Actually, that is the last thing to do - the answer is to make NPCs equal to players so on Normal NPCs are equal to Normal players, Advanced NPCs are equal to Advanced Players and Elite NPCs are equal to Elite players.
NOT just whack hitpoints up as if that made stuff difficult.
This is exactly how it should be! The only problem is that if an NPC vapes someone, that person then rages it shouldn't be allowed. This is despite the fact that player also can do the same!! I mean come on people, if you are ALLOWED to have a vape build, why can't an NPC??
The base combat mechanics don't allow for sufficient power drain IMO. Just look at the SFC series (in particular 1 and 2). If you fired all 8 beams/cannons at the same time you virtually wipe out the capacitors and have to wait for recharge. If your shields are damaged, they take time to repair. If your subsystems are damaged, they also take time to repair, as does the hull. You had to learn to take care of your ship. In STO, you can insta-heal/charge everything almost, whereby all but eliminating defensive tactics. Everything in the game would have canon Starfleet clamouring for the tech! Fix this and you'll bring the Trek back. Bring back threat of destruction and exploration like it should be.
Now, as for DPS, I have no clue and don't care where I stand versus other people. I won't run off a DPS sheet to see where I 'need to improve'. That is not skill, it's basic maths. Like any decent player I work off observation and tactics, using the skills at my disposal and my own experience. I can run any Elite space mission with MKXII stuff and survive with most of my nerves intact. Personally, the longer fights provide way more satisfaction than any walkover!
So where does this relate to how I see myself in game? To be honest, personally, I welcomed the increased difficulty and I welcomed the attempt to slow down levelling. Levelling a new character to 50 with-in 2 weeks was, and still is way too fast, especially for a complete noob (At which point, I should mention I have been playing STO since 2010)! I have no issue at the speed of earning a new spec point at 1 every 6 hours of playtime (taking into account all the doff'ing and coffee breaks). My only real issue is the in-game cost of EVERYTHING! EC values were nerfed, STF rewards nerfed, new ways to strip-mine Dil from players increased. This is way out of hand now. I find it frustrating that I can't contribute as much to my fleet projects as I could before DR (and no, I won't go find a fleet already maxed. Been there, done that!).
As for PvP, I'm not interested fighting PvP outside of my friends. The few times I did, it was painful and boring due to spawn-campers.
Also, to address something which really bugs me.....the people who claim this game is Pay-to-Win or there's a 'Paywall'.....GET OVER YOURSELVES!!! Besides a few 'perks' gained with subs, there is no element in this game that requires anyone to pay to win. A P2W/PAYWALL game is only applicable to games where you actually stand to lose something. Go check a game called 'Galaxy 2 Online'. That game you have to spend to get anywhere. Pay to get stronger commanders, pay to get 'unique' blueprints. That game you can lose things you've spent months building! In STO, if you get destroyed or killed, you lose absolutely NOTHING! Even in Arena, you lose NOTHING! You can comeback to the game after 3 months and you'll have lost NOTHING! Yes you can buy Zen to buy Dil, but you can grind Dil to buy Zen. You can't join this game as a newbie and buy yourself into self'percieved highest level and hardest character/ship you can get, you actually have to do some work. So, it makes things 'time-gated'....so what!! Any decent, level headed player won't care if it takes time. I know, cause I'm one of them. I don't care for the time taken to grind,
I've played games for over 30 years and I expect an RPG to take time and I won't take a short-cut that will ruin the experience, I won't exploit or cheat my way to the top, there's just no need. Games are there for the enjoyment and to help relax, not to get stressed over. At the end of the day, Cryptic (and in some cases, CBS) is 'God' in STO, just like your boss is 'God' at your workplace. If you don't like it, find a new one!!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
When I say "let it go", I mean it in the sense Lily Sloane meant it when she said "blow up the ship" in First Contact. I feel like there's almost vendetta level focus here in slowing down fast progression.
Pretend the Borg are elite players and pretend Picard is a systems dev here.
LILY: You stealth nerfed us. PICARD: This really isn't the time. LILY: Okay. I don't know jack about game development systems design but everybody out there thinks that staying here and following this content grind strategy is suicide. They're just afraid to come in here and say it. PICARD: The players are accustomed to adapting to my patches. LILY: They're probably accustomed to your patches making sense. PICARD: None of them understand the grind as I do. ...No one does. No one can. LILY: What is that supposed to mean? PICARD: Six years ago, I was invited to play a game called 'Farmville'. I had their app implanted throughout my social media profiles. My credit card was linked to my account, every trace of disposable income erased. I was one of them. So you can imagine, my dear, I have a somewhat unique perspective on the grind and I know how to implement strategy. Now if you will excuse me I have work to do. LILY: I am such an idiot. ...It's so simple. The elite players hurt you, and now you're going to milk them dry. PICARD: At my company we don't succumb to monetization. We have a more evolved sensibility. LILY: Bull...! I saw the look on your face when you lowered those numbers on the spreadsheet. You were almost enjoying it! PICARD: How dare you!? LILY: Oh, come on, Captain. You're not the first man to get a thrill from nerfing someone. I see it all the time. PICARD: Get out! LILY: Or what? You'll nerfl me, like you nerfed the players who ground STFs after launch? PICARD: There was no way to distinguish them from exploiters. LILY: You didn't even try. Where was your evolved sensibility then? PICARD: I don't have time for this. LILY: Oh! Hey! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your little quest. Captain Zynga has to go hunt his whales. PICARD: What? LILY: You do have facebook in the twenty-fourth century? PICARD: This is not about monetization. LILY: Liar! PICARD: This is about saving the future of free-to-play gaming. LILY: Jean-Luc, delete the friggin' spreadsheets! PICARD: No! ...No!
(Picard breaks the starship display cabinet with his phaser rifle) PICARD: No! ...I will not sacrifice the systems design. We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space patrols and we fall back. They assimilate entire keybind systems, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here, ...this far, no further! And I will make them pay for their dilithium. LILY: You broke your little ships. ...See you around, Zynga.
I couldn't stop laughing!!! It hurts that there seems to be some truth in it as well.
When I say "let it go", I mean it in the sense Lily Sloane meant it when she said "blow up the ship" in First Contact. I feel like there's almost vendetta level focus here in slowing down fast progression.
Pretend the Borg are elite players and pretend Picard is a systems dev here.
LILY: You stealth nerfed us. PICARD: This really isn't the time. LILY: Okay. I don't know jack about game development systems design but everybody out there thinks that staying here and following this content grind strategy is suicide. They're just afraid to come in here and say it. PICARD: The players are accustomed to adapting to my patches. LILY: They're probably accustomed to your patches making sense. PICARD: None of them understand the grind as I do. ...No one does. No one can. LILY: What is that supposed to mean? PICARD: Six years ago, I was invited to play a game called 'Farmville'. I had their app implanted throughout my social media profiles. My credit card was linked to my account, every trace of disposable income erased. I was one of them. So you can imagine, my dear, I have a somewhat unique perspective on the grind and I know how to implement strategy. Now if you will excuse me I have work to do. LILY: I am such an idiot. ...It's so simple. The elite players hurt you, and now you're going to milk them dry. PICARD: At my company we don't succumb to monetization. We have a more evolved sensibility. LILY: Bull...! I saw the look on your face when you lowered those numbers on the spreadsheet. You were almost enjoying it! PICARD: How dare you!? LILY: Oh, come on, Captain. You're not the first man to get a thrill from nerfing someone. I see it all the time. PICARD: Get out! LILY: Or what? You'll nerfl me, like you nerfed the players who ground STFs after launch? PICARD: There was no way to distinguish them from exploiters. LILY: You didn't even try. Where was your evolved sensibility then? PICARD: I don't have time for this. LILY: Oh! Hey! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your little quest. Captain Zynga has to go hunt his whales. PICARD: What? LILY: You do have facebook in the twenty-fourth century? PICARD: This is not about monetization. LILY: Liar! PICARD: This is about saving the future of free-to-play gaming. LILY: Jean-Luc, delete the friggin' spreadsheets! PICARD: No! ...No!
(Picard breaks the starship display cabinet with his phaser rifle) PICARD: No! ...I will not sacrifice the systems design. We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space patrols and we fall back. They assimilate entire keybind systems, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here, ...this far, no further! And I will make them pay for their dilithium. LILY: You broke your little ships. ...See you around, Zynga.
>Cryptic introduces mechanics that allow top 1% to hit 100k
>Cryptic freaks out and nerfs content to rein in their own mistake
They seriously need to just give up. You can never keep up with the top performers in your game because there are more of them than there are of you and they have way more free time to tool around than you do. Punishing the rest of the player base because a handful of people can wipe the floor with all of the game's content is a flawed solution.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
So, as intended by Cryptic, the rich get richer (in terms of game rewards) and the rest get whacked... Nice going Cryptic...apparently casual players have no place in your economic model. :mad:
Not that we might actually buy more DOff slots to compensate for the increased number of DOffs required per mission since the revamp.
Not that we might buy more lockbox keys to get shinies only available otherwise from STF's.
Not that we might use lockbox Lobi to compensate for the lack of reputation drops in STF's.
I was really close to renewing my Gold subscription until this last PvE nerf; obviously, you don't want anything but min-max'ers to populate the servers... :mad:
Be careful what you ask for!
Expendables Fleet: Andrew - Bajoran Fed Engineer Ken'taura - Rom/Fed Scientist Gwyllim - Human Fed Delta Tac Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
>Cryptic introduces mechanics that allow top 1% to hit 100k
>Cryptic freaks out and nerfs content to rein in their own mistake
They seriously need to just give up. You can never keep up with the top performers in your game because there are more of them than there are of you and they have way more free time to tool around than you do. Punishing the rest of the player base because a handful of people can wipe the floor with all of the game's content is a flawed solution.
Until they do stop, all forms of DPS bragging need to be withheld. It just tells Cryptic what to nerf that will make the majority of us miserable. It's sad but I think the DPS'ers need to put the community ahead of themselves since Cryptic has not. Additionally, if they stop their behavior it might show Cryptic that an overall re-evaluation is necessary if even the whales/DPS'ers aren't feeding the cycle anymore.
Every time someone posts a DPS video, a queue dies. End it now. Prove you are not cool with this behavior any more than the majority of players.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Comments
That means it needs low and top performers including a big middle section.
This is exactly how it should be! The only problem is that if an NPC vapes someone, that person then rages it shouldn't be allowed. This is despite the fact that player also can do the same!! I mean come on people, if you are ALLOWED to have a vape build, why can't an NPC??
The base combat mechanics don't allow for sufficient power drain IMO. Just look at the SFC series (in particular 1 and 2). If you fired all 8 beams/cannons at the same time you virtually wipe out the capacitors and have to wait for recharge. If your shields are damaged, they take time to repair. If your subsystems are damaged, they also take time to repair, as does the hull. You had to learn to take care of your ship. In STO, you can insta-heal/charge everything almost, whereby all but eliminating defensive tactics. Everything in the game would have canon Starfleet clamouring for the tech! Fix this and you'll bring the Trek back. Bring back threat of destruction and exploration like it should be.
Now, as for DPS, I have no clue and don't care where I stand versus other people. I won't run off a DPS sheet to see where I 'need to improve'. That is not skill, it's basic maths. Like any decent player I work off observation and tactics, using the skills at my disposal and my own experience. I can run any Elite space mission with MKXII stuff and survive with most of my nerves intact. Personally, the longer fights provide way more satisfaction than any walkover!
So where does this relate to how I see myself in game? To be honest, personally, I welcomed the increased difficulty and I welcomed the attempt to slow down levelling. Levelling a new character to 50 with-in 2 weeks was, and still is way too fast, especially for a complete noob (At which point, I should mention I have been playing STO since 2010)! I have no issue at the speed of earning a new spec point at 1 every 6 hours of playtime (taking into account all the doff'ing and coffee breaks). My only real issue is the in-game cost of EVERYTHING! EC values were nerfed, STF rewards nerfed, new ways to strip-mine Dil from players increased. This is way out of hand now. I find it frustrating that I can't contribute as much to my fleet projects as I could before DR (and no, I won't go find a fleet already maxed. Been there, done that!).
As for PvP, I'm not interested fighting PvP outside of my friends. The few times I did, it was painful and boring due to spawn-campers.
Also, to address something which really bugs me.....the people who claim this game is Pay-to-Win or there's a 'Paywall'.....GET OVER YOURSELVES!!! Besides a few 'perks' gained with subs, there is no element in this game that requires anyone to pay to win. A P2W/PAYWALL game is only applicable to games where you actually stand to lose something. Go check a game called 'Galaxy 2 Online'. That game you have to spend to get anywhere. Pay to get stronger commanders, pay to get 'unique' blueprints. That game you can lose things you've spent months building! In STO, if you get destroyed or killed, you lose absolutely NOTHING! Even in Arena, you lose NOTHING! You can comeback to the game after 3 months and you'll have lost NOTHING! Yes you can buy Zen to buy Dil, but you can grind Dil to buy Zen. You can't join this game as a newbie and buy yourself into self'percieved highest level and hardest character/ship you can get, you actually have to do some work. So, it makes things 'time-gated'....so what!! Any decent, level headed player won't care if it takes time. I know, cause I'm one of them. I don't care for the time taken to grind,
I've played games for over 30 years and I expect an RPG to take time and I won't take a short-cut that will ruin the experience, I won't exploit or cheat my way to the top, there's just no need. Games are there for the enjoyment and to help relax, not to get stressed over. At the end of the day, Cryptic (and in some cases, CBS) is 'God' in STO, just like your boss is 'God' at your workplace. If you don't like it, find a new one!!
I couldn't stop laughing!!! It hurts that there seems to be some truth in it as well.
lol
Even More Updates to Rewards and PvE Queue Difficulty
^^
Odd changes on tribble page, some of the content gets put behind a L77t wall.
Super buff to Atmosphere Assault.
(possibly an "as seen on tribble" but looks solid)
>Cryptic freaks out and nerfs content to rein in their own mistake
They seriously need to just give up. You can never keep up with the top performers in your game because there are more of them than there are of you and they have way more free time to tool around than you do. Punishing the rest of the player base because a handful of people can wipe the floor with all of the game's content is a flawed solution.
Joined January 2009
Not that we might actually buy more DOff slots to compensate for the increased number of DOffs required per mission since the revamp.
Not that we might buy more lockbox keys to get shinies only available otherwise from STF's.
Not that we might use lockbox Lobi to compensate for the lack of reputation drops in STF's.
I was really close to renewing my Gold subscription until this last PvE nerf; obviously, you don't want anything but min-max'ers to populate the servers... :mad:
Be careful what you ask for!
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
Until they do stop, all forms of DPS bragging need to be withheld. It just tells Cryptic what to nerf that will make the majority of us miserable. It's sad but I think the DPS'ers need to put the community ahead of themselves since Cryptic has not. Additionally, if they stop their behavior it might show Cryptic that an overall re-evaluation is necessary if even the whales/DPS'ers aren't feeding the cycle anymore.
Every time someone posts a DPS video, a queue dies. End it now. Prove you are not cool with this behavior any more than the majority of players.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.