me? A foreign language. In the simplest of parallels, it's like being yelled for not speaking Chinese in a situation where it's handy, but not necessary to know. I get what DPS is, sure, but how to boost it other than with better consoles/weapons, or find out what I'm even pulling in damage is beyond me. That software log hack or whatever it is, I've tried, and can't figure that out at all. If it's that complex to the average player, then it's a bit more technical than it needs to be for the average player, and thus, isn't really a necessity to know. That's my take, anyway. I'll not stop aiming for better weapons and consoles, though. I'm just not going to make my damage output a high priority beyond what it is already.
Post delta rising the game needs more damage from every captain than before. If you want to run advanced or elite queues and need help with both your build and your player skills there are five chat channels dedicated to helping you with advice tailored to your current level of damage.
Then followed an attempt to explain that the videos and posts are/not about bragging but showing potential. Based on reader response, this is the part of the post that didn't translate successfully.
Edit: five channels, I forgot the new 50k channel.
Combatlogreader is a lot easier to install and use than ACT.
You can find the download here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1254621
Basically you install it. Then go into advanced settings and choose the option "Use DPS channel settings".
Before you start a queue you type "/combatlog 1", when the queue is over you type: "/combatlog 0"
That's it.
How is "DPS-10000" or "DPS-20000" condescending or not objective?
It's a simple statement of objective fact. Do 20,000 DPS in ISA and get invited to DPS-20000.
Then I guess you guys are referring to something else then, because the DPS channels are called DPS-Public, DPS-10,000, DPS-20000, DPS-30000, DPS-50,000, and DPS-PRIME.
I also just noticed that they're randomly missing/adding commas for the thousands separator. Make up your dang minds! :P
Exactly. Think about scuba diving as a comparison. Gear rated for 20 feet, 33 feet, 66 feet, or over 130 feet doesn't mean one is *better* than another. Trying to use a helium mix (for over 90 feet) or godmhelp you, oxygenated water, if you're just diving to 30 feet along the top of a reef or pinnacle is silly, wasteful and expensive. Wearing a heated drysuit in hot water is uncomfortable and potentially dangerous.
Just because I personally only dive 90feet and above doesn't mean someone else is an elitist for having discussions about the challenges and gear used at greater depth.
Enlighten us.
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