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More changes to space critter difficulty
crypticgeko
Member Posts: 87
Shortly after launch of Delta Rising, I made a post asking for your input on balance for levels 51-60 balance. I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for their input. Raising the level cap with 3 difficulty settings is a big task. The difference in skill and gear from one player to another can be very large, so getting the balance right can be a challenge.
A little over a week or so ago, we made some changes to difficulty. Based on additional feedback, as well as continuing data mining, we are in the process of making another pass. We will be noticeably reducing the HP and shields of all space critters from levels 51-60. This change will have more of an effect at level 60 than 51. This change will affect Basic and Advanced difficulty, but not affect Elite Difficulty.
Be sure to watch for additional posts from the devs on related changes. In relation to game difficulty, keep an eye out for posts on PvE queue difficulty as well as a post on changes to changes to rewards. Please focus your responses on the appropriate thread.
LLAP
Al Captain Geko Rivera
A little over a week or so ago, we made some changes to difficulty. Based on additional feedback, as well as continuing data mining, we are in the process of making another pass. We will be noticeably reducing the HP and shields of all space critters from levels 51-60. This change will have more of an effect at level 60 than 51. This change will affect Basic and Advanced difficulty, but not affect Elite Difficulty.
Be sure to watch for additional posts from the devs on related changes. In relation to game difficulty, keep an eye out for posts on PvE queue difficulty as well as a post on changes to changes to rewards. Please focus your responses on the appropriate thread.
LLAP
Al Captain Geko Rivera
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I think elite, both missions and stf's are the answer to inevitable power creep.
12 to 18 months from now when power creep makes advanced difficulty 'too easy' people will start flocking to elite because at that point player damage has scaled upwards a lot again.
That's my theory anyway. Current elite is not efficient with best endgame has to offer, so we can safely assume future endgame content will make us a more powerful over time (power creep).
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Looking forward to experiencing the changes. I've made the decision not to level out 6/7 alts in DR because of it. Hopefully this makes the game more enjoyable, and less of a grind.
You're hinting some changes to stf's are on the way too? We might have a chance to lure back players and fleetmates
Best news so far, but not getting my hopes up too much
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Gecko can answer this best obviously, but my guess is that based on their metrics, people who play on Elite tend to do really high DPS which means having HP sponges isn't a big deal for them.
Just a guess though.
What about ground missions? Missions like Infected ground advanced, which is still bugged btw, are also much harder than the old elite versions.
Though it does make me wonder how much this is related to the advanced warning about the pet change. Were pets drawing from the elite tables, but now they're going to be pointed to the correct normal(?) ones instead, and once the normal and advanced mobs are changed pets will reflect the change as well hence the advanced warning?
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Lol, I think it's a record for him, if you don't count the reply he did a couple of months ago to a post I made in a thread he started.
Good.
I believe the problem here is stemming from adjusting the numbers towards the top percentile of players who actively seek to abuse broken game mechanics. (Furthermore, the people who offer to come onto tribble to help test are generally more passionate for the game, and did have access to gear and builds beyond what the 'average' player would - it's still important to get player feedback on that gear.)
Even after these reductions.. the problems of gameplay irregularities (like keybind macros and Technician-boosted Aux2Bat) are still going to be wrecking havoc with any attempts find a balance between those who use them and those who do not. Those mechanics either need to be standardized and readily accessable to everyone or cut to even the playing field.
It can always feel like a long time for players when something isn't right or not to their liking. Considering it's been a few weeks, I'd say that these changes are timely. Not superfast, but not languishing for months, which would have probably killed the game eventually. Anyone who expects faster (even though I'd have to say everyone could have wished for faster) obviously hasn't had to work in any kind of development pipeline.
I'll also have to agree with a previous poster that eventually, with future power creep, more players may eventually be able to do Elite queues. The problem currently is that some of the best non-Fleet gear requires items that only drop from Advanced queues, and that Advanced queues were prohibitive of completion.
If I can throw in one more thing that is kind of related, it would be nice to have something on Kobali Prime to help us earn those Ancient Power Cells for the Delta Rep. So far, we can only earn them from the space queues, both of which are extremely difficult to complete successfully, one of which, of course can only be done on Elite.
For the previous two Reputations, the necessary unique items could be gained through Battlezones, which is great. We have a pretty solid Adventure Zone in Kobali Prime, and I'd love to see a way to gain some of those necessary rep items from there, too.
It makes sense.
I remember when DR was announced that their 'solution' to the creep was just to have harder endgame content, the current endgame certainly seems to reflect that.
Problem is we've already seen videos being posted of the Advanced content getting beaten in minutes, I dare say some players are already prepped for the Elite content. Personally I think it will be much sooner that a full year until we've come full circle.
Pending any future passes/fixes/nerfs of course.
....possibly this information should have come before the pets thing.
you should still look into a reconsider the player pets nerf you are planning
My main question about this right now as a Vesta pilot is how these NPC scale downs are going to interact with your proposed scale down of my pets and whether I am still going to be coming out with a net loss in effectiveness as a result.
With the game's economic model such as it is, and with all that has happened, I simply cannot and will not invest in a new boat for my main. I have poured too much effort and yes..."even" as an F2P'er, money, into my Vesta at this point to consider starting from scratch...even on my Galor RP-ship (Cardassian toon here). Given that...it's important to me to know if I will come out status quo in this, or net loser no matter what happens.
It is critical to remember how many of us carrier pilots are *not* Scimitar drivers--how many of us want to play other styles than DPS BFAW. The variety of styles and experiences you could have in game used to be a draw. To end up being boxed into one style to do reasonably well or be a functional member of a team...that's not the way to go.
So, could you head on over to my "hard numbers" thread and give us a detailed picture of exactly how these proposed changes are going to interact with each other? I hope you will understand my upset, which is evident there--but when I wrote that I felt pretty much kicked in the gut. The data request, however, stands, and could perhaps form a basis for productive discussion because whatever my frustrations, I don't believe in going after people personally because all that does is hurt everyone.
I hope you'll take a look and join the discussion.
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You have read your post, right?
On one hand, good to hear. HP bags aren't fun or difficult, just time consuming.
On the other, all these adjustments we're hearing about today.....was that the plan all along? Launch with everything jacked up, then carefully dial it back to find a 'right' point to stand? I know it makes me a conspiracy theorist, but it does kinda feel that way.
Which raises the next piece towards making this right in the future.
I think the whole Tribble process needs an overhaul to hopefully head off disasters, game breakers, balance breakers, etc. Let us HELP. Don't lock us outside..."even" your F2P'ers wanted to help but were forbidden from doing so.
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Now, this post is even more good news on top of the good news posted by Mr.Gray.
In addition, Captain Geko, I'll urge you to implement these changes before the MU event finishes if you're not already conisdering that. It does serve as a distraction to players, but once finished it would be very good for the game if people can jump back in the end-game content and the queues instead of waiting for the fix. I'm sure you're aware, but just something to consider.
Again, thanks for the most wellcomed news. May STO prosper for all of us.
Such builds and possibilities always exist. In many cases, this is not some devious "mwahaha, I found an exploit, now to ruin everything" but a natural evolution towards a build or system that works. Players are always refining their builds/equipment/setup, to the point where even HUDs get configured nowadays, and not because you'd rather make it striped polka-dot pink.
One must not assume that these highest peaks are anywhere near close to an average player, however, nor assume they are inherently 'hostile'. In many cases, such as the 101k DPS scimitar, they are an exercise in theoretical possibilities, or an exploration of potential.
Ask yourself not "how do we prevent anyone from ever doing this", but rather "why is the upper extreme here, and the lower extreme there?" with an objective eye.
Just as important as that 101k is the barely 13k a heavily upgraded, refined-stagger, carefully tuned torpedo boat can barely pull off (by the way lower shields in and of themselves won't be quite enough to fix that; it will help but they're just that far behind)
I want things that threaten my subsystems that I may be able to override or shoot things at me that I can avoid. (Y'know, kinda like some of the Delta enemies do?) Not MORE things that demand more DPS or nothing.
Meh, as long as it's fun though, I guess...
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That is the point I was getting at, yes.
I'll use keybind macros again as an example. This is something that allows a player to use a dozen abilities at the press of a single button and does not have an GUI implementation - it can only be configured via a chat command.. akin to how people used to bypass character customization restrictions.
Conversely, there is no ingame documentation explaining or assisting a player in setting up such a macro and anyone who doesn't use it is limited to activating a single ability at a time and will often face delay with global ability activation cooldown.. in addition to having to monitor more abilities and their cooldowns(rather than just mashing spacebar).
There is a large gap here that needs to be addressed one way.. or the other. Scaling the game towards one or the other either penalizes or greatly benefits one of the two.
I'm not saying it is "good" or "bad", just a broken part of the metagame that needs to be addressed. Aux2Bat is another such polarizing mechanic that either needs to be more accessable or reduced. (I personally think no active doff powers of the same type should be stackable - even though that would hurt my beloved torpedo boats.)
Let's see if your team can deliver and give me reason to log in more often.
Keybinds - really easy to do, and, you can do all they do manually anyway. It is just easier with keybinds.
A2B - it is the most accessible (and most reduced, no PvE build except on a few select ships should use it these days) mechanic available, you just doff B'Tran cluster.
This is probably about as cynical as I can get in regards to the matter, but I have a feeling the idea was to see just how much players would bend.
You have marketing -- a necessary job for any MMO, but loathed by many as it carries a usually negative stigma with the job. Their job is to see just what players are willing to pay for, and to see just how much money they can squeeze from you. Their job is also to see what players won't pay for and pass that along to their superiors on what to let go of.
It's no secret that Cryptic thinks we've been gliding on easy street for a while, and they wanted to make the game more challenging. This ends up contradicting someone else's department in Cryptic whose job involves creating new ships and shinies to sell to the players.
When you have an expansion that simultaneously addresses the 'challenge' (or in some cases 'grind') factor, while offering monetized shinies like T6 ships and T5U upgrade tokens... you're faced with a perfect scenario of what not to do.
You have devs who I honestly believe have their heart in the right place, who are being directed by people (or at least their advice) in marketing who want to see how much can be monetized.
People, including myself, bought into the T5U upgrade begrudgingly. I did not enjoy it, but I wanted to see just how much better my ship upgrade would perform. That's $7 worth of zen for one ship, btw.
When people discover their T5U and T6 ships actually end up performing worse as a result of that other department in Cryptic wanting to make the game more challenging, you have a very bad first impression of what Delta Rising consists of.
Players do not want to perform worse than before. And certainly not when spending $7 on ships they likely already spent lots of money on expecting them to be the best help someone can get.
Factor in things like D'Angelo's call on removing spec points due to a mistake Cryptic made, and the understandable frustration with the lack of communication. Then throw in any other number of issues people have, such as the mastery grind, the dilithium 'adjustments', the item upgrade system, and what have you...
... and maybe you begin to understand Marketing has found their benchmark on what players are not willing to put up with.
Then you start to see changes people want to see. A free T5U ship upgrade token for veterans (which imo should have been there in the first place), more communication from Cryptic, an apology from Stephen D'Angelo, and no small amount of patches that are gradually granting concessions players have been asking for.
And that is all it comes down to, in my opinion. Marketing pushing the players too far into buying, combined with Cryptic's own game design decisions to give some longevity to the end game.
Two great tastes in an MMO update which do not by any means taste good together. That is Delta Rising.
Thank you for keeping us updated on this. It's good to know you guys are still checking and adjusting things! I look forward to seeing the changes on Thursday.
The supercharged shields are as far as i am concerned the biggest annoyance. The HP is doable, but the supercharging shields are what makes taking down the high HP NPC such a boring and painful experience.
Scaling down the hit points from shields is therefor a welcome change.
One thing i hope you will also consider is the mandatory optional tasks. Perhaps the reduction in hit points will make the loss of optional task and the game more an exception than the current rule, but i would prefer to see optional task as such "optional" and not fail conditions.
With the huge gap between normal and advanced there's no learning curve and a lot of frustration going around. Normal is considered boring by most, but advanced has high failure rates.
Quoted for truth - communication is important, and the last few weeks weren't the best. Hopefully we're over the hump.