IMO, it's not so much the parsers or even power creep (in a general sense) causing the problem... it's the attitude of some of the players who have this god complex because of their ability to throw out massive DPS while others can't (or won't) make builds which focus on it. There are those who think everyone else sucks because they were in a bad pug or the STF wasn't completed in X-minutes. There is very little (if any) interaction in Team chat, unless some player wants to whine and ***** about how the team isn't performing "their" way. STFs are about using teamwork to accomplish a goal. In some cases, people may not know what they are doing, but on others, it's their own fault that an STF fails. Granted, with a time limit, it may be hard to work out a strategy in Team chat, but most of the experienced players "should" know how to do an STF.
I myself have been in PUGs where a single player (ISA, for example) would break off from the group and attack one side of the gateway while the rest of the group went the other way. While the main part was handling the left-side properly, the guy on his own was attacking the right side and got to the point where the Nanite Spheres would spawn and head his/her direction. Since the main group was tied up with the left side, the Spheres heading to the right could not be destroyed and the mission would fail. That single person then had the balls to call us noobs and idiots because he screwed up the STF. After looking at my own parser, yes that single person would have high DPS, but obviously didn't have enough sense to know that you can't "normally" solo a side of the gateway on Advanced.
I think most of us can agree that there are many players who have excellent DPS, but very little common sense.
There are a lot of players who simply don't know how to build a ship at least semi-properly to throw out a respectable amount of DPS. Yes, the resources are out there (STOWiki, forums, individual websites), but they either lack the ability, knowledge of the resources, or willingness to learn. The attitude of some of the aforementioned "elitists" doesn't help the matter.
IMO, Cryptic created this environment with the content they throw out... most of their content is designed to kill in as short a time as possible for the biggest bonus (STFs). People have tried to adapt to the game's design in that way, while others simply can't or won't change their playstyle to this "metric". Cryptic has basically turned STO into SRO-Tac Online
Just my opinion...
-AoP- Warrior's Blood (KDF Armada) / -AoP- Qu' raD qulbo'Degh / -AoP- ProjectPhoenix Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
And they achieved their goal. But some realized they had an insne amount of DPS and no content that needed it. There were complaints about that for a long time - "we need something "real Elite" to test our skills."
It was needed as the original content didn't really challenge a proper build once some effort had been applied to learning the difference between low DPS and high DPS.
And with Delta Rising, Cryptic finally delivered that. Unfortunately probably also proving that it's not wise to isten to the forum,s because suddenly people that were not part of the DPS hype realize that things got more difficult for them, too, and they never wanted that.
Thing is they didn't deliver it at all. Damage sponges that are just tedious to kill due to inflated shields and hull beyond normal expectations is TRIBBLE. There's no other word for it. I've balanced 5-6 different games in the last decade to suit multiple different styles. I even tried the sponge method once, all it did was TRIBBLE players off. It's not fun it's just boring.
A proper challenge would be non-gimped AI ships that have a bit more of an AI with groups of set abilities that are known to synergise well to force players into having to use defensive abilities as well as offensive. That DPS is only going to work if you can actually shoot
That is how to balance Elite and Normal, the hull and shield values could have smaller adjustments to provide challenge but not the way it's currently been done.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
I don't understand why people complain that there is only no build variety, and complain about [x] build, because they don't use it. And, isn't it Scimitars doing the most DPS? They aren't escorts...
Let me give you an example. Before DR, lets take for example a non-tac rom toon, in a Scimitar using dual heavy cannons, everything MKXII, top gear at that time. In a borg elite STF was more then pulling its weight, since it scored 12k DPS, when it was needed 5k per team mate. Now, post DR, even with full MKXIV upgraded gear, that same build has no chance at elite content like Korfez, no matter what...
Did Kirk tank? What about Picard? Oh, the Defiant was a healer, right? Seriously, the MMO trinity is so NOT Star Trek it isn't even funny.
Actually, dunno about Kirk, but Picard did tanked plenty. In fact the Enterprise D barely fired. And Defiant did "healed", as in rescued ships in the dominion war or even before that, in the brief klingon-cardasion war.
So, you use a T1 ship throughout the whole game? You've no need to improve. Why is it about me vs you? I don't see it that way. Maybe some have an inferiority complex, which is quite interesting from a psychological point of view, in fact.
Me vs you?? And inferiority complex?? I only quoted and reply to the OP. You felt the need to start to quote allmost all my sentences and prove me that your point of view is the right one and you talk to me about inferiority complex lol
It was needed as the original content didn't really challenge a proper build once some effort had been applied to learning the difference between low DPS and high DPS.
Thing is they didn't deliver it at all. Damage sponges that are just tedious to kill due to inflated shields and hull beyond normal expectations is TRIBBLE. There's no other word for it. I've balanced 5-6 different games in the last decade to suit multiple different styles. I even tried the sponge method once, all it did was TRIBBLE players off. It's not fun it's just boring.
So, the AI gets smarter, but the DPS is still not needed? Are you certain that is the solution?
If enemies blow up in 10 seconds, no matter how "smart" the AI is - it doesn't matter, because in those 10 seconds it doesn't get to use most of its "smartness".
Maybe just buffing hit points was the simplest option (new defensive abilities could have done something similar), but the beginning of any change to the NPCs is that they need to live longer.
The only alternativewould be that they'd deal significantly more damage - but that means that either people try to deal even more DPS so they can avoid it - or you get a lot of frustrated players that blow up in 9 seconds and need 10 seconds (high DPS players) or 50 minutes (low DPS players) to take down an enemy. Borg invisotorps all over again.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Let me give you an example. Before DR, lets take for example a non-tac rom toon, in a Scimitar using dual heavy cannons, everything MKXII, top gear at that time. In a borg elite STF was more then pulling its weight, since it scored 12k DPS, when it was needed 5k per team mate. Now, post DR, even with full MKXIV upgraded gear, that same build has no chance at elite content like Korfez, no matter what...
What, only 12k pre-DE with Scimi-DHC (even on non-tac)? I think here is the pilot to blame, not the ship or the missions. DHC-Builds work quite nice, korfez is no exception... gear=/=skill
Especially korfez is now -bentans ug aside- quite easy to do... not the elite mission it should be.
So resistance or armour protection or whatever you want to call it has diminishing returns and a cap. I wouldn't suggest having a cap on damage output but diminishing returns is something I'd like to see.
Similar to what you see with skill points also, the more you invest in one area, the overall less of a return you get. This could in a way, force the player to mix up their tactics in order to receive maximum benefits.
I'm a little mind blowen that they haven't done this.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Let me give you an example. Before DR, lets take for example a non-tac rom toon, in a Scimitar using dual heavy cannons, everything MKXII, top gear at that time. In a borg elite STF was more then pulling its weight, since it scored 12k DPS, when it was needed 5k per team mate. Now, post DR, even with full MKXIV upgraded gear, that same build has no chance at elite content like Korfez, no matter what...
That is 100% false. There is no truth to it. That 12k DPS pre-DR would be somewhere above double that DPS with full weapon upgrades, and adding specializations. Please post your source for this, because it's flat-out wrong. Look at damage numbers for upgraded gear, add in flanking bonus, and take into consideration higher hull,shield, and other defensive stats.
Actually, dunno about Kirk, but Picard did tanked plenty. In fact the Enterprise D barely fired. And Defiant did "healed", as in rescued ships in the dominion war or even before that, in the brief klingon-cardasion war.
I like your use of examples, or, rather, lack thereof. So, TNG was about a ship that couldn't beat anything on its own, but rather one that could take damage and hop someone else would do damage? We remember different shows and movies. I actually saw Nemesis the other day, and, if that's tanking, that's an epic tanking fail.
Me vs you?? And inferiority complex?? I only quoted and reply to the OP. You felt the need to start to quote allmost all my sentences and prove me that your point of view is the right one and you talk to me about inferiority complex lol
I can't believe anyone with even 1st grade reading comprehension would post that unless they're trolling or being ironic. Or completely disregarded what it referenced (which was quoted).
There is more you can do that just DPS. Look at the vampire type builds. You can kill an enemy just as quickly while doing lower dps if you can make them more vulnerable to damage. I was in a group earlier and we vaporized a tactical cube FAR faster with a vampire setup then any dps setup I have ever seen do. It lost all shields, weapons, propulsion etc within seconds and was just sitting dead in space. We have done that to many other ships also.
There are also other strategies that works very well that are also lower dps. I have seen people cooperate and yank all the enemies into a ball, rip off all their shields and then blow up the whole group. The dps parse for that was pretty pathetic but in terms of kill speed .... it beat many very high dps setups.
This pure dps focus that so many have is actually making things worse since it focuses on a single way to kill and not on what really works.
In some missions killing quickly as actually counter productive. Look at the new Borg mission where we rescue ships. The easiest I have EVER had that mission was with a group of carriers and all we did was rescue ships. The first shots we EVER fired where at the dreadnaughts at the end. If you don't destroy ships they don't escalate to stronger ships. Just launch fighters and have them keep the enemies busy. Later the Undine and Voth show up and attack each other. You can be pretty much completely ignored.
High dps makes that mission FAR FAR harder than it needs to be. It makes it harder to get optional objectives and you end up with much tougher enemies.
The game is not a DPS race. The players are making it a DPS race.
The game is not a DPS race. The players are making it a DPS race.
I respectfully disagree completely. You can keep thinking that, but aside from a very, very small handful of mission out there, DPS is king/queen of all setups available in STO.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
I miss those days it was a lot more fun and if you wanted the good gear you had to do missions to get them. Everyone hung out at DS9 then was a busy place lol. I know it will never be like that again those were the good old days to me.
You must be joking about that because you didn't get the gear for finishing the STF unless the RNG Gods were favoring you that day. Otherwise one of the other four guys got it and you had to try and try again until you did.
Which is why I find the "it needs to be challenging argument" laughable because if it was like that it would be a one and done thing.
Even with the DPS scaling up people did I still see most missions go much easier if you replace some DPS with some crowd control type capabilities. Even DPS do more damage to enemies when they are all in a giant ball and they have no shields, weapons, movement etc.
Pure DPS is easy to do. It is not the more efficient way to do most of the content but it is easy and requires no teamwork. With pure DPS you can have a TRIBBLE team and still basically brute force your way through missions. It takes longer but it does work. The only alternative most people ever see are PUGs where you have no DPS and no communication.
It is rare to see a team that has actual teamwork and builds designed to complement each other. What they should probably do is give enemies more abilities are also some harder hitting attacks so that tanks or crowd control is more useful. Just giving the enemies some serious energy drain and have them using stuff like gravity well, tykens rift more often would be nice. Instead of just giant damage sponges it would require a little more thought and teamwork to take them down.
Aka didn't automatically shuck out cash to upgrade or buy 30K dps monster escorts or dreads.
Care to name these MMO's that increase the level cap where you don't need to get any new gear?
The way Cryptic went honestly is better...you get to keep the gear you have and to upgrade it or not and it's still viable.
You don't have to grind not only dilithium but rep tokens to get MK XIV gear.
Some players in this game are so blasted lazy...they completely ignore that any MMO you play you have to get completely new gear when you get a level cap raise...they act put apon because they have to upgrade (Which they really don't).
Isn't another MMO I've played where old gear is viable to do new content...people are so dang spoiled and lazy.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Pre DR the power creep got insane and one person could carry a elite and a good group could do a elite in a few minutes.
They scaled up health on every to compensate...trouble is when things scaled up most players didn't...now they're complaining things are to hard.
Trouble is people are lazy and refuse to learn and just want to be carried again...
Problem with this information, is it's not so much players didn't scale up, it's more they really shouldn't have to.
Limiting skill choices is not how a game should run, neither should limiting gear choices.
Yet, we find ourselves in just that scenario, as the only true way to so called improve, is either pay sums of in game and/or RL money, run the gauntlet of rep/fleet projects, play the RNG lotto of lockboxes/doff packs/R&D packs/crafting, lengthy and over drawn out skill point grind for specializations, etc.
There is actual player skill and, than there is what the game itself defines as skill, in the form of possible dps/defense capability/healing potential/crowd control/manipulation/etc.
The DPS channel guys/gals have pushed the limitations, into how far the dps ranges the game allows but, this doesn't account for how other's can increase their dps outside of following the exact same methods only.
In other words, boff skills have not really changed other than the newly added intel boffs, those same old skills haven't increased in power exponentially unless effected by some other source, player skill points have not increased in potential either so, the only way to increase so called potential still focuses on player RL skills and, gear + build choices.
So, with so few actual choices to gain these overboard dps rates, we find diversity of build choices very narrow minded, with few actual choices other than dps.
Now, since some changes as of late have brought npc power under slight control, it has opened a bit of a broader range of viability back to what can and, cannot remain a viable choice in daily missions of any sorts.
But, there are still many people who say it still is not enough and, this is only 1 of the reasons some people do not either play anymore or, do not play often or, do not bother trying, etc.
Granted there are many other reasons as to why people have chosen not to do the above ^ sentence but, narrowing a game to only a single minded focus, whilst also narrowing down choices on how to achieve that focus, is what ruins gaming experiences for people and, can even ruin the game itself.
The game is not a DPS race. The players are making it a DPS race.
As with all online combat games I have played, be it a FB game or an mmo like this one it always seems to end up being about the highest DPS. Players crave it the company gives it like a drug dealer. Eventually updates for DPS ruin a game 3 games previously have been ruined for me because it became £££/$$$ driven
Events once a month making previous tech defunk and F2P players unable to play and compete with P2P players before even being fully built. Huge updates every 6 months making F2P players fall a year behind P2P players.
STO is different though as I can get the MkXIV gear with no money but still DPS driven.
Everytime I see complaints about the same thing
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
You must be joking about that because you didn't get the gear for finishing the STF unless the RNG Gods were favoring you that day. Otherwise one of the other four guys got it and you had to try and try again until you did.
Which is why I find the "it needs to be challenging argument" laughable because if it was like that it would be a one and done thing.
Yeah you did get gear like that. Granted I was lucky and got my MK12 MACO set for space in 3 missions. The weapons were even easier to get. The argument of challenging depends on the person playing. Doing mission over again is nothing new to the game. But now you have to do it for BNPs.:)
I just levelled a new character and got to level 50 a week ago. I'm level 53 now, I didn't do patrol missions and I haven't played a new epsidode yet.
I'm still flying my level 40 assault cruiser. One of my tac consoles I bought from the spire and upgraded it to mk 13 with dilithium I got as a reward while levelling using doff assignments and some PvE missions. My other 2 tac consoles are still mk x purple quality and from the exchange.
I bought Mk 12 Purple and blue phaser arrays from the exchange. I'm still using a mk vii blue beam array and a purple mk ix I got from drops doing starbase 24 and other missions. Mk vii purple quality quantum torpedo.
No reputation traits, no specialisation points yet when I played my first (advanced) STF. I did 5100 DPS, with weapons power never higher than 113.
I don't want to say that we should look down on people who do 6k dps, but I think 6kDPS-players shouldn't be surprised either when other people are a bit annoyed when those players are only doing 6k when it's easy to do more...
I think we can expect people to try and do a bit more than that... it is doable.
You must be joking about that because you didn't get the gear for finishing the STF unless the RNG Gods were favoring you that day. Otherwise one of the other four guys got it and you had to try and try again until you did.
True, but the gear that you were doing the long STF'S for was for the most part optional gear .
Or in other words you could do just as well in most scenarios with what you had .
Can you say the same about today's STF'S , with the fire being set under your butt by the ridiculous non-optionals on one hand and the crazy & uneven HP some critters show on the other ?
Both the long STF'S and the pre-DR versions were better then the rat race that we have now .
Things are even uglier as players turn on players for not "preforming" (aka not running the rat maze as fast as someone else does .
Neither success nor failure satisfy ... as I always get reminded of how this game was perverted by the perverts in charge .
Not sure, but have any of you guys really played the game?
I have mediocre builds with not always ap beams or cannons, and I do ground missions too. And we get it done.
It's not the pewpewpew what it was, but it's easy as heck still.
If you want to max all go grind and b-itch as hell in the forums, go for it, but guys your better than that. Just play or don't play the game.
I've got one at 60+, 20 or so extra points, and I'm good both at elite space and elite ground. And you can be as good, actually you'd be better, just leave the b-ching here and go play. Or go to the next game and when it goes bad come back.
Galavant!
"Use Temporal Skills to NERF EVERYTHING before it happened!" -Unknown source.
I personally have no issues in most cases with the TTK on enemies. I dont' find my issue is the time to kill a target.
My issue is that the game is still apparently operating under the what seems, to me, incomprehensible expectation that it's appropriate to have NPCs with abilities that one shot a perfectly healthy on level player target with values and abilities that we cannot, apparently match.
Something seem very, VERY wrong with the expectation that we are jsut supposed to keep exploding over and over to beat a given scenario (a complaint that has existed in STO since Day One).
Enemy durability, to my mind, is not the core issue. Enemy instantaneous lethality in a disturbing number of cases, on the other hand, seems to be.
Other people's mileage may vary of course.
I did think Mustrum's callout on why NPC's need to have more than a 2 second life expectancy was dead on though; well said mr. ridcully. The Unseen University would agree I expect.
"The only thing mankind learns from the study of history is that mankind does not learn from the study of history." ~G. Santayana
Some players in this game are so blasted lazy...they completely ignore that any MMO you play you have to get completely new gear when you get a level cap raise...they act put apon because they have to upgrade (Which they really don't).
Isn't another MMO I've played where old gear is viable to do new content...people are so dang spoiled and lazy.
Imma gonna mention one thing:
The reputation system.
Older players got adjusted, in the name of balance. Insane huh? So rather than asking newer players to level themselves up, like the rest of us did, the masses got "balanced". Talk about laziness huh?
Now some lecture the rest us about being lazy because we haven't got the highest level gear yet. :rolleyes:
You know what? I know this for a fact, because I play with a few of these conquering PVE heros and know them personally.
Course some of these best geared acquaintances , haven't put any effort at all into anything at all, they simply bought their way to the best gear, because they have more disposable income.
They have all the best stuff faster then the rest of the masses, but NOT through some Herculean effort, don't let some of them fool you. But they will tell you how "hard" they worked and judge others just the same.
These self appointed PVE heroes of my acquaintance, complain about having to carry other players of lesser gear too. Even after taking the easy way out themselves , but that's their little secret between Cryptic and themselves. Shhhhhhhh
Some of them have even complained about the winter race to get the new Breen ship and have bought the ship outright already.
Again, I know a few of these players personally. I'm not speaking to, or about any poster in this thread in particular, but felt that in the interest of clarity, my experience with some of these players was important to this conversation.
Not everyone, who is without epic gear is "lazy". But there are some who will tell you this.
Cryptic has carefully created a competitive situation as an incentive to get people to upgrade and as an easy way to make money, and while that's cool, they need to make money after all, they also sit back while some players who just spend money to upgrade quickly and easily, judge, shame and name call, those who can't and that's not cool at all.
Care to name these MMO's that increase the level cap where you don't need to get any new gear?
Which they probably make available to outright get at the intake gear stores.
The way Cryptic went honestly is better...you get to keep the gear you have and to upgrade it or not and it's still viable.
Unless you do Advanced Ques. Then you have to upgrade.
You don't have to grind not only dilithium but rep tokens to get MK XIV gear.
1) Fleets could do it just for dilithium and fleet credits that come from dumping just about most things in a fleet project.
2) No you just have to either grind crafting mats for upgrade kits which will cost large amounts of dilithium, or grand rare mats that can only be gotten in advanced and eliet Ques to save dilithium. Or just spend loads of EC on my the exchange for the kits.
Some players in this game are so blasted lazy...they completely ignore that any MMO you play you have to get completely new gear when you get a level cap raise...they act put apon because they have to upgrade (Which they really don't).
Or they just can't get the things needed to upgrade because you need to upgrade to get them.
Yet another whiner about DPS. Tell ya what you don't like the way the game is ? Either take the time and effort to improve your ships and learn how to actually fight them and STFU or even better QUIT PLAYING STO NOBODY WILL MISS YOU.
Yeah lol but I just really wanted to see how many players remember what it was like before rep. The game has changed a lot since then and not for the better.
Guess I should of asked how many remember in first post.
One of the biggest changes is the "Borg" set. Used to be you could get the whole thing (equiv to Mk XI now) on normal runs with EDC and get it quickly and be able to run space content with your gang without being the one with the most warp core breaches award. Now you may as well go for the sets you had to run hundreds of missions for. The assimilated console was a mission reward. You didn't even need to run an STF to get it. But of course, now you have to run Advanced to gear for Advanced. You won't get a single rep item running normal until you get lucky in the daily reward packs from rep turn ins.
But other things are easier. The Reman set used to be a long time in the making. You can get that very fast compared, considering The Vault used to be an event that only came around a couple of times a week.
The best was the cleaning up currencies. That seems to have changed just a bit. :-P
Yet another whiner about DPS. Tell ya what you don't like the way the game is ? Either take the time and effort to improve your ships and learn how to actually fight them and STFU or even better QUIT PLAYING STO NOBODY WILL MISS YOU.
Another whiner about whiners. Tell you what. Like the empty queues? No one wants to play with you. It's a GAME. Games are fun, right? Right??
But as for DPS, yeah. I think your shuttle needs to do 6k dps now to do anything.
I just levelled a new character and got to level 50 a week ago. I'm level 53 now, I didn't do patrol missions and I haven't played a new epsidode yet.
I'm still flying my level 40 assault cruiser. One of my tac consoles I bought from the spire and upgraded it to mk 13 with dilithium I got as a reward while levelling using doff assignments and some PvE missions. My other 2 tac consoles are still mk x purple quality and from the exchange.
I bought Mk 12 Purple and blue phaser arrays from the exchange. I'm still using a mk vii blue beam array and a purple mk ix I got from drops doing starbase 24 and other missions. Mk vii purple quality quantum torpedo.
No reputation traits, no specialisation points yet when I played my first (advanced) STF. I did 5100 DPS, with weapons power never higher than 113.
I don't want to say that we should look down on people who do 6k dps, but I think 6kDPS-players shouldn't be surprised either when other people are a bit annoyed when those players are only doing 6k when it's easy to do more...
I think we can expect people to try and do a bit more than that... it is doable.
That is 6k dps now. I think the OP is talking about 2 years or more back DPS, not the power creep of today. Back when the best in the game was borg requisitions. Back before star bases and fleet holdings. Back when you got EDCs and a rare drop that let you buy a coveted piece of gear. Back before you could walk into Romu-Mart and pay for a set of gear with epohh tags.
Yet another whiner about DPS. Tell ya what you don't like the way the game is ? Either take the time and effort to improve your ships and learn how to actually fight them and STFU or even better QUIT PLAYING STO NOBODY WILL MISS YOU.
Actually I will have you know Dono is not bad at the game, he's not the best player out there but he's far from the 'bad player zone' and some of us would miss him if he left because unlike others, he's fun to have around.
Comments
I myself have been in PUGs where a single player (ISA, for example) would break off from the group and attack one side of the gateway while the rest of the group went the other way. While the main part was handling the left-side properly, the guy on his own was attacking the right side and got to the point where the Nanite Spheres would spawn and head his/her direction. Since the main group was tied up with the left side, the Spheres heading to the right could not be destroyed and the mission would fail. That single person then had the balls to call us noobs and idiots because he screwed up the STF. After looking at my own parser, yes that single person would have high DPS, but obviously didn't have enough sense to know that you can't "normally" solo a side of the gateway on Advanced.
I think most of us can agree that there are many players who have excellent DPS, but very little common sense.
There are a lot of players who simply don't know how to build a ship at least semi-properly to throw out a respectable amount of DPS. Yes, the resources are out there (STOWiki, forums, individual websites), but they either lack the ability, knowledge of the resources, or willingness to learn. The attitude of some of the aforementioned "elitists" doesn't help the matter.
IMO, Cryptic created this environment with the content they throw out... most of their content is designed to kill in as short a time as possible for the biggest bonus (STFs). People have tried to adapt to the game's design in that way, while others simply can't or won't change their playstyle to this "metric". Cryptic has basically turned STO into SRO-Tac Online
Just my opinion...
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Thing is they didn't deliver it at all. Damage sponges that are just tedious to kill due to inflated shields and hull beyond normal expectations is TRIBBLE. There's no other word for it. I've balanced 5-6 different games in the last decade to suit multiple different styles. I even tried the sponge method once, all it did was TRIBBLE players off. It's not fun it's just boring.
A proper challenge would be non-gimped AI ships that have a bit more of an AI with groups of set abilities that are known to synergise well to force players into having to use defensive abilities as well as offensive. That DPS is only going to work if you can actually shoot
That is how to balance Elite and Normal, the hull and shield values could have smaller adjustments to provide challenge but not the way it's currently been done.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Actually, dunno about Kirk, but Picard did tanked plenty. In fact the Enterprise D barely fired. And Defiant did "healed", as in rescued ships in the dominion war or even before that, in the brief klingon-cardasion war.
Me vs you?? And inferiority complex??
If enemies blow up in 10 seconds, no matter how "smart" the AI is - it doesn't matter, because in those 10 seconds it doesn't get to use most of its "smartness".
Maybe just buffing hit points was the simplest option (new defensive abilities could have done something similar), but the beginning of any change to the NPCs is that they need to live longer.
The only alternativewould be that they'd deal significantly more damage - but that means that either people try to deal even more DPS so they can avoid it - or you get a lot of frustrated players that blow up in 9 seconds and need 10 seconds (high DPS players) or 50 minutes (low DPS players) to take down an enemy. Borg invisotorps all over again.
What, only 12k pre-DE with Scimi-DHC (even on non-tac)? I think here is the pilot to blame, not the ship or the missions. DHC-Builds work quite nice, korfez is no exception... gear=/=skill
Especially korfez is now -bentans ug aside- quite easy to do... not the elite mission it should be.
Or if Mk XII to Mk XIV provided the +60% Strength Geko detailed in his post rather than the +110% it provides, eh?
Similar to what you see with skill points also, the more you invest in one area, the overall less of a return you get. This could in a way, force the player to mix up their tactics in order to receive maximum benefits.
I'm a little mind blowen that they haven't done this.
I like your use of examples, or, rather, lack thereof. So, TNG was about a ship that couldn't beat anything on its own, but rather one that could take damage and hop someone else would do damage? We remember different shows and movies. I actually saw Nemesis the other day, and, if that's tanking, that's an epic tanking fail.
I can't believe anyone with even 1st grade reading comprehension would post that unless they're trolling or being ironic. Or completely disregarded what it referenced (which was quoted).
There are also other strategies that works very well that are also lower dps. I have seen people cooperate and yank all the enemies into a ball, rip off all their shields and then blow up the whole group. The dps parse for that was pretty pathetic but in terms of kill speed .... it beat many very high dps setups.
This pure dps focus that so many have is actually making things worse since it focuses on a single way to kill and not on what really works.
In some missions killing quickly as actually counter productive. Look at the new Borg mission where we rescue ships. The easiest I have EVER had that mission was with a group of carriers and all we did was rescue ships. The first shots we EVER fired where at the dreadnaughts at the end. If you don't destroy ships they don't escalate to stronger ships. Just launch fighters and have them keep the enemies busy. Later the Undine and Voth show up and attack each other. You can be pretty much completely ignored.
High dps makes that mission FAR FAR harder than it needs to be. It makes it harder to get optional objectives and you end up with much tougher enemies.
The game is not a DPS race. The players are making it a DPS race.
I respectfully disagree completely. You can keep thinking that, but aside from a very, very small handful of mission out there, DPS is king/queen of all setups available in STO.
You must be joking about that because you didn't get the gear for finishing the STF unless the RNG Gods were favoring you that day. Otherwise one of the other four guys got it and you had to try and try again until you did.
Which is why I find the "it needs to be challenging argument" laughable because if it was like that it would be a one and done thing.
And got its but kicked most of the time, and sometimes exploded.
They scaled up health on every to compensate...trouble is when things scaled up most players didn't...now they're complaining things are to hard.
Trouble is people are lazy and refuse to learn and just want to be carried again...
Aka didn't automatically shuck out cash to upgrade or buy 30K dps monster escorts or dreads.
Pure DPS is easy to do. It is not the more efficient way to do most of the content but it is easy and requires no teamwork. With pure DPS you can have a TRIBBLE team and still basically brute force your way through missions. It takes longer but it does work. The only alternative most people ever see are PUGs where you have no DPS and no communication.
It is rare to see a team that has actual teamwork and builds designed to complement each other. What they should probably do is give enemies more abilities are also some harder hitting attacks so that tanks or crowd control is more useful. Just giving the enemies some serious energy drain and have them using stuff like gravity well, tykens rift more often would be nice. Instead of just giant damage sponges it would require a little more thought and teamwork to take them down.
Care to name these MMO's that increase the level cap where you don't need to get any new gear?
The way Cryptic went honestly is better...you get to keep the gear you have and to upgrade it or not and it's still viable.
You don't have to grind not only dilithium but rep tokens to get MK XIV gear.
Some players in this game are so blasted lazy...they completely ignore that any MMO you play you have to get completely new gear when you get a level cap raise...they act put apon because they have to upgrade (Which they really don't).
Isn't another MMO I've played where old gear is viable to do new content...people are so dang spoiled and lazy.
Problem with this information, is it's not so much players didn't scale up, it's more they really shouldn't have to.
Limiting skill choices is not how a game should run, neither should limiting gear choices.
Yet, we find ourselves in just that scenario, as the only true way to so called improve, is either pay sums of in game and/or RL money, run the gauntlet of rep/fleet projects, play the RNG lotto of lockboxes/doff packs/R&D packs/crafting, lengthy and over drawn out skill point grind for specializations, etc.
There is actual player skill and, than there is what the game itself defines as skill, in the form of possible dps/defense capability/healing potential/crowd control/manipulation/etc.
The DPS channel guys/gals have pushed the limitations, into how far the dps ranges the game allows but, this doesn't account for how other's can increase their dps outside of following the exact same methods only.
In other words, boff skills have not really changed other than the newly added intel boffs, those same old skills haven't increased in power exponentially unless effected by some other source, player skill points have not increased in potential either so, the only way to increase so called potential still focuses on player RL skills and, gear + build choices.
So, with so few actual choices to gain these overboard dps rates, we find diversity of build choices very narrow minded, with few actual choices other than dps.
Now, since some changes as of late have brought npc power under slight control, it has opened a bit of a broader range of viability back to what can and, cannot remain a viable choice in daily missions of any sorts.
But, there are still many people who say it still is not enough and, this is only 1 of the reasons some people do not either play anymore or, do not play often or, do not bother trying, etc.
Granted there are many other reasons as to why people have chosen not to do the above ^ sentence but, narrowing a game to only a single minded focus, whilst also narrowing down choices on how to achieve that focus, is what ruins gaming experiences for people and, can even ruin the game itself.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
As with all online combat games I have played, be it a FB game or an mmo like this one it always seems to end up being about the highest DPS. Players crave it the company gives it like a drug dealer. Eventually updates for DPS ruin a game 3 games previously have been ruined for me because it became £££/$$$ driven
Events once a month making previous tech defunk and F2P players unable to play and compete with P2P players before even being fully built. Huge updates every 6 months making F2P players fall a year behind P2P players.
STO is different though as I can get the MkXIV gear with no money but still DPS driven.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Yeah you did get gear like that. Granted I was lucky and got my MK12 MACO set for space in 3 missions. The weapons were even easier to get. The argument of challenging depends on the person playing. Doing mission over again is nothing new to the game. But now you have to do it for BNPs.:)
I'm still flying my level 40 assault cruiser. One of my tac consoles I bought from the spire and upgraded it to mk 13 with dilithium I got as a reward while levelling using doff assignments and some PvE missions. My other 2 tac consoles are still mk x purple quality and from the exchange.
I bought Mk 12 Purple and blue phaser arrays from the exchange. I'm still using a mk vii blue beam array and a purple mk ix I got from drops doing starbase 24 and other missions. Mk vii purple quality quantum torpedo.
No reputation traits, no specialisation points yet when I played my first (advanced) STF. I did 5100 DPS, with weapons power never higher than 113.
I don't want to say that we should look down on people who do 6k dps, but I think 6kDPS-players shouldn't be surprised either when other people are a bit annoyed when those players are only doing 6k when it's easy to do more...
I think we can expect people to try and do a bit more than that... it is doable.
True, but the gear that you were doing the long STF'S for was for the most part optional gear .
Or in other words you could do just as well in most scenarios with what you had .
Can you say the same about today's STF'S , with the fire being set under your butt by the ridiculous non-optionals on one hand and the crazy & uneven HP some critters show on the other ?
Both the long STF'S and the pre-DR versions were better then the rat race that we have now .
Things are even uglier as players turn on players for not "preforming" (aka not running the rat maze as fast as someone else does .
Neither success nor failure satisfy ... as I always get reminded of how this game was perverted by the perverts in charge .
to get the last part for the 3 piece mk12 set u want....
/sarcasm off
Combat games center around who kills the most and the fastest. DPS is the obvious conclusion.
I have mediocre builds with not always ap beams or cannons, and I do ground missions too. And we get it done.
It's not the pewpewpew what it was, but it's easy as heck still.
If you want to max all go grind and b-itch as hell in the forums, go for it, but guys your better than that. Just play or don't play the game.
I've got one at 60+, 20 or so extra points, and I'm good both at elite space and elite ground. And you can be as good, actually you'd be better, just leave the b-ching here and go play. Or go to the next game and when it goes bad come back.
"Use Temporal Skills to NERF EVERYTHING before it happened!" -Unknown source.
My issue is that the game is still apparently operating under the what seems, to me, incomprehensible expectation that it's appropriate to have NPCs with abilities that one shot a perfectly healthy on level player target with values and abilities that we cannot, apparently match.
Something seem very, VERY wrong with the expectation that we are jsut supposed to keep exploding over and over to beat a given scenario (a complaint that has existed in STO since Day One).
Enemy durability, to my mind, is not the core issue. Enemy instantaneous lethality in a disturbing number of cases, on the other hand, seems to be.
Other people's mileage may vary of course.
I did think Mustrum's callout on why NPC's need to have more than a 2 second life expectancy was dead on though; well said mr. ridcully. The Unseen University would agree I expect.
Imma gonna mention one thing:
The reputation system.
Older players got adjusted, in the name of balance. Insane huh? So rather than asking newer players to level themselves up, like the rest of us did, the masses got "balanced". Talk about laziness huh?
Now some lecture the rest us about being lazy because we haven't got the highest level gear yet. :rolleyes:
You know what? I know this for a fact, because I play with a few of these conquering PVE heros and know them personally.
Course some of these best geared acquaintances , haven't put any effort at all into anything at all, they simply bought their way to the best gear, because they have more disposable income.
They have all the best stuff faster then the rest of the masses, but NOT through some Herculean effort, don't let some of them fool you. But they will tell you how "hard" they worked and judge others just the same.
These self appointed PVE heroes of my acquaintance, complain about having to carry other players of lesser gear too. Even after taking the easy way out themselves , but that's their little secret between Cryptic and themselves. Shhhhhhhh
Some of them have even complained about the winter race to get the new Breen ship and have bought the ship outright already.
Again, I know a few of these players personally. I'm not speaking to, or about any poster in this thread in particular, but felt that in the interest of clarity, my experience with some of these players was important to this conversation.
Not everyone, who is without epic gear is "lazy". But there are some who will tell you this.
Cryptic has carefully created a competitive situation as an incentive to get people to upgrade and as an easy way to make money, and while that's cool, they need to make money after all, they also sit back while some players who just spend money to upgrade quickly and easily, judge, shame and name call, those who can't and that's not cool at all.
Which they probably make available to outright get at the intake gear stores.
Unless you do Advanced Ques. Then you have to upgrade.
1) Fleets could do it just for dilithium and fleet credits that come from dumping just about most things in a fleet project.
2) No you just have to either grind crafting mats for upgrade kits which will cost large amounts of dilithium, or grand rare mats that can only be gotten in advanced and eliet Ques to save dilithium. Or just spend loads of EC on my the exchange for the kits.
Or they just can't get the things needed to upgrade because you need to upgrade to get them.
and the other four people in the group didn't because only one person gets the item.
One of the biggest changes is the "Borg" set. Used to be you could get the whole thing (equiv to Mk XI now) on normal runs with EDC and get it quickly and be able to run space content with your gang without being the one with the most warp core breaches award. Now you may as well go for the sets you had to run hundreds of missions for. The assimilated console was a mission reward. You didn't even need to run an STF to get it. But of course, now you have to run Advanced to gear for Advanced. You won't get a single rep item running normal until you get lucky in the daily reward packs from rep turn ins.
But other things are easier. The Reman set used to be a long time in the making. You can get that very fast compared, considering The Vault used to be an event that only came around a couple of times a week.
The best was the cleaning up currencies. That seems to have changed just a bit. :-P
Another whiner about whiners. Tell you what. Like the empty queues? No one wants to play with you. It's a GAME. Games are fun, right? Right??
But as for DPS, yeah. I think your shuttle needs to do 6k dps now to do anything.
That is 6k dps now. I think the OP is talking about 2 years or more back DPS, not the power creep of today. Back when the best in the game was borg requisitions. Back before star bases and fleet holdings. Back when you got EDCs and a rare drop that let you buy a coveted piece of gear. Back before you could walk into Romu-Mart and pay for a set of gear with epohh tags.
Actually I will have you know Dono is not bad at the game, he's not the best player out there but he's far from the 'bad player zone' and some of us would miss him if he left because unlike others, he's fun to have around.