For clarity's sake, we'll share the full mathematical issue, and its effects. For the purpose of this demonstration, let's use simplified numbers to illustrate the point of how this hitpoint buff interacts with the Difficulty Scaling buffs, and the NPC's base hitpoints (please note these are example values for simplicity, and not the true values in the game).
Base Hitpoints Value = 1
Elite Difficulty Hitpoints Modifier = 3
So here is a simple formula on how a typical NPC would scale:
1 * 3 = 3
So typical critters in Elite mode has 3x as many HP as in Basic mode. Now let's take the Tholian Project Leader as an example. This boss NPC is found in the queue map "Transdimensional Tactics" which can be played at Advanced and Elite setting, and he relies upon a passive Hitpoint Buff. The passive hitpoint buff on this particular NPC has a very high value.
Under the existing system, as it currently sits on Holodeck, these figures interact incorrectly. Their mathematical relationship could be presented as:
1 * (3 + 12) = 15
This results in the final Hitpoint value on Elite being far lower proportionally than other NPCs. By design, the equation was expected to be presented as:
(1 * 12) * 3 = 36
As you can see, the difference can be fairly drastic. This particular NPC possesses the highest Hitpoint Buff of any NPC in the entire game and is an extreme example. Most Boss NPCs have buff magnitudes in the 1-5 range, rather than being in the ~12 neighborhood.
If i use your math and calcualte that though i get that:
Modifier old system x time HP new x times HP factor new/old
1 4 3 75,00%
2 5 6 120,00%
3 6 9 150,00%
4 7 12 171,43%
5 8 15 187,50%
6 9 18 200,00%
7 10 21 210,00%
8 11 24 218,18%
9 12 27 225,00%
10 13 30 230,77%
11 14 33 235,71%
12 15 36 240,00%
if thats correct like that (if not pls correct me), it seams like a rather drastical increase.
Just imainge that now it take up to 87% more time to kill that spawnmother or whatever.
i think we will see a lot of failed mission in last mission step, and it not really sound fun to shoot the thing now twice as long.
All I can do is concur with what's been said, offering 150% increase in XP for Advanced over Normal for a NPC that has a 200% increase in hit points is getting closer to acceptable but is still no cigar. At the very basic level it just isn't an efficient use of time. The slightly better loot tables might go a way to compensating for this but it's still to far out, you need to be looking to at least 175% XP increase over normal to make it tempting, but really you have to ask what's the design philosophy behind punishing players for doing harder content? It should be on a higher risk/reward curve to making it engaging and worthwhile.
As for Elite, ha! That's just not worth bothering with. Elite NPC's have 785% more HP than normal while offering 250% XP more than normal. If you can't see why that's not worth bothering with than no amount of feedback will help you see the light. But hey I'll give it a go anyway!
It punishes the player hugely for even attempting it. The time needed to complete content vs normal, add the higher chance of death because of the longer time taken and the increased repetitive nature of what the player is doing exposes more weakness in the game and the design than you should really want to expose. Add to this the increase loot drops are not at all worth it and you are left with a very frustrating and disappointing experience.
If you want to reward the player for trying content that's 785% more time consuming, you should be giving them 900% more XP at least. That would be satisfying.
So your response to empty queues and the excessive XP grind is to:
1) Add HP to Adv. and Elite non-trash mobs, making them more tedious (whether due to a math error or not, that is about the worst way possible to make something more "difficult").
2) Slightly increase mob XP, but still keeping it at a pittance compared to the amount needed to advance
3) completely ignore the borked XP rewards of the queues that make it 2-4x as efficient to constantly rerun ONE patrol mission
4) ignore the timers and fail conditions in Adv. and Elite that, along with the DPS sponge enemies, keep many players from joining the queues.
After further consideration, I'm concerned that this will lead to redonkulous amounts of fails on elites, particularly at the ed point where you have to fight the Spawn Mother/Project Leader/Queen simply because you have a limited time to do so and also because if you have a team wipe, that's the end.
I predict the reduction of running these elites, which I suspect is intentional, since i'm gonna guess your metrics show people running TTE and BHE more than other maps.
The problem we have is that you've already cut the XP gain in half twice.
Remember when you did the 'rebalance to make players feel like they're earning more points' last month? How that was 'supposed to see effectively no change in rank up speed'?
Yeah, that cut the XP gain in half, and you guys never fixed it.
So while this gain is appreciated, if you're basing it on the idea that we're getting the appropriate amount of skill points compared to before.... we aren't.
Virasdancer has a thread over in bug reports that's a couple weeks dead about if for more info.
almost forgot about that
that was when the XP rewards were slightly increased while the lvl-up requirements where trippled as the same time leaving the players in the game with even more xp grind to do.
yeah... looking at it from this point of view the adjustments now make even less sense
I also have to agree that the removal of the NWS lacks any logic.
It is not that we see these NWS messages any longer indicating that the mission is anything but easy to play.
Also I have to agree to the others here which expect that the very few remaining PVEs will die out when the difficulty Adjustments will be done.
Especially when its about bug hunt which pretty much is the only mission that the players can play and expect to win - so they can earn ancient power cells.
Fact is... people have to play the Adv. missions to get such reputation items... but if you raise the difficulty even more then many players simply wont be able to win these missions anymore and risk that large amounts of players will lose access to the reputation system.
Its pretty simple... if you raise the difficulty then new (lvl50-60) players wont be able to win these missions... this results in the fact that they dont get these reputation items... without these items they cant make use of the reputation system in order to get better gear (sets)... which pretty much locks these players out of the other "end game content".
Maybe the developers should thing a 2nd time about the consequences of their changes.
Every decision leads to consequences... and the consequences for the players have been really bad in the past months.
Hi Bort, just wanted to say thanks to you (and whoever else involved) for taking the time to post detailed explanation and the underlying maths at the start (I remember those segments on STOKed lol), as well as engaging afterward with players who have questions. This is very much appreciated:)
The changes seem mostly reasonable. Only one I am a little worried about is that the increase to non-shielded NPC HP will dampen popularity of Bug Hunt, which is one of the few events people regularly queue nowdays.
All I can say is keep it up Cryptic, ignore the community. Remove content, i.e. NWS is really going to fix things. I lost interest in NWS ages ago but that's my choice but when ....sorry if Cryptic ever made it worth my time and money to upgrade I'd have enjoyed taking a stab at elite NWS. It was fun and required teamwork from those willing to show it. For a tiny percentage yes it's so easy it could do with reworking but I'm willing to bet most decent teams still find it tough and most of the community still struggles to beat it at all. Why deprive the community of content? You moved the accolades and titles to Elite which still makes it a challenge to strive for but leaves normal for those that find nNWS appropriate and you made it such you had to complete the mission or fail to get the reward so why remove it?
Plan to revisit? Yeah still waitring on Terradome, DS9 Fleet action, the gekli feeding grounds....
Face it Cryptic your history and reputation preceed you and it will not surprise me if you never bring this back because it's not worth the investment. It will be so hard to make a mission that will remain challenging thanks to your ongoing power creep. The fundamental points of the game are already unbalanced so goodness knows what this new NWS will be like if you ever bring it back. Your track record says no.
Someone already made the point that they can see why the community is reacting negatively and I'm sure many will wonder why people are whining about something they find trivial. Make no mistake the time will come when Cryptic will TRIBBLE with something that matters to you. It may be trivial to many but it won't be to you and it's a matter of time before Cryptic find it. When they TRIBBLE with faw a2b I would like to see the storm that generates.
So yeah keep it up Cryptic. Whatever plan you have must be working as planned since you're so insistent on following it.
Removing NWS, including the advanced and elite queue? Bringing it back "fixed", like that one time where you intended to "fix" Terradome?
I see, Perfect World/Cryptic really plans to destroy STO.
As written right now ... it reads to me like you are increasing the HP sponge on those "boss" NPC's , not lower them ...
As a next part ... you are increasing rewards for playing on ADV or ELT from normal, which in itself is nice, but as all who take the time to comment, abit short.
While i do agree that it is easier to start abit off from the intended goal, then finetune while the metrics come in when introducing new systems, the underlying problem is the marks were set too wide.
Scaling HP from norm-adv-elt was off the bat alot, and was corrected to more reasonable numbers, leaving only some odd outliers around like bosses (which should indeed be tough to finish off to quickly).
This leaves the other system in a problem .. XP (SXP) progression .... it is not sensible to for the reward for a job increases by 50%, while the difficulty of completing the job is increased by 150%
Add to that the marks for intermediate XP were set too low ...
This is what is causing the big issue of taking ages to gain some levels.
I timed some for myself .... doing an Argala run on a toon, took 7 minutes to complete the run, for 5k kill XP and 5k mission XP, that same run took over 30 minutes on Elite, for 10k kill XP and 5k mission XP... so timewise ... it was 2x more effecient to do it on normal than it was on elite, which was made even worse due to the drops not increasing in the same rate.
As for removing content ... because a few people have it easy in NWS (since about 2 months after the introduction of NWS i might add .. this has not changed) ... do not mistake that for the rest of the community that still find NWS very very hard to play, both in the old and the new versions.
Mine Trap is a fun mission, but suffers from mentioned issues (unbreakable confuses) and leecher mode with a incredibly high tutorial requirement making it hard for the average player to even understand what needs to be done where, the frustration of completely vaped sectors is quite high, it could use some luv......
so ... recap from the wall of text ...
Update the base XP gain, then the mentioned modifiers start to make a little sense.
Make elite mode in regular gameplay more rewarding, currently it is uneconomical to play the game outside STF's in elite mode.
Increasing the HP on spawnmother and Implacable is pretty sad. Another nail in the queues coffin.
Sure bug hunt elite can be completed by many. Shouldn't there be some way to get the Delta doohickies? Shouldn't there be any fun missions????????????????????????
As far as the Implacable goes - if you increase the HP further it will be jumping 10 - 12 times and no one but maybe the .1% will be able to track down that many rounds of torpedoes (as they will kill it after 1 or 2 jumps). So is the game now only for 100 people or so?
Eh, why bother, instead of making the queues more friendly it's time to tighten the noose some more. Have fun.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Meh. To paraphrase someone else, why does every single good update in the game have to be ruined by throwing in some counterproductive TRIBBLE that doesn't help anyone?
I need to swing by tribble again soon, but here are some suggestions regarding some of the rewards:
1) Increase dilithium reward (back) to 960 for Advanced-level queues.
2) Allow daily Delta mark boxes to drop from Found Missions on Kobali Prime.
3) Add daily dilithium missions that have significant dilithium rewards to Kobali Prime, similar to the ones available in the Dyson Ground Battlezone, and/or add "boss" fights or some other means of earning significant dil on Kobali Prime. It is an awesome map and a good challenge right now, and I enjoy the gameplay, but the rewards in marks and dil are a disappointment currently and discourage regular play from veterans.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Former/Cryptic Name: Captain_Hans_Langsdorff
Founding member, Special Service Squadron
"Fear God and Dread Nought." First Sea Lord, Adm. Jacky Fisher
One of the most widespread issues that this will resolve, is that NPCs on the Ground that rely upon a hitpoint boost to offset a lack of shields (Undine, Bluegills, Salt Vampires, etc.) will see an across-the-board increase in their health after this change. Although this will end up appearing as a 33-50% increase in maximum hitpoints for these types of enemies on Advanced and Elite difficulty, it will actually bring them in line with every other NPC in the game. We will be monitoring this particular aspect of the changes to see if it must be tuned separately.
Translation: "Undine Infiltration, Bug Hunt, and Mine Trap(I guess?) Advanced and Elite could actually be completed by PuGs. People were actually getting Ancient Power Cells via Bug Hunt. It was horrible. We plan on fixing this."
At least Undine Infiltration will still be a pushover, even if it will take slightly longer.
And as for the boost to XP via Advanced and Elite difficulties, as I believe someone already pointed out, it will still probably be more expedient to grind spec points on Normal, unless you're one of those players with dps that melts through enemies regardless of the difficulty.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
Another round of PvE queue updates have been made and are making their way to Tribble for extra testing. As mentioned previously, this is an ongoing effort to improve STO and this update (and those that came before) are not the entirety of what will be done.
With the reports that many Devs don't even play the game regularly I appreciate any look at "The Math" behind gameplay changes, even if these seem to the miss the point of why most queues are dead these days.
Hopefully once this round of changes goes live the next attempt to bring people back will have something to better tilt the time vs. reward complaints that are being posted here and elsewhere.
You need to give new/casual players a way to get Borg Neural Processors and Ancient Power Cells etc, from normal queues.
Say 1 from normal, 2 from Adv and 3 from Elite. Or, allow them to be bought for say 100 Marks.
Otherwise, how are they meant to gear up for playing Adv+ queues?
It was okay in the old system, as Elite and Normal were very similar, but now the difference is much much greater.
Your comment is correct, I have accepted the fact that I will never do Advanced and Elite STFs, and have halted working on Omega and Delta reps for this same reason.
You need to give new/casual players a way to get Borg Neural Processors and Ancient Power Cells etc, from normal queues.
Say 1 from normal, 2 from Adv and 3 from Elite. Or, allow them to be bought for say 100 Marks.
Otherwise, how are they meant to gear up for playing Adv+ queues?
It was okay in the old system, as Elite and Normal were very similar, but now the difference is much much greater.
This makes so much more sense. "Normal" should be the stepping stone for which players get geared up to do "Advanced". Similarly, doing "Advanced" should be the stepping stone to get players geared for "Elite" (You know, the way most MMOs do when it comes to difficulties).
To that end, I propose the following rewards:
Normal: Equal, or Double Normal XP from "Single player" Patrol
Advanced: Equal, or Double Advanced XP from "Single player" Patrol
Elite: Equal, or Double Elite XP from "Single player" Patrol
Queues take longer to complete, the completion XP should be increased to match the difficulty, and duration.
Normal: Awards 480 Dilithium, 50 Marks and 1 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
Advanced: Awards 960 Dilithium, 100 Marks and 2 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
Elite: Awards 1440 Dilithium, 150 Marks and 3 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
If this makes gear easier to obtain at current values, increase the cost of the items to match.
PVE Queues at current ARE NOT REWARDING ENOUGH, compared to TIME INVESTED. That's why fewer players are running the queues post-Delta Rising, and many have gone to Patrol Argala etc.
This makes so much more sense. "Normal" should be the stepping stone for which players get geared up to do "Advanced". Similarly, doing "Advanced" should be the stepping stone to get players geared for "Elite" (You know, the way most MMOs do when it comes to difficulties).
Normal isn't endgame though.
Advanced isn't endgame though.
Elite is endgame.
Normal scales players down to 50.
Advanced scales players up to 60.
Elite requires level 60.
You don't need the gear that is rewarded from doing those Elites to do the Elites. Because you earn the items you need to get those rewards from doing the Elites themselves.
The Reputation rewards aren't a requirement for the content...they're simply items that in turn allow you to run that content or run some other content faster.
The stereotypical MMO endgame involves a progression that goes something like this (very rough/simple example):
Get to the level cap, acquiring mission or crafted gear.
Run Dungeon A to get gear to run Dungeon B.
Run Dungeon B to get gear to run Dungeon C.
Run Dungeon C to get gear to run Raid 1.
Run Raid 1 to get gear to run Raid 2.
Run Raid 2 to get gear to run Raid 3.
Run Raid 3 to get gear to farm Raid 3.
Farm Raid 3 until the next expansion.
Repeat the above with that expansion.
STO doesn't do that.
Player gets to endgame (or even before they get to endgame) and they can run Dungeon A, Dungeon B, Dungeon C, etc, etc, etc...because there is no progression.
If one looks at some of the common examples of Space Set items that folks are running while chasing DPS (a form of player created progression)...well, the following tend to come up, yeah?
None of which require running any sort of "Dungeon" to acquire.
The reps were introduced in the following order:
Task Force Omega
New Romulus
Nukara Strikeforce
Dyson Joint Command
8472 Counter-Command
Delta Alliance
But it's not a case that you have to do them in any particular order. The endgame is relatively flat. Sure, folks may find this or that endgame content to be harder - but it's still relatively flat.
To add to that, in speaking about the gearing, consider that none of them actually require any "Dungeon" to be run. Sure, it's a game of RNG to do the Hourly Boxes, but it's still possible to get any of the special items required from them. For the Isos and Implants, there is even world content where one can acquire them without having to hit a "Dungeon". As previously mentioned, neither New Rom nor Nukara even require any such items.
Outside of wanting to run them, there is no reason one might feel they have to run them.
The R&D Materials? There are other folks that run them without issue that sell the Mats. They can be gotten from the R&D Packs or from folks selling stuff they got from them. They can be gotten from the R&D Assistance assignment or from folks selling stuff they got from them.
Energy Credits? There are all sorts of better sources for EC. There are countless threads on countless forums discussing legitimate ways of farming EC.
Dilithium? There are all sorts of better sources for Dil. There are countless threads on countless forums discussing legitimate ways of farming Dil.
Skill Points for Specialization? There are all sorts of better sources for SP. There are countless threads on countless forums discussing legitimate ways of farming SP.
Marks? That's a little more complicated because it's kind of subjective, yeah? The Daily Bonus boxes which do not require hitting a "Dungeon" provide more Marks than are necessary for the Daily Rep projects. One will acquire a surplus. There is the reward at T5 of Marks as well. There are all sorts of missions that supply Marks that do not require hitting a "Dungeon". Some Reps have far more rewarding missions than others. There are just all sorts of ways to get Marks. Hell, there are even "Choice of Marks" queues as well as special events for Marks.
The "special items"...? Mentioned some of that before starting this, but even there - players only need a finite number of those anyway - once they've got them, they've got them, yeah?
When one consider the flat nature of the endgame, one might realize that none of it is actually necessary. You do not need to be T5 in a Rep to run content related to that Rep. You do not need any of the gear from it. All it can do is help you run it faster. The Specializations? Needed for what? All it can do is help you run stuff faster.
STO's endgame is an treadmill to nowhere. Folks just running on that treadmill faster and faster. There is no progression outside of player created progression.
So there is nothing that one needs from a Normal queue to hit up an Advanced queue to hit up an Elite queue. The progression simply does not work...outside of it being a case of perhaps offering assistive devices for the most casual of players. Eventually though, they no longer need those and are on the same treadmill to nowhere running it faster and faster.
The addition of the revamped R&D system and Upgrades makes it even less of a progression...just more of that treadmill to nowhere faster.
Somebody should likely hit up the Normal, to get an idea of their build and the rudimentaries of the instance. There will be changes as they move to Advanced, but hopefully having learned something along the way to 50/60 from playing the game, asking question, testing things, and what the knowledge they picked up from Normal - they should be ready to tackle Advanced when they feel comfortable - knowing what will be required of them, not necessarily what folks would prefer but what would actually be required. Then the same would happen in progressing to Elite. Yet all of that progression is going to be "in chair" progression, the player getting better - yeah? Perhaps they pick up some things from else tweaking their builds.
Then basically they're on that treadmill...farming away to run that treadmill faster.
Yeah, STO's endgame isn't like the endgame of any MMO I've played.
But just because various queues appear dead does not mean they are. How many folks are off in various channels or running with Fleets?
Are a couple that come to mind off the top of my head. I believe there are others. Likely different channels for different languages as well, eh? And yeah, just folks in Fleets with enough folks that they run stuff there.
A bunch of folks have mentioned on the forums that they avoid the public queues because of the AFKers, leechers, trolls, and folks that play as if they bought the account and just finished installing the game.
Oh well...just a few thoughts and opinions. Cryptic won't "fix" it...because if one spends too much time on the forums, meh, one will see that there were a bunch of players asking for it to be exactly like it is. Star Trek Online, the Single-Player Experience.
I am not convinced that PUGging Advancedor Elite Queued Missions that can fail is worth the effort if the failure reward does not include the special reputation marks (Ancient Power Cells Voth Implants, Borg Neuroprocessors or Metamorphic Injections) for that queue, nor very rare materials.
Not unless failure rates go down significantly. I know, the players need to work a bit harder, but unfortunately, there is no guarantee with PUGs. I have not experienced a succesful Borg Disconnected run so far, for example, and have consequently given up on queuing. I don't need the Delta Alliance set items that much...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I understand that every man and his dog has an opinion on the state of play at the moment in STO regarding these issues. However, I request that you please indulge my input.
I have attempted to put in the simplest possible the way the serious issue of Specialization Experience by map difficulty. I understand that Argala is a touchy subject, nonetheless I have used the Friends in Unlikely Place Argala Patrol as the test bed to collect some data. It is this data and my conclusions that I would like to share.
I ran the mission in Argala once for each difficulty - Normal, Advanced & Elite. I will solo and used the same ship and letting all timers reset between each attempt. I wanted to keep the variables as small as possible so that I could capture reliable mission duration data.
Below is a screenshot link of my data and some conclusions. The key piece of data is what I have termed the Earnings Quotient by difficulty. This is simply the total XP earned (both NPC deaths + completion reward) divided by the time invested to earn it.
One would expect such a quotient to increase based on difficulty as this would encourage players to strive to improve their gameplay in the pursuit of the stronger reward. However, as you can see the earnings quotient for Elite is around two thirds lower than Normal and this is an issue throughout the game. What is the incentive to learn to do Elite if the rewards aren't worth the effort? This leads to a player base less competent than they should be and is directly responsible for the state of the public queues for Advanced and Elite missions today.
While I have your attention and on the public queue issue, would it be possible to investigate altering the queue forming process so that a private room opens before the mission begins? This will allow the team to discuss strategy and assign tasks to members based on their career and/or ship they are in. I do seriously think this is a good idea and can't imagine that it would require too much recoding as all the elements already exist which needs to be reorganised into a new process flow.
I hope this helps you with your efforts to improve the STO experience.
As a Mathematics professor at a local college, I must commend Snipey47 for his analysis. Based on one sample, he's pretty much got the analysis down very well. Assuming that the devs are all Math, CS, or CSE graduates, then they know more than enough math to understand Snipey's analysis. All I can say is "come on, devs! Please don't confirm that your own player-base interpret mathematical results better than you do."
Please disappoint me and prove my assumption wrong that you are unwilling, or cannot, understand Snipey47's analysis. For that matter, I hope you don't confirm our collective analyses that you guys aren't willing to listen, much less understand. I really hope to be disappointed for the greater good of STO.
One would expect such a quotient to increase based on difficulty as this would encourage players to strive to improve their gameplay in the pursuit of the stronger reward. However, as you can see the earnings quotient for Elite is around two thirds lower than Normal and this is an issue throughout the game. What is the incentive to learn to do Elite if the rewards aren't worth the effort? This leads to a player base less competent than they should be and is directly responsible for the state of the public queues for Advanced and Elite missions today.
Exactly the issue at the moment.
HP sinks on Elite far to high given the modicum of increase in reward. Would be interested to see what teaming effect has on these quotients?
Elephant in the room is that this test is done on Argala. Why? Because this is the ONLY thing in the game that offers anything near an appropriate level of XP. The quotient of 100xp/sec on normal means that a player can get approximately 1 spec point every half hour. This is still two non-stop days of solid play grinding the same mission over and over to fill all current and upcoming specialisations (don't do this - you may die!).
Compare this to say Infected Space Advanced. On a good run you will acheive approx 3,000 XP say for a 5 min map (and lets be honest this is well above what the average group of players can acheive). Quotient here is 10. Thats 10x worse than Argala Normal.
Fix XP payouts on PVE Queues and they will no longer be 'dead'. Balance the rewards across the game and it will be 'healthy'. The Kobali Adventure Zone is 'case-and-point'. Beautifully constructed area, with interesting and exciting missions. Totally empty as the only people running it are those going through it in the storyline (for the first time - m alts skipped it all). Reason? No reward. No XP. No dil. Crappy few rep marks, TRIBBLE drops.
This makes so much more sense. "Normal" should be the stepping stone for which players get geared up to do "Advanced". Similarly, doing "Advanced" should be the stepping stone to get players geared for "Elite" (You know, the way most MMOs do when it comes to difficulties).
To that end, I propose the following rewards:
Normal: Equal, or Double Normal XP from "Single player" Patrol
Advanced: Equal, or Double Advanced XP from "Single player" Patrol
Elite: Equal, or Double Elite XP from "Single player" Patrol
Queues take longer to complete, the completion XP should be increased to match the difficulty, and duration.
Normal: Awards 480 Dilithium, 50 Marks and 1 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
Advanced: Awards 960 Dilithium, 100 Marks and 2 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
Elite: Awards 1440 Dilithium, 150 Marks and 3 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
If this makes gear easier to obtain at current values, increase the cost of the items to match.
PVE Queues at current ARE NOT REWARDING ENOUGH, compared to TIME INVESTED. That's why fewer players are running the queues post-Delta Rising, and many have gone to Patrol Argala etc.
Hey, becareful there, start using common sense with the Devs and we'll all be in big trouble. :rolleyes:
The No Win Scenario, both Starfleet and Klingon versions, has been removed from the PvE queue list. With the increase in maximum player level from 50 to 60, we no longer feel this queue is accomplishing its job of providing an intense escalating challenge where players really have to struggle to advance to the later waves. We do have plans to revisit this queue in the near future and rebuild it so it can continue to live up to its name.
like i believe that. nws is gone forever, and pretty much everyone knows that, and sees through the attempt at spin.
As a Mathematics professor at a local college, I must commend Snipey47 for his analysis. Based on one sample, he's pretty much got the analysis down very well. Assuming that the devs are all Math, CS, or CSE graduates, then they know more than enough math to understand Snipey's analysis. All I can say is "come on, devs! Please don't confirm that your own player-base interpret mathematical results better than you do."
Please disappoint me and prove my assumption wrong that you are unwilling, or cannot, understand Snipey47's analysis. For that matter, I hope you don't confirm our collective analyses that you guys aren't willing to listen, much less understand. I really hope to be disappointed for the greater good of STO.
I'd love to see a video of a player running ISE, CSE etc in a 100% stock Tier 6 ship (all white gear). No special consoles, no special Boffs or Doffs. Just the default white gear you get simply by acquiring a Tier 6.
I'm sure you'll manage to complete an ISE eventually. But you won't get the Optional, and you're far more likely to fail the mission. You need gear to do the Elite content. Just as you would need gear to do Heroic/Mythic raiding in that other MMO that Cryptic/PWE disallows acknowledgement of.
I'd love to see a video of a player running ISE, CSE etc in a 100% stock Tier 6 ship (all white gear). No special consoles, no special Boffs or Doffs. Just the default white gear you get simply by acquiring a Tier 6.
I'm sure you'll manage to complete an ISE eventually. But you won't get the Optional, and you're far more likely to fail the mission. You need gear to do the Elite content. Just as you would need gear to do Heroic/Mythic raiding in that other MMO that Cryptic/PWE disallows acknowledgement of.
I'm sitting here reading this...thinking you must have misquoted me with your reply, and that you were replying to somebody else - but you even went so far as to truncate for space because of the length of my post...so I'm left to wonder if my post was simply too long and you didn't read it - since I can't fathom why you would have written that reply to what I said.
edit: Went out for a smoke, figured step away, come back, might make sense. But anope...don't get why I'm quoted for that particular reply.
I ran the mission in Argala once for each difficulty - Normal, Advanced & Elite. I will solo and used the same ship and letting all timers reset between each attempt. I wanted to keep the variables as small as possible so that I could capture reliable mission duration data.
Below is a screenshot link of my data and some conclusions. The key piece of data is what I have termed the Earnings Quotient by difficulty. This is simply the total XP earned (both NPC deaths + completion reward) divided by the time invested to earn it.
I'm sitting here reading this...thinking you must have misquoted me with your reply, and that you were replying to somebody else - but you even went so far as to truncate for space because of the length of my post...so I'm left to wonder if my post was simply too long and you didn't read it - since I can't fathom why you would have written that reply to what I said.
edit: Went out for a smoke, figured step away, come back, might make sense. But anope...don't get why I'm quoted for that particular reply.
You don't need the gear that is rewarded from doing those Elites to do the Elites. Because you earn the items you need to get those rewards from doing the Elites themselves.
To which I asked, if the gear isn't needed to run Elites, then please: Show me a video of someone running an Elite (like ISE, CSE etc), in nothing but Common (White) gear. No special consoles, no special BOffs or DOffs. (and successfully completing it, preferrably with Optionals succeeded)
So no, I did not misquote you, and I did in fact read your entire post.
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U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
If i use your math and calcualte that though i get that:
Modifier old system x time HP new x times HP factor new/old
1 4 3 75,00%
2 5 6 120,00%
3 6 9 150,00%
4 7 12 171,43%
5 8 15 187,50%
6 9 18 200,00%
7 10 21 210,00%
8 11 24 218,18%
9 12 27 225,00%
10 13 30 230,77%
11 14 33 235,71%
12 15 36 240,00%
if thats correct like that (if not pls correct me), it seams like a rather drastical increase.
Just imainge that now it take up to 87% more time to kill that spawnmother or whatever.
i think we will see a lot of failed mission in last mission step, and it not really sound fun to shoot the thing now twice as long.
As for Elite, ha! That's just not worth bothering with. Elite NPC's have 785% more HP than normal while offering 250% XP more than normal. If you can't see why that's not worth bothering with than no amount of feedback will help you see the light. But hey I'll give it a go anyway!
It punishes the player hugely for even attempting it. The time needed to complete content vs normal, add the higher chance of death because of the longer time taken and the increased repetitive nature of what the player is doing exposes more weakness in the game and the design than you should really want to expose. Add to this the increase loot drops are not at all worth it and you are left with a very frustrating and disappointing experience.
If you want to reward the player for trying content that's 785% more time consuming, you should be giving them 900% more XP at least. That would be satisfying.
1) Add HP to Adv. and Elite non-trash mobs, making them more tedious (whether due to a math error or not, that is about the worst way possible to make something more "difficult").
2) Slightly increase mob XP, but still keeping it at a pittance compared to the amount needed to advance
3) completely ignore the borked XP rewards of the queues that make it 2-4x as efficient to constantly rerun ONE patrol mission
4) ignore the timers and fail conditions in Adv. and Elite that, along with the DPS sponge enemies, keep many players from joining the queues.
Are we being punk'd?
I predict the reduction of running these elites, which I suspect is intentional, since i'm gonna guess your metrics show people running TTE and BHE more than other maps.
almost forgot about that
that was when the XP rewards were slightly increased while the lvl-up requirements where trippled as the same time leaving the players in the game with even more xp grind to do.
yeah... looking at it from this point of view the adjustments now make even less sense
I also have to agree that the removal of the NWS lacks any logic.
It is not that we see these NWS messages any longer indicating that the mission is anything but easy to play.
Also I have to agree to the others here which expect that the very few remaining PVEs will die out when the difficulty Adjustments will be done.
Especially when its about bug hunt which pretty much is the only mission that the players can play and expect to win - so they can earn ancient power cells.
Fact is... people have to play the Adv. missions to get such reputation items... but if you raise the difficulty even more then many players simply wont be able to win these missions anymore and risk that large amounts of players will lose access to the reputation system.
Its pretty simple... if you raise the difficulty then new (lvl50-60) players wont be able to win these missions... this results in the fact that they dont get these reputation items... without these items they cant make use of the reputation system in order to get better gear (sets)... which pretty much locks these players out of the other "end game content".
Maybe the developers should thing a 2nd time about the consequences of their changes.
Every decision leads to consequences... and the consequences for the players have been really bad in the past months.
The changes seem mostly reasonable. Only one I am a little worried about is that the increase to non-shielded NPC HP will dampen popularity of Bug Hunt, which is one of the few events people regularly queue nowdays.
All I can say is keep it up Cryptic, ignore the community. Remove content, i.e. NWS is really going to fix things. I lost interest in NWS ages ago but that's my choice but when ....sorry if Cryptic ever made it worth my time and money to upgrade I'd have enjoyed taking a stab at elite NWS. It was fun and required teamwork from those willing to show it. For a tiny percentage yes it's so easy it could do with reworking but I'm willing to bet most decent teams still find it tough and most of the community still struggles to beat it at all. Why deprive the community of content? You moved the accolades and titles to Elite which still makes it a challenge to strive for but leaves normal for those that find nNWS appropriate and you made it such you had to complete the mission or fail to get the reward so why remove it?
Plan to revisit? Yeah still waitring on Terradome, DS9 Fleet action, the gekli feeding grounds....
Face it Cryptic your history and reputation preceed you and it will not surprise me if you never bring this back because it's not worth the investment. It will be so hard to make a mission that will remain challenging thanks to your ongoing power creep. The fundamental points of the game are already unbalanced so goodness knows what this new NWS will be like if you ever bring it back. Your track record says no.
Someone already made the point that they can see why the community is reacting negatively and I'm sure many will wonder why people are whining about something they find trivial. Make no mistake the time will come when Cryptic will TRIBBLE with something that matters to you. It may be trivial to many but it won't be to you and it's a matter of time before Cryptic find it. When they TRIBBLE with faw a2b I would like to see the storm that generates.
So yeah keep it up Cryptic. Whatever plan you have must be working as planned since you're so insistent on following it.
I see, Perfect World/Cryptic really plans to destroy STO.
Bloody %@#+¢ç#*!
As a next part ... you are increasing rewards for playing on ADV or ELT from normal, which in itself is nice, but as all who take the time to comment, abit short.
While i do agree that it is easier to start abit off from the intended goal, then finetune while the metrics come in when introducing new systems, the underlying problem is the marks were set too wide.
Scaling HP from norm-adv-elt was off the bat alot, and was corrected to more reasonable numbers, leaving only some odd outliers around like bosses (which should indeed be tough to finish off to quickly).
This leaves the other system in a problem .. XP (SXP) progression .... it is not sensible to for the reward for a job increases by 50%, while the difficulty of completing the job is increased by 150%
Add to that the marks for intermediate XP were set too low ...
This is what is causing the big issue of taking ages to gain some levels.
I timed some for myself .... doing an Argala run on a toon, took 7 minutes to complete the run, for 5k kill XP and 5k mission XP, that same run took over 30 minutes on Elite, for 10k kill XP and 5k mission XP... so timewise ... it was 2x more effecient to do it on normal than it was on elite, which was made even worse due to the drops not increasing in the same rate.
As for removing content ... because a few people have it easy in NWS (since about 2 months after the introduction of NWS i might add .. this has not changed) ... do not mistake that for the rest of the community that still find NWS very very hard to play, both in the old and the new versions.
Mine Trap is a fun mission, but suffers from mentioned issues (unbreakable confuses) and leecher mode with a incredibly high tutorial requirement making it hard for the average player to even understand what needs to be done where, the frustration of completely vaped sectors is quite high, it could use some luv......
so ... recap from the wall of text ...
Update the base XP gain, then the mentioned modifiers start to make a little sense.
Make elite mode in regular gameplay more rewarding, currently it is uneconomical to play the game outside STF's in elite mode.
Sure bug hunt elite can be completed by many. Shouldn't there be some way to get the Delta doohickies? Shouldn't there be any fun missions????????????????????????
As far as the Implacable goes - if you increase the HP further it will be jumping 10 - 12 times and no one but maybe the .1% will be able to track down that many rounds of torpedoes (as they will kill it after 1 or 2 jumps). So is the game now only for 100 people or so?
Eh, why bother, instead of making the queues more friendly it's time to tighten the noose some more. Have fun.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
1) Increase dilithium reward (back) to 960 for Advanced-level queues.
2) Allow daily Delta mark boxes to drop from Found Missions on Kobali Prime.
3) Add daily dilithium missions that have significant dilithium rewards to Kobali Prime, similar to the ones available in the Dyson Ground Battlezone, and/or add "boss" fights or some other means of earning significant dil on Kobali Prime. It is an awesome map and a good challenge right now, and I enjoy the gameplay, but the rewards in marks and dil are a disappointment currently and discourage regular play from veterans.
Former/Cryptic Name: Captain_Hans_Langsdorff
Founding member, Special Service Squadron
"Fear God and Dread Nought." First Sea Lord, Adm. Jacky Fisher
Translation: "Undine Infiltration, Bug Hunt, and Mine Trap(I guess?) Advanced and Elite could actually be completed by PuGs. People were actually getting Ancient Power Cells via Bug Hunt. It was horrible. We plan on fixing this."
At least Undine Infiltration will still be a pushover, even if it will take slightly longer.
And as for the boost to XP via Advanced and Elite difficulties, as I believe someone already pointed out, it will still probably be more expedient to grind spec points on Normal, unless you're one of those players with dps that melts through enemies regardless of the difficulty.
With the reports that many Devs don't even play the game regularly I appreciate any look at "The Math" behind gameplay changes, even if these seem to the miss the point of why most queues are dead these days.
Hopefully once this round of changes goes live the next attempt to bring people back will have something to better tilt the time vs. reward complaints that are being posted here and elsewhere.
Your comment is correct, I have accepted the fact that I will never do Advanced and Elite STFs, and have halted working on Omega and Delta reps for this same reason.
This makes so much more sense. "Normal" should be the stepping stone for which players get geared up to do "Advanced". Similarly, doing "Advanced" should be the stepping stone to get players geared for "Elite" (You know, the way most MMOs do when it comes to difficulties).
To that end, I propose the following rewards:
Normal: Equal, or Double Normal XP from "Single player" Patrol
Advanced: Equal, or Double Advanced XP from "Single player" Patrol
Elite: Equal, or Double Elite XP from "Single player" Patrol
Queues take longer to complete, the completion XP should be increased to match the difficulty, and duration.
Normal: Awards 480 Dilithium, 50 Marks and 1 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
Advanced: Awards 960 Dilithium, 100 Marks and 2 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
Elite: Awards 1440 Dilithium, 150 Marks and 3 Borg Neural Processor/Ancient Power Cell etc
If this makes gear easier to obtain at current values, increase the cost of the items to match.
PVE Queues at current ARE NOT REWARDING ENOUGH, compared to TIME INVESTED. That's why fewer players are running the queues post-Delta Rising, and many have gone to Patrol Argala etc.
Normal isn't endgame though.
Advanced isn't endgame though.
Elite is endgame.
Normal scales players down to 50.
Advanced scales players up to 60.
Elite requires level 60.
You don't need the gear that is rewarded from doing those Elites to do the Elites. Because you earn the items you need to get those rewards from doing the Elites themselves.
The Reputation rewards aren't a requirement for the content...they're simply items that in turn allow you to run that content or run some other content faster.
The stereotypical MMO endgame involves a progression that goes something like this (very rough/simple example):
Get to the level cap, acquiring mission or crafted gear.
Run Dungeon A to get gear to run Dungeon B.
Run Dungeon B to get gear to run Dungeon C.
Run Dungeon C to get gear to run Raid 1.
Run Raid 1 to get gear to run Raid 2.
Run Raid 2 to get gear to run Raid 3.
Run Raid 3 to get gear to farm Raid 3.
Farm Raid 3 until the next expansion.
Repeat the above with that expansion.
STO doesn't do that.
Player gets to endgame (or even before they get to endgame) and they can run Dungeon A, Dungeon B, Dungeon C, etc, etc, etc...because there is no progression.
If one looks at some of the common examples of Space Set items that folks are running while chasing DPS (a form of player created progression)...well, the following tend to come up, yeah?
Nukara Deflector
Romulan Engine
Spire AMP Core
Nukara Shield
None of which require running any sort of "Dungeon" to acquire.
The reps were introduced in the following order:
Task Force Omega
New Romulus
Nukara Strikeforce
Dyson Joint Command
8472 Counter-Command
Delta Alliance
But it's not a case that you have to do them in any particular order. The endgame is relatively flat. Sure, folks may find this or that endgame content to be harder - but it's still relatively flat.
To add to that, in speaking about the gearing, consider that none of them actually require any "Dungeon" to be run. Sure, it's a game of RNG to do the Hourly Boxes, but it's still possible to get any of the special items required from them. For the Isos and Implants, there is even world content where one can acquire them without having to hit a "Dungeon". As previously mentioned, neither New Rom nor Nukara even require any such items.
Outside of wanting to run them, there is no reason one might feel they have to run them.
The R&D Materials? There are other folks that run them without issue that sell the Mats. They can be gotten from the R&D Packs or from folks selling stuff they got from them. They can be gotten from the R&D Assistance assignment or from folks selling stuff they got from them.
Energy Credits? There are all sorts of better sources for EC. There are countless threads on countless forums discussing legitimate ways of farming EC.
Dilithium? There are all sorts of better sources for Dil. There are countless threads on countless forums discussing legitimate ways of farming Dil.
Skill Points for Specialization? There are all sorts of better sources for SP. There are countless threads on countless forums discussing legitimate ways of farming SP.
Marks? That's a little more complicated because it's kind of subjective, yeah? The Daily Bonus boxes which do not require hitting a "Dungeon" provide more Marks than are necessary for the Daily Rep projects. One will acquire a surplus. There is the reward at T5 of Marks as well. There are all sorts of missions that supply Marks that do not require hitting a "Dungeon". Some Reps have far more rewarding missions than others. There are just all sorts of ways to get Marks. Hell, there are even "Choice of Marks" queues as well as special events for Marks.
The "special items"...? Mentioned some of that before starting this, but even there - players only need a finite number of those anyway - once they've got them, they've got them, yeah?
When one consider the flat nature of the endgame, one might realize that none of it is actually necessary. You do not need to be T5 in a Rep to run content related to that Rep. You do not need any of the gear from it. All it can do is help you run it faster. The Specializations? Needed for what? All it can do is help you run stuff faster.
STO's endgame is an treadmill to nowhere. Folks just running on that treadmill faster and faster. There is no progression outside of player created progression.
So there is nothing that one needs from a Normal queue to hit up an Advanced queue to hit up an Elite queue. The progression simply does not work...outside of it being a case of perhaps offering assistive devices for the most casual of players. Eventually though, they no longer need those and are on the same treadmill to nowhere running it faster and faster.
The addition of the revamped R&D system and Upgrades makes it even less of a progression...just more of that treadmill to nowhere faster.
Somebody should likely hit up the Normal, to get an idea of their build and the rudimentaries of the instance. There will be changes as they move to Advanced, but hopefully having learned something along the way to 50/60 from playing the game, asking question, testing things, and what the knowledge they picked up from Normal - they should be ready to tackle Advanced when they feel comfortable - knowing what will be required of them, not necessarily what folks would prefer but what would actually be required. Then the same would happen in progressing to Elite. Yet all of that progression is going to be "in chair" progression, the player getting better - yeah? Perhaps they pick up some things from else tweaking their builds.
Then basically they're on that treadmill...farming away to run that treadmill faster.
Yeah, STO's endgame isn't like the endgame of any MMO I've played.
But just because various queues appear dead does not mean they are. How many folks are off in various channels or running with Fleets?
Star Trek Battles channel (NOT for high DPSers)
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1026351
Official DPS League & DPS Channels Thread
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1347981
Are a couple that come to mind off the top of my head. I believe there are others. Likely different channels for different languages as well, eh? And yeah, just folks in Fleets with enough folks that they run stuff there.
A bunch of folks have mentioned on the forums that they avoid the public queues because of the AFKers, leechers, trolls, and folks that play as if they bought the account and just finished installing the game.
Oh well...just a few thoughts and opinions. Cryptic won't "fix" it...because if one spends too much time on the forums, meh, one will see that there were a bunch of players asking for it to be exactly like it is. Star Trek Online, the Single-Player Experience.
Not unless failure rates go down significantly. I know, the players need to work a bit harder, but unfortunately, there is no guarantee with PUGs. I have not experienced a succesful Borg Disconnected run so far, for example, and have consequently given up on queuing. I don't need the Delta Alliance set items that much...
I understand that every man and his dog has an opinion on the state of play at the moment in STO regarding these issues. However, I request that you please indulge my input.
I have attempted to put in the simplest possible the way the serious issue of Specialization Experience by map difficulty. I understand that Argala is a touchy subject, nonetheless I have used the Friends in Unlikely Place Argala Patrol as the test bed to collect some data. It is this data and my conclusions that I would like to share.
I ran the mission in Argala once for each difficulty - Normal, Advanced & Elite. I will solo and used the same ship and letting all timers reset between each attempt. I wanted to keep the variables as small as possible so that I could capture reliable mission duration data.
Below is a screenshot link of my data and some conclusions. The key piece of data is what I have termed the Earnings Quotient by difficulty. This is simply the total XP earned (both NPC deaths + completion reward) divided by the time invested to earn it.
http://tinypic.com/m/inuxw8/2
One would expect such a quotient to increase based on difficulty as this would encourage players to strive to improve their gameplay in the pursuit of the stronger reward. However, as you can see the earnings quotient for Elite is around two thirds lower than Normal and this is an issue throughout the game. What is the incentive to learn to do Elite if the rewards aren't worth the effort? This leads to a player base less competent than they should be and is directly responsible for the state of the public queues for Advanced and Elite missions today.
While I have your attention and on the public queue issue, would it be possible to investigate altering the queue forming process so that a private room opens before the mission begins? This will allow the team to discuss strategy and assign tasks to members based on their career and/or ship they are in. I do seriously think this is a good idea and can't imagine that it would require too much recoding as all the elements already exist which needs to be reorganised into a new process flow.
I hope this helps you with your efforts to improve the STO experience.
Regards,
Snipey47a
better get rid of some ither stuff no1 actualkly plays
Please disappoint me and prove my assumption wrong that you are unwilling, or cannot, understand Snipey47's analysis. For that matter, I hope you don't confirm our collective analyses that you guys aren't willing to listen, much less understand. I really hope to be disappointed for the greater good of STO.
Exactly the issue at the moment.
HP sinks on Elite far to high given the modicum of increase in reward. Would be interested to see what teaming effect has on these quotients?
Elephant in the room is that this test is done on Argala. Why? Because this is the ONLY thing in the game that offers anything near an appropriate level of XP. The quotient of 100xp/sec on normal means that a player can get approximately 1 spec point every half hour. This is still two non-stop days of solid play grinding the same mission over and over to fill all current and upcoming specialisations (don't do this - you may die!).
Compare this to say Infected Space Advanced. On a good run you will acheive approx 3,000 XP say for a 5 min map (and lets be honest this is well above what the average group of players can acheive). Quotient here is 10. Thats 10x worse than Argala Normal.
Fix XP payouts on PVE Queues and they will no longer be 'dead'. Balance the rewards across the game and it will be 'healthy'. The Kobali Adventure Zone is 'case-and-point'. Beautifully constructed area, with interesting and exciting missions. Totally empty as the only people running it are those going through it in the storyline (for the first time - m alts skipped it all). Reason? No reward. No XP. No dil. Crappy few rep marks, TRIBBLE drops.
...#LLAP...
Hey, becareful there, start using common sense with the Devs and we'll all be in big trouble. :rolleyes:
like i believe that. nws is gone forever, and pretty much everyone knows that, and sees through the attempt at spin.
free jkname
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Hrmm...did you see Post#46 in the thread?
I'd love to see a video of a player running ISE, CSE etc in a 100% stock Tier 6 ship (all white gear). No special consoles, no special Boffs or Doffs. Just the default white gear you get simply by acquiring a Tier 6.
I'm sure you'll manage to complete an ISE eventually. But you won't get the Optional, and you're far more likely to fail the mission. You need gear to do the Elite content. Just as you would need gear to do Heroic/Mythic raiding in that other MMO that Cryptic/PWE disallows acknowledgement of.
I'm sitting here reading this...thinking you must have misquoted me with your reply, and that you were replying to somebody else - but you even went so far as to truncate for space because of the length of my post...so I'm left to wonder if my post was simply too long and you didn't read it - since I can't fathom why you would have written that reply to what I said.
edit: Went out for a smoke, figured step away, come back, might make sense. But anope...don't get why I'm quoted for that particular reply.
Anyway, I wish you did an stf for comparison. I can already tell you : 2K xp for kill and mission. I already know the result will be extremely low.
Does this part ring any bells for you?
To which I asked, if the gear isn't needed to run Elites, then please: Show me a video of someone running an Elite (like ISE, CSE etc), in nothing but Common (White) gear. No special consoles, no special BOffs or DOffs. (and successfully completing it, preferrably with Optionals succeeded)
So no, I did not misquote you, and I did in fact read your entire post.