Hitpoints can be increased in multiple ways, but they don't always have to be the physical hitpoints themselves. For instance having X hitpoints for Normal, with Advanced having X+33%+ 25% ResistAll and Elite having X+66%+50% ResistAll. That would give a ship that has a base 50,000 hitpoints around 66500 in Advanced and 83000 in Elite. The damage resist's allow for the difficulty to be increased without it feeling like a massive slog through 1 Million hitpoints yet still provide a quick and easy method to adjust difficulty to suit if there's a discrepancy.
How does that make any difference? Whether the number is one million hit points, or 250.000 hit points, but your damage is lowered to 1/4, you still need the same amount of time to punch through it, and the hit point bar does not move any faster for it.
It only becomes meaningful if there are ways to bypass that resistance. Butin turn that is only useful if there isn't already a huge DPS gap in the game, because otherwise - who is most likely to bypass the resistance? A low DPS build that uses bad powers, bad equipment and bad tactics, or a high DPS build with good powers, good equipment, and good tactics?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Next time you play click on the "i" on the target info and see how the hull is over 100K on enemy. So you already know that your weapons dps better be very high. Mine are already high but just have to keep pounding on the enemy until they're shields go down and then you can let them have with all your fire-power.
Now on the ground like the new Romulan Mystery Mission those are much harder to take now now. Again just equip your away team with the best weapons you have for them and you too. All those kits powers you been collecting time to put them to use.
To me this game just gets more and more protected in game play. But not much we can all do about it. This now how the game is. Even if you have the top weapons to use both in space and ground.
while some missions were ok to play there meanwhile is a 100% guarantee to fail now
just alone the **** they have done to the tholian project leader.... and for some reason also to other npcs which all of a sudden seem to be very resistent to any form of damage.
5 tries... 5 times failed... with teams which did pretty good damage
this game is no fun anymore... it has become absolutely frustrating
while some missions were ok to play there meanwhile is a 100% guarantee to fail now
just alone the **** they have done to the tholian project leader.... and for some reason also to other npcs which all of a sudden seem to be very resistent to any form of damage.
5 tries... 5 times failed... with teams which did pretty good damage
this game is no fun anymore... it has become absolutely frustrating
I dont have problems now with the tholian leader. But then again, top 100 player here for that... what I did was as much resist for him and my team uses the t5 delta ability to disable his shields. It helps to stay alive longer. And weapons with KB3 helps too as well.
oh I agree it should be better tested, but advanced shouldn't be too easy
You keep using terms like "too easy", "hard", etc. What these missions are missing is "fun" as they were for quite a few people, nothwithstanding the 10K+ crowd which, by all accounts, is a very small percentage of players. Cryptic adjusts these missions like that's all of us, and many *could* reach that level if "fun" to them was just tearing thru the game on god-mode.
Every time the difficulties get raised, a small percentage still beats them and Cryptic makes them harder and the cycle repeats. They (Cryptic) are slowly but surely pushing out everyone but the high DPSers.
I'm pulling respectable DPS myself but I can tell you that pugging, many aren't. I just dropped a pug Bug Advanced when we didn't hit the first optional bug and the team wiped. I lived but where was I? Readjusting all my skills because of the loadout issue the cant seem to fix. I could have two-shotted that optional bug but I was too busy dealing with one of Cryptics.
4...4 other players could not get that first bug and wiped...on advanced.
Forgive many of us if we think hardness is killing the fun.
*edit for an afterthought. Cryptic apparently wants everyone to DPS faster and faster yet will not put on a simple DPS meter in-game for a player's individual use. And they could. It's perfectly feasable implimenting a simple in-game combat log reader. But they won't. They and the top DPSers want everything harder yet won't give the rank and file easy to use tools to help learn. I use what everyone is using but not everyone has 5 years of STo knowledge to understand what the numbers mean or how to make them better.
I dont have problems now with the tholian leader. But then again, top 100 player here for that... what I did was as much resist for him and my team uses the t5 delta ability to disable his shields. It helps to stay alive longer. And weapons with KB3 helps too as well.
So because you - as you describe yourself - top 0.001% of the players, or higher, can do this mission with what sounds like a premade team - the rest should shut up and take it? Is that your big message for this thread?
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."
So because you - as you describe yourself - top 0.001% of the players, or higher, can do this mission with what sounds like a premade team - the rest should shut up and take it? Is that your big message for this thread?
i dont think that he meant to say that
putting aside that the situation for most of the players is terrible with the new difficulty settings making it impossible to win was this just a try to help
There have been others on the forum suggesting to accept the situation or telling that everything is still soooooo easy.
Fact however is that it is not easy.
Nearly nobody can play specific missions anymore.
And before somebody jumps in to tell me how he beat the mission with only mk xi blue equipment (or such a TRIBBLE).... yes... there are multiple ways getting at least some stuff in this game done.
1. by having epic gear
2. by having many years of experience
fact is that more than 99% of all players lack in both and fact is... they will never learn it because they play to have fun (which has become very rare lately in this game)
Cryptic has not only made the missions harder. They also have nerfed weapons with the last patch.
And thats what cryptic will continue to do.
They put a type of weapon into the game with good stats.... give the players a few weeks time so they can spend their dilithium to buy these weapons and then they will nerf it. This isnt the first time that this happens.
Such methods boost their business.
Honestly? no it isn't. It's hard, but quite doable if you learn how to play. There are many guides out there to show you how to properly set up a torp boat, beam boat, exotic matter boat, tank, healer, what have you.
1) it isn't me that needs to learn how to play
2) in order to learn how to play one must first have a desire to learn
Like I said in another thread on almost the same topic, Cryptic has changed their target audience. It used to be targeted to Trekkies and Casuals. Now they want Gamers because Gamers spend more and accept grind as 'content,' and if you're a Casual just here for fun like you used to, you're expected to change or GTFO.
Basically the game today is being run by and targeted to this guy.
all the stuff about learning how to play.... sorry... but this is a game... it should not require to spend weeks/months to learn how to play it
My opinion on this? If you dont want to learn mmo game mechanics to play it, go fetch a copy of Fruit Ninja or something...
Most endgame content is made for a team efford. Thats why its an mmo. You dont want to be the guy that gets carried through every mission. That only produces hate and anger towards you.
Besides it takes like 4 or 5 hours to learn enough about STO to be in a position to carry yourself. It's simply not an arcade shooter...
Lately I've been seeing rage on the forums from people complaining that the content is too hard.
Honestly? no it isn't. It's hard, but quite doable if you learn how to play. There are many guides out there to show you how to properly set up a torp boat, beam boat, exotic matter boat, tank, healer, what have you.
Before, many of us others have complained that there are pugs who have no IDEA how to play. They enter the mission and ruin it for everyone else, forcing us players who know how to play the game to go into channels rather than risk pugging. Then those awful players started to follow us into those channels so the DPS channel was established with a 10k baseline. ANYONE can do 10k dps, with a proper layout. No I don't mean the kind that requires money. I have a loadout that does 27k dps without having to spend money.
The content is made harder so players are forced to learn instead of going rainbow beams with torpedo tac consoles and consoles designed to increase engine power and crew recovery rates. I'm pretty sure they're tired of the high failure rate and the ridiculously low dps of many players that makes their missions difficult to do.
If you think it's hard, ask in the public elite stf channel how to have a proper loadout or go look in sto academy or even ask here. Done politely, you'd be surprised how much help you'd get. I have fleeters armed with only green/blue items, and a decent boff setup, they do approximately 10k dps now.
Instead of complaining that the game is too hard, work on yourself, get better. They are quite doable. Advanced and Elite are difficult to do and impossible with a random loadout. A proper loadout will make advanced a breeze (if you pay attention) and elite is doable when you know HOW to play. I blast through bughunt elite, and Rhino station very easily.
Instead of yelling at the developers for encouraging you how to play and to help you stop getting ridiculed by the actual players, please, just try to learn how to play. It's so easy, and so cheap to do.
To the developers, thank you for making the content harder. It has frustrated us but it has also challenged us to play better, to learn the game and it has made them enjoyable. Before you did this, I did a mere 14k dps, then when I realised if I wanted to play advanced without fail, I need to better my ship... I did that and now my dps is doubled.
There is nothing in the game that tells the player that using rainbow beams or torpedo consoles is something they should not do, nor any in game method of determining DPS. If these are the base requirements of being able to enjoy content, then the devs need to implement a better system of ensuring that players can judge whether they have a quality build or not. Instead, the mission rewards give out so much pure junk that casual and new players don't realize that the game isn't giving them the tools necessary to complete content at a more difficult level.
My main problem with STO is simply The Rewards Stink !! I am ok with not being anywhere near the top 100 in dps, but nerfing most rewards and damage while buffing the enemy to high levels is ridiculous. I can take failing missions but the rewards stink even if you win. There was not anything useful to me (except the BOFF) in the whole DR storyline. They really need to rethink about balance and rewards. Did they really need to nerf the marks reward for Fleet Alert?
My opinion on this? If you dont want to learn mmo game mechanics to play it, go fetch a copy of Fruit Ninja or something...
Most endgame content is made for a team efford. Thats why its an mmo. You dont want to be the guy that gets carried through every mission. That only produces hate and anger towards you.
Besides it takes like 4 or 5 hours to learn enough about STO to be in a position to carry yourself. It's simply not an arcade shooter...
I guess then nearly all players didnt have 4-5 hours time yet.
There is btw. another thing required for an mmo -> players.
The only thing required to play a game like this appears to be to have a big wallet and no real life.
Like I said in another thread on almost the same topic, Cryptic has changed their target audience. It used to be targeted to Trekkies and Casuals. Now they want Gamers because Gamers spend more and accept grind as 'content,' and if you're a Casual just here for fun like you used to, you're expected to change or GTFO.
Basically the game today is being run by and targeted to this guy.
I must say that this arguement is compelling. This resonates with my personal observations. Since I enjoy the immersion in the Trek atmosphere as a core reason to play this game, I can state that the immersion has been less compelling, lately.
When new content comes into the game I am now carefully looking at the fun vs the grind. If the grind outweighs the fun, then I don't spend anything that month. And I skip the grind.
If the required mastery of the games is dominated by the five year experts, and some of them repeatedly tell Cryptic that they spend nothing on the game anymore... we may end up on a path with experts as the only players in the game, and they will have to grind for less and less, as the revenue streams dry up for the company who keeps the lights on for the servers.
all the stuff about learning how to play.... sorry... but this is a game... it should not require to spend weeks/months to learn how to play it
It doesn't take that long honestly. It can be taught in three lessons. Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. Elite takes awhile though but honestly, intermediate is what the bulk of the players should strive for... the right kind of equipment to bolster them.
My opinion on this? If you dont want to learn mmo game mechanics to play it, go fetch a copy of Fruit Ninja or something...
Most endgame content is made for a team efford. Thats why its an mmo. You dont want to be the guy that gets carried through every mission. That only produces hate and anger towards you.
Besides it takes like 4 or 5 hours to learn enough about STO to be in a position to carry yourself. It's simply not an arcade shooter...
My main problem with STO is simply The Rewards Stink !! I am ok with not being anywhere near the top 100 in dps, but nerfing most rewards and damage while buffing the enemy to high levels is ridiculous. I can take failing missions but the rewards stink even if you win. There was not anything useful to me (except the BOFF) in the whole DR storyline. They really need to rethink about balance and rewards. Did they really need to nerf the marks reward for Fleet Alert?
I agree, the rewards stink. The higher up difficulties like Elite should have excellent rewards that one wants to better themselves to get those rewards. That's how I play... if I can't play this difficulty, then I find ways to better myself so I can go play that level.
I'm top 100 on ground, but in space, I'm ranked something like top 1200. My dps isn't that high though. It doesn't matter that much to me. My ground for the Tholian layout is entirely reputation and hypos.
When the loadouts work, and you beam into an engagement with the proper stuff on, the game goes well. Yes you'll die, yes there's a risk of failure, but you're actually making a difference than those selfish players who only do 800 dps but are quered for the advanced/elite stuff.
Advanced, Elite... Advanced means you need to have the skills and proper equipment. If you don't want to be arsed to do at least that, then you're pretty selfish. It's like the kid walking into a raiding party with only a musket when all the other soldiers have FN P90s, body armour and night vision goggles. Those soldiers will have to assign one of their own to keep the kid alive and the kid is going to get an equal share of the loot.
Can't help but remember all the posts right after the game's retail launch, with people complaining that the game was too casual and needed a super-hard endgame grind. It honestly feels to me like DR is Cryptic's attempt to please those players from five years ago, when many of those players have long since left, and many of the players who are here now are ones who actually liked the game the way it was. The parallels with SWG's NGE are indeed too strong to ignore!
And while I don't mind added challenge, I agree that Cryptic has mishandled it, big time. DPS sponges are not fun to fight, nor is it fun to just barely fail a time limit because your team's numbers were a tiny bit too low. It's not an issue of "learn to play" (I'm always willing to learn); it's an issue of "I don't wanna play, because this isn't any fun." And this is coming from me, one of STO's staunchest defenders on these boards. Even I can feel the fun being sucked out of STO. That should tell you something.
If Cryptic (and MMO developers in general, for that matter) added some real challenge, challenge that wasn't just about making your numbers go up, I think it would be a lot better received. The platforming bit in "Dust to Dust" is, I think, a good example. You can't just cheese your way through it with high numbers, nor does it just present you with a wall of arbitrarily high numbers that you have to overcome; instead, getting through involves concentrating on what's happening and what's going on around you, and carefully and skillfully (!) making your way through. That is an example of fun, fulfilling challenge, IMO. And that is also why people keep saying that Cryptic should be making enemies more interesting AI-wise instead of just raising their numbers.
Like I said in another thread on almost the same topic, Cryptic has changed their target audience. It used to be targeted to Trekkies and Casuals. Now they want Gamers because Gamers spend more and accept grind as 'content,' and if you're a Casual just here for fun like you used to, you're expected to change or GTFO.
Basically the game today is being run by and targeted to this guy.
That made me laugh pretty good. True enough.
As i've mentioned before, I've been playing from the very beginning. I've been through all kinds of situations, changes, etc. I've had the time to learn, and unlearn, systems and tactics. There wasn't massive system changes as often as there is now and the speed at which these newer changes have been coming is hard to keep up on except for the most dedicated gamers with high mathmatical skills.
These new systems are anything but intuitive. I can't even begin to imagine being bombarded with them all as a new player. Admittedly, I *am* a casual player, even after all this time and *I* feel squeezed out as a 5 year player. I've got a life. i don't have 30-90 hours a week to grind away at this game to feel like I'm getting something for the effort, let alone even play any decent content pugging. I do pre-mades from time to time but it all just feels so forced.
Maybe your point is exactly right. Perhaps Cryptic no longer sees any value in keeping people like me around any longer, based on how few of us remain at this point. Everything since DR has just felt like a full-on assault from Cryptic toward the casual player. I keep going back and forth on whether or not this is intentional.
I noticed some was harder to kill. But the game is still has lag. So I think some of it was due to that issue. Since my icons won't light up correctly and takes a few seconds to activate.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Like I said in another thread on almost the same topic, Cryptic has changed their target audience. It used to be targeted to Trekkies and Casuals. Now they want Gamers because Gamers spend more and accept grind as 'content,' and if you're a Casual just here for fun like you used to, you're expected to change or GTFO.
Basically the game today is being run by and targeted to this guy.
Pretty much .
Ironically I was pretty mad (still am in a way) when they chopped up the original STF's into 15 minute mini-raids and served them up for the "casuals" they wanted to hook when they went F2P .
And now , instead of creating new content for the "gamers" they now court , they just 'steal' the game from those casuals they have courted and the Trekkies they have managed to keep this long and serve it up to the "you need DPS / learn how to play yo !" nitwits .
... in the end it will be the timers that will spell this game doom , as you have little to no true "MMO" group content that is not infected by them ...
I've leveled my Sci character from 0 to (now) 43 on Advanced and I can't actually say it's any harder than before. Sure, certain ships are tougher but they are also scaled to your level so that's kind of moot...
There is no reason to play Elite... the rewards for the effort are inconsequential, so if you're playing elite thinking that will progress you faster, it won't. Knock it down to Advanced.
How does that make any difference? Whether the number is one million hit points, or 250.000 hit points, but your damage is lowered to 1/4, you still need the same amount of time to punch through it, and the hit point bar does not move any faster for it.
It only becomes meaningful if there are ways to bypass that resistance. Butin turn that is only useful if there isn't already a huge DPS gap in the game, because otherwise - who is most likely to bypass the resistance? A low DPS build that uses bad powers, bad equipment and bad tactics, or a high DPS build with good powers, good equipment, and good tactics?
The damage can be tailored to suit much easier than currently. Also it would require a rethink on time vs reward which only became a problem when the grind became ridiculous, a la Dilithium Rising.
First you deal with the perception problem. People are using a ship with base 45-60000 hull then they launch frigates from their carrier which have 75000 hull (ok that dropped recently but they are still around 35-40000). When the ships have parity with yours the perception problem is gone. Then you work on the damage issues and the reward issues and ......
However the list for reigning in DPS from under 1K to 180K is pretty long. Would take me a few months to sort out and require Cryptic to pay me in cash
Thing is though if players perceive they are on an even playing field it instantly reduces a lot of the rage/frustration.
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."
People don't want hard content, people want fun content that is tested and debugged properly. Big difference.
Different people want different things, and while it is likely that many if not most would prefer fewer bugs; one can only speak for themselves in saying that they have fun throwing thermonuclear grenades into a barrel of goldfish to get that pat on the back. Others might want something more.
Or ... it could be that some of us just don't enjoy the equivalent of being slapped on the butt with a wet towel ... , aka the ridiculous timers that suck out all the joy out of flying your ship and pew-pewing.
The feeling about the timers will definitely be subjective, and Cryptic should, imho, consider the means by which they're collecting data for their metrics. They may have done so, already though, so if folks are uncomfortable with timers compared to others it may simply be a case that they are not quite ready for the content they are attempting just yet.
Cryptic has Normal, Advanced, and Elite...they need to tune them and players need to accept it, no?
yeah, it's not a casual game anymore as it was for many years. but they want to cash out. a real shame.
Again, this is something subjective and Cryptic's going to get mixed messages on it; cause to some folks it's no longer casual while to others it may still be highly casual. Personally, it's along the lines of where I felt it was extremely casual and made some jokes about Geko wanting puppies on iPads to be able to play the game...that it was basically a simple tablet app or Facebook like game.
I'm in no rush for anything, so it still feels like a casual game to me - only it's a casual game with stuff to do instead of finding myself rolling new characters over and over again because of having nothing to do.
Yeah? Then they shouldn't spend years boasting about how fast they could finish STF's and how easy everything is on the "hardest" difficulties, and begging the devs for nighmare difficulty and an increased level cap.
They also shouldn't have kept complaining about how dumbed down the game had gotten and how even the most casual player could make a new character and hit the level cap in 24-48 hours.
Which is where we get into there being different players and stuff, yeah? It's a tough balancing act for a company to try to provide for those different players, eh? Can't think of a MMO off-hand where there haven't been bitter arguments about almost every little thing because of those different players.
One of my favorites is folks complaining about the "grind" to level, because they want to hurry up and get to the "endgame" so they can "grind"...yes, that's being said in a mocking tone toward them; I'm biased toward the journey rather than the destination, and I've never been a fan of the race to the repetitive end. Though, in all fairness, many of the folks that complain about the speed of leveling often mention it being repetitive. It's just about what different folks enjoy...and a company trying to decide who to favor there, yeah?
But still, I find it odd that when a company tries to cater to different groups by offering different options how much of a protest tends to arise with things that are stated to be a higher difficulty actually are more difficult, eh?
I fly a carrier, and I used to be able to spam my attack button while my drone ships flew about and blew things up. Between 40-50, it was
Move into range.
Stop moving.
Press spacebar to win.
Repeat.
Then DR happened and I started having to try. I was spoiled on my laziness. I was surprised that I had to change my tactics to beat all the new missions. I didn't like it, but it was a nice change.
Reminds me of that one mission during the LoR beta, folks raged about it - I was actually having fun for the first time in forever in PvE, cause I had to do more than just fly around in circles resting on the spacebar. But yeah, different folks are going to enjoy different things there...would be nifty for a company to provide content for both; and would be even niftier if the players could accept that there might be different content for different folks.
If I understand it correctly from the latest patch notes is that they are trying to get people to play more ground queue and less space for a more balanced and dynamic queue overall.
They're just trying to balance the queues in general. They've got some queues that are massively easy and over-rewarding compared to other queues. With balanced queues, players would have options - they could do X, Y, Z and feel that they're being rewarded for their efforts rather than just being shoehorned into some path of least resistance which can lead to tedium and a feeling of it being grindy....same thing over and over sort of thing.
There was this Cryptic Golden Rule thing, where a player would earn X reward in Y time with Z effort sort of thing. As the game went along, stuff ended up being way out of balance.
It's harder, so that you may buy the upgrades to do the game "successfully".
But that's the thing, nothing is actually required to do the content...so to speak. There are folks that end up using "crutches" as the case may be, so they can tackle content they're not otherwise ready for; and so those folks may feel that they're being pressured into buying stuff...but if they just made the slightest effort to get better instead of getting worse (yes, many folks actually get worse by becoming reliant on those upgrades - Hell, I get worse and worse with every new toy that comes out since it results in my needing to put forth less effort).
In the end, when one accepts that it's basically a treadmill to nowhere where all one is doing is getting upgrades to run on that treadmill to nowhere faster; well...I think the perspective changes; and one might just be able to enjoy the game more.
If mission can't be PUGged then it, for most part, won't be played.
But doesn't that get into the potential reasons for why it can't be pugged? If somebody can toss together a channel pug (not a DPS channel pug, but just a random channel pug) and do it, doesn't that point more to an issue with players in the public queues than it does the content? ie, AFKers, Leechers, Unprepared, Trolls, and the like?
That is the purpose. The design is to encourage rage purchase of upgrades. Regardless of whether such upgrades actually help so much across various missions.
I think the "rage" part should be telling you something.
Agree with the OP. Some of the things I see have nothing to do with spending money and everything to do with googling a mission and reading the walkthrough. Like 10 minutes of work.
I believe it's something some folks might take for granted, that there is all sorts of information available out there - that there are forums where folks can ask additional questions - all those resources that are available for somebody that perhaps could provide them a more enjoyable gaming experience...some folks just take those for granted, while others are clueless about them and would rather rage at Cryptic.
I remember a lot of people on the forums saying the game was too easy.
So Crpytic did what people on the forums say they never do: They listened to them.
Unfortunately, it turns out that while there may have been people that wanted things to be harder, there were also plenty people that were quite happy with the difficulty level of the game.
Almost everything in the game is from people listening to Cryptic. For almost everything that Tom might be complaining about now, odds are there was some post from Jerry complaining about it being the way it was...and Cryptic addressed it.
There are different voices, different folks want different things, and just because Cryptic listens to some other group doesn't mean they're not listening to their players. The game ended up so single-player and extremely casual from listening to players. Cryptic is simply trying to balance what's there, imho. Shouldn't have Content A and Content B which are supposed to be at the same level of difficulty be so wildly different, imho. At the same time that they're doing this, they've also talked about offering more rewards from the single-player stuff.
Sure, imho, they probably could work on their production schedule for how they're rolling stuff out to make things a wee bit smoother all around...but oh well, will have to see how it all plays out or if it just falls flat.
My best guess is that a lot of player still have the yesteryears mindset of lvl 50 + maxed repslotskills + fleet T5/lockbox ship with MK12 very rare/ultra rare = endgame ready to faceroll elite and everything beyond that are just fancy additions. Its not. Todays endgame ready is lvl60 + maxed repslotskills, + spaceship skills + maxed primary & secondary spezialization + maxed fleet/Lockbox T5U/ T6 with MK14 ultrarare/epic. I'm pretty sure five guys at that point knowing their ships and the maps as they did in lvl50 max times faceroll current elite as much as back then.
But you didn't need that for the L50 endgame...and you don't even need that (the L50 stuff) to do the L60 stuff. There's a big difference between facerolling and completing stuff.
I mean, if we look back to ISE. So there was the initial encounter and then a 15 minute optional started. That's an optional...as in something that only the better groups should be able to do, right? And it was ISE...E for "Elite"...yeah? Random pugs were doing it how fast?
So those 5-7 minute runs in T5 ships with mission gear are 9-11 minutes or so now - that's still lolstomping the content.
the difference they make, isn't that much. The stuff you can get off the exchange is good enough.
Because of the way things work with STO and it being percentage based, folks would get far more out of learning to play better than they would out of just throwing resources at stuff to upgrade. Just fundamentals of range, positioning, and the like.
Its cryptics fault for designing content that allows such poor builds to dominate there content ,. Not the players fault for taking advantage of it
Personally, I've got mixed feelings on that. Well, not the it's Cryptic's fault - I hate the monster farm design of the game; but the "poor" builds aspect. Cause they're not really "poor" builds in regard to the content. If everything is dead, then you don't have to worry about taking damage or healing.
It's a trip to download some of the logs from the DPS League table and look at the incoming damage. Better defense through better offense...
...but that, imho, definitely does get into it being Cryptic's fault. If the NPCs were anywhere near the threat that a player is, then those kind of things would be far more risky - and - I think that's where Cryptic tried to make it more risky by adding the HP to the mobs. But the mobs are still doing pissall as far as attacks and enough easily obtainable powercreep was added that they're just shredded.
Imagine if mobs were firing off attacks at the 10-20 APS (attacks per second) rate that some players are...instead of the less than 1 to 2 APS, eh? If instead of a bunch of low health mobs spread out to allow for that lobbing of atomic waterballoons every which way, that there were actual challenging NPCs?
Then again, since this is a thread where many are complaining about the difficulty already...suggesting an increase to introduce some varied gameplay and allow for more roles is likely to be met with "oh Hell noes!".
cryptic needs to sort out the challenge vs reward in the rest of the game.
and sort out what difficulty actually means as a tool for providing players the experience they want rather than slapping million hp speed bumps in everyone's way.
If the devs read this, I bet they'd say: "Oh -- so it's *still* not hard enough for them." Sarcasm: Thanks for telling them. More sarcasm: That really helped improve the game.
They're not going to look at a single group that's slaughtering the content at a certain level, but when that becomes the norm - then there is a problem there.
It's a hardcore game under a thinly veiled casual veneer, which in essence is the biggest problem of all. How do you teach people to play a game which has so many attributes when all they know is to click a few things and fireworks happen.
Hrmm, personally I wouldn't call it a hardcore game under that casual veneer - a complex one? Sure, there's all sorts of intertwined mechanics under the stuff that folks take for granted. There are a bunch of confusing and misleading tooltips. There are all sorts of potential obstacles for folks there trying to min/max...but much of it simply works without having to know why or how it works and for those that want to know more, there are plenty of folks out there that came before them and have been looking into it - and - there's nothing stopping them from looking into it themselves.
Slotting A makes for bigger booms! Wheeeee! Works for a bunch of folks out there. Hell, some of them complain when one of the spreadsheet warriors comes along and mentions that Slotting A makes for too bigger of a boom.
Seriously, it seems like this game is now designed by and for masochists or something.
I just don't understand complaints like this. I talked to the girlfriend once about it, and we both wondered if it was a generational thing. Because of how things changed over the decades, some folks never had to face any sort of failure in anything in their lives...so they're left unprepared to deal with the smallest of failures and it becomes some hugely melodramatic event.
STO's problem is that there can be such a ridicilous large discrepancy between DPS.
Consider the following...two folks with the same weapon that might do 5000 damage a hit. Let's make it a cannon-type weapon.
Tom's just inside 10km and has 50 Weapon Power (after other weapons firing).
Jerry's just inside 5km and has 125 Weapon Power (after other weapons firing).
Tom hits for...2000 damage.
Jerry hits for...9062.5 damage.
Tom (5000 * 0.4 * 1 = 2000)
Jerry (5000 * 0.725 * 2.5 = 9062.5)
Nothing was changed between those two outside of where they were firing from and how they were managing their Subsystem Power.
Tom could upgrade all sorts of things, and let's say somehow he gets to the point where it could be 20000 damage a hit, eh?
Tom hits for...8000 damage.
Tom (20000 * 0.4 * 1 = 8000)
Yep, his potential damage is four times that of Jerry, but he's still hitting for less than Jerry. What if we give Jerry those same upgrades?
Jerry hits for...36250 damage.
Jerry (20000 * 0.725 * 2.5 = 36250)
Same upgrades, but Tom gained 6000 damage while Jerry gained 27187.5 damage.
Let's say each was using the broken Enhanced Armor Penetration on an otherwise non-debuffed target, eh?
Tom hits for...
Jerry hits for...
Tom (8000 * 1.4884 = 11907.2)
Jerry (36250 * 1.4884 = 53954.5)
So our difference at 5000 was...7062.5 damage.
Our difference at 20000 was...28250 damage.
Our difference with EAP added was...42047.3 damage.
All because of where Tom was shooting from and his Weapon Power compared to where Jerry was shooting from and his Weapon Power.
It's one of the reasons I've complained about the ratios/percentages for years, no pun intended - it just scales for TRIBBLE.
And well, hrmmm...I'm going to stop there - cause I've already repeated myself on a few things there and would likely continue to do so.
Besides, it's not the first time the topic has come up...not by a longshot.
all the stuff about learning how to play.... sorry... but this is a game... it should not require to spend weeks/months to learn how to play it
I agree, I do not want to have to sit with a spreadsheet and calculator trying to figure out which weapons to use, which consoles support which weapons, which rep set to use with certain weapons/consoles ect.
To me this is a game and as such we should be able to go in and play without having to make it seeming like a job. I do this to get away from my job and enjoy myself.
I did make a 10k dps toon due to coming on the forums and asking for help and you know now that I have her built she has nothing left to do. she has Tier 5 in all rep, done all missions and literly needs nothing. so now I log her in to do duties only as I don't need to do the stf's since she has all rep and is geared out pretty good.
To me fun is about playing around with different builds and not having to make sure it can do 20k plus to do any of the content
I wouldn't call it listening. I'd call it reacting with the cheapest solution. HP/SP sponges don't make things hard, they make it d a DPS race and utterly tedious at the same time. In a lot of ways it fails to encourage use of more abilities as it's focusing on DPS rather than giving the AI the ability to do more, therefore requiring the player to react by doing more. It's easier to comprehend what's happening when the AI uses abilities rather than sits there soaking everything.
just having lots of enemies and/or high HP doesn't make things harder it just creates a need for high DPS. I don't think it's even about being harder at all. It's about the complexity of the engagements being to low. mostly we need better AI. we need an AI that favors different strategies depending on what kind of enemy it is. for instance voth are defensive they will try to keep shield up at all costs, while having little offence. the key should be to not allow them to do that. a tachyon beam should be devastating against voth since it fundamentally undermines their strategy. they gave up much of their offensive capability to outlast their foes strip that away from them and then they simply cant recover.
borg shoud do a group hug strategy. they are a collective after all they will should boost regeneration speed, rate of fire and cool down speeds simply by being near each-other. the solution than is to either isolate them (they should be smart enough not to let that just happen) or quickly take one out to weaken all its friends.
currently we either get zerged by at least 20 trash mobs at once or a damage sponge that has twice that groups collective HP but isn't impressive otherwise. the damage sponge should have been a boss whit some interesting mechanics and exploitable weakness but it's just a trash-mob whit lots of HP most of the time. the stereotypical game boss whit obvious weak point that must be hit X times would be an improvement to what we get most of the time.
the key point here is that we need to be able to somewhat predict what NPCs will do based on what type/species they are. because when we know this we can then manipulate them. our encouters whit them become more interesting and we will naturally strategize to take advantage of their weaknesses and mitigate their strengths.
For instance balance at the moment is still horrendously broken. The overreaction on CCA has brought a 5 min timer into it for Advanced. Why? It didn't need that timer at all let alone in Advanced. If there was an Elite level then understandable, that would be a huge incentive. But at Advanced level there is no need for it (or any other Mandatory optional!). Advanced should be the learning ground for the Elite levels, which currently it pretty much is. However it also requires a minimum DPS to do efficiently, seeing as 95% of STO's playerbase are unequipped to deal with that, therein lies the problem.
again the key point here is that we need to be able to somewhat predict what NPCs will do. because when we know this we can then manipulate them.
but this time it's related to aggro. we need to get them to attack the cruisers who can take it and the glass cannon type DPS should be able to mitigate the amount of threat they revive.
than we can play trinity and properly coordinate as a group. but when the the encounters consist out of NPCs that just soak up damage while dishing it back out indiscriminately they become stale and uninteresting. worse just killing them before you are killed becomes the best strategy. when add a timer to it you only create a hyper focus on DPS while group play falls to the sideline.
During the game there isn't enough explanation on how to build a ship or character. The player is expected to learn it all for the most part independently of the game. Due to the number of variables involved it literally takes months to learn the nuances of each aspect. From why you need to have CrtH consoles and CrtD weapons, to why you need to use particular DoFF's and certain BoFF skills being useless. That hasn't even touched, skills, traits, specialisations, fleets, etc....
this is a huge problem I play STO for 5 year now i can still honestly say I haven't figured it out yet. one of the problems is that the gem does not work intuitively. lot's of things don't actually quite work the way you think they should. for instance lager crew sizes hurt you hull repair rate rather then helping. now I expect this is a coding error but its still the way it is. there are tone of other things that are a little odd like that or that you just need to know about without ever being told.
the other thing is that the game is overly complex mechanically in lots of places it really shouldn't be. for example each weapon has individual ratings for hit's, crit's and misses. why isn't this ship wide? It stands to reason that this is dependent on the targeting sensors and therefore ship wide. changing these kind of things would simplify the game a lot without dumbing it down. right now the game requires me to memorize the ships user manual to be effective. that's not a good thing. I know the strategies for most STFs but fly them whit a sub optimal ship because i simply refuse to memorize its user manual.
It's a hardcore game under a thinly veiled casual veneer, which in essence is the biggest problem of all. How do you teach people to play a game which has so many attributes when all they know is to click a few things and fireworks happen.
playing a game should be about learning the strategy to beat the opponents and have the mechanics be so intuitive that fireworks naturally happen when you get the strategy right. not exploiting the the hardcore details of an advanced user manual that 95% of the player-base doesn't even know exists.
THE NEW CRAFTING SYSTEM IS TERRA-BAD First of all it's not even a crafting system! It's just a dumb game system that's nothing more than a glorified slots machine.
second the "special items" you hope will be the saving the saving grace are messed up to.
Just failed BHE 2x in a row because the first alarm bug touched the rock wall
I mean plz.................
now we have to type this out to the pugs
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Lately I've been seeing rage on the forums from people complaining that the content is too hard.
Honestly? no it isn't. It's hard, but quite doable if you learn how to play. There are many guides out there to show you how to properly set up a torp boat, beam boat, exotic matter boat, tank, healer, what have you.
Before, many of us others have complained that there are pugs who have no IDEA how to play. They enter the mission and ruin it for everyone else, forcing us players who know how to play the game to go into channels rather than risk pugging. ...
I'm not going to bother with the rest of the elitist pat-myself-on-the-back-because-I-think-I'm-such-an-uber-player-and-all-the-rest-of-you-suck quote. My stomach can't handle any more of that garbage.
First, not everyone does STFs.
Second, if you're getting unwanted teammates in the STFs with you, that's what the closed team settings are for.
Third, what most complaints are about regarding increased difficulty (which has even been addressed by staff as being reduced in the near future as a result) has to do with storyline missions, those blasted patrols, and other NORMAL-grade content. If a player wants increased difficulty, they should be able to increase it by playing content at the Advanced or Elite settings. But the Normal settings should be doable by casual players that have no idea what their DPS ratings are, because they're playing the GAME for FUN and not statistics to craft laurels out of. Not that the missions should be cakewalks; I'm not saying that. I'm saying challenging, but doable without being pigeonholed or dying repeatedly in the process. That's not fun, and this is a game, meant to be fun, otherwise why are we even here?
Fourth, this game was originally designed so that it could be played by many different styles and loadouts and what-have-you. If the game was only meant to be won by playing with a specific ship with specific weaponry and specific BOffs and so on, then that's all that would be available. And what may work for you may not work for others, or be any fun for them.
Fifth, we shouldn't have to "learn how to play" when we already knew how to play and had been playing all this time successfully (some of us for years) and only recently started having problems due to the increased difficulty changes (note: they were changes made to the game, not to us).
So I suggest you get off your elitist soapbox telling us how to play our game your way and go find a way to be with your fellow elitists and play all by yourselves with your own toys in your own corner of the recess yard and let us play our game the way we choose to.
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Comments
It only becomes meaningful if there are ways to bypass that resistance. Butin turn that is only useful if there isn't already a huge DPS gap in the game, because otherwise - who is most likely to bypass the resistance? A low DPS build that uses bad powers, bad equipment and bad tactics, or a high DPS build with good powers, good equipment, and good tactics?
Now on the ground like the new Romulan Mystery Mission those are much harder to take now now. Again just equip your away team with the best weapons you have for them and you too. All those kits powers you been collecting time to put them to use.
To me this game just gets more and more protected in game play. But not much we can all do about it. This now how the game is. Even if you have the top weapons to use both in space and ground.
Time will only tell!
while some missions were ok to play there meanwhile is a 100% guarantee to fail now
just alone the **** they have done to the tholian project leader.... and for some reason also to other npcs which all of a sudden seem to be very resistent to any form of damage.
5 tries... 5 times failed... with teams which did pretty good damage
this game is no fun anymore... it has become absolutely frustrating
I dont have problems now with the tholian leader. But then again, top 100 player here for that... what I did was as much resist for him and my team uses the t5 delta ability to disable his shields. It helps to stay alive longer. And weapons with KB3 helps too as well.
You keep using terms like "too easy", "hard", etc. What these missions are missing is "fun" as they were for quite a few people, nothwithstanding the 10K+ crowd which, by all accounts, is a very small percentage of players. Cryptic adjusts these missions like that's all of us, and many *could* reach that level if "fun" to them was just tearing thru the game on god-mode.
Every time the difficulties get raised, a small percentage still beats them and Cryptic makes them harder and the cycle repeats. They (Cryptic) are slowly but surely pushing out everyone but the high DPSers.
I'm pulling respectable DPS myself but I can tell you that pugging, many aren't. I just dropped a pug Bug Advanced when we didn't hit the first optional bug and the team wiped. I lived but where was I? Readjusting all my skills because of the loadout issue the cant seem to fix. I could have two-shotted that optional bug but I was too busy dealing with one of Cryptics.
4...4 other players could not get that first bug and wiped...on advanced.
Forgive many of us if we think hardness is killing the fun.
*edit for an afterthought. Cryptic apparently wants everyone to DPS faster and faster yet will not put on a simple DPS meter in-game for a player's individual use. And they could. It's perfectly feasable implimenting a simple in-game combat log reader. But they won't. They and the top DPSers want everything harder yet won't give the rank and file easy to use tools to help learn. I use what everyone is using but not everyone has 5 years of STo knowledge to understand what the numbers mean or how to make them better.
So because you - as you describe yourself - top 0.001% of the players, or higher, can do this mission with what sounds like a premade team - the rest should shut up and take it? Is that your big message for this thread?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
i dont think that he meant to say that
putting aside that the situation for most of the players is terrible with the new difficulty settings making it impossible to win was this just a try to help
There have been others on the forum suggesting to accept the situation or telling that everything is still soooooo easy.
Fact however is that it is not easy.
Nearly nobody can play specific missions anymore.
And before somebody jumps in to tell me how he beat the mission with only mk xi blue equipment (or such a TRIBBLE).... yes... there are multiple ways getting at least some stuff in this game done.
1. by having epic gear
2. by having many years of experience
fact is that more than 99% of all players lack in both and fact is... they will never learn it because they play to have fun (which has become very rare lately in this game)
Cryptic has not only made the missions harder. They also have nerfed weapons with the last patch.
And thats what cryptic will continue to do.
They put a type of weapon into the game with good stats.... give the players a few weeks time so they can spend their dilithium to buy these weapons and then they will nerf it. This isnt the first time that this happens.
Such methods boost their business.
1) it isn't me that needs to learn how to play
2) in order to learn how to play one must first have a desire to learn
all the stuff about learning how to play.... sorry... but this is a game... it should not require to spend weeks/months to learn how to play it
Basically the game today is being run by and targeted to this guy.
My opinion on this? If you dont want to learn mmo game mechanics to play it, go fetch a copy of Fruit Ninja or something...
Most endgame content is made for a team efford. Thats why its an mmo. You dont want to be the guy that gets carried through every mission. That only produces hate and anger towards you.
Besides it takes like 4 or 5 hours to learn enough about STO to be in a position to carry yourself. It's simply not an arcade shooter...
There is nothing in the game that tells the player that using rainbow beams or torpedo consoles is something they should not do, nor any in game method of determining DPS. If these are the base requirements of being able to enjoy content, then the devs need to implement a better system of ensuring that players can judge whether they have a quality build or not. Instead, the mission rewards give out so much pure junk that casual and new players don't realize that the game isn't giving them the tools necessary to complete content at a more difficult level.
I guess then nearly all players didnt have 4-5 hours time yet.
There is btw. another thing required for an mmo -> players.
The only thing required to play a game like this appears to be to have a big wallet and no real life.
I must say that this arguement is compelling. This resonates with my personal observations. Since I enjoy the immersion in the Trek atmosphere as a core reason to play this game, I can state that the immersion has been less compelling, lately.
When new content comes into the game I am now carefully looking at the fun vs the grind. If the grind outweighs the fun, then I don't spend anything that month. And I skip the grind.
If the required mastery of the games is dominated by the five year experts, and some of them repeatedly tell Cryptic that they spend nothing on the game anymore... we may end up on a path with experts as the only players in the game, and they will have to grind for less and less, as the revenue streams dry up for the company who keeps the lights on for the servers.
Just some thoughts.
It doesn't take that long honestly. It can be taught in three lessons. Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. Elite takes awhile though but honestly, intermediate is what the bulk of the players should strive for... the right kind of equipment to bolster them.
Bingo.
I agree, the rewards stink. The higher up difficulties like Elite should have excellent rewards that one wants to better themselves to get those rewards. That's how I play... if I can't play this difficulty, then I find ways to better myself so I can go play that level.
I'm top 100 on ground, but in space, I'm ranked something like top 1200. My dps isn't that high though. It doesn't matter that much to me. My ground for the Tholian layout is entirely reputation and hypos.
When the loadouts work, and you beam into an engagement with the proper stuff on, the game goes well. Yes you'll die, yes there's a risk of failure, but you're actually making a difference than those selfish players who only do 800 dps but are quered for the advanced/elite stuff.
Advanced, Elite... Advanced means you need to have the skills and proper equipment. If you don't want to be arsed to do at least that, then you're pretty selfish. It's like the kid walking into a raiding party with only a musket when all the other soldiers have FN P90s, body armour and night vision goggles. Those soldiers will have to assign one of their own to keep the kid alive and the kid is going to get an equal share of the loot.
And while I don't mind added challenge, I agree that Cryptic has mishandled it, big time. DPS sponges are not fun to fight, nor is it fun to just barely fail a time limit because your team's numbers were a tiny bit too low. It's not an issue of "learn to play" (I'm always willing to learn); it's an issue of "I don't wanna play, because this isn't any fun." And this is coming from me, one of STO's staunchest defenders on these boards. Even I can feel the fun being sucked out of STO. That should tell you something.
If Cryptic (and MMO developers in general, for that matter) added some real challenge, challenge that wasn't just about making your numbers go up, I think it would be a lot better received. The platforming bit in "Dust to Dust" is, I think, a good example. You can't just cheese your way through it with high numbers, nor does it just present you with a wall of arbitrarily high numbers that you have to overcome; instead, getting through involves concentrating on what's happening and what's going on around you, and carefully and skillfully (!) making your way through. That is an example of fun, fulfilling challenge, IMO. And that is also why people keep saying that Cryptic should be making enemies more interesting AI-wise instead of just raising their numbers.
That made me laugh pretty good. True enough.
As i've mentioned before, I've been playing from the very beginning. I've been through all kinds of situations, changes, etc. I've had the time to learn, and unlearn, systems and tactics. There wasn't massive system changes as often as there is now and the speed at which these newer changes have been coming is hard to keep up on except for the most dedicated gamers with high mathmatical skills.
These new systems are anything but intuitive. I can't even begin to imagine being bombarded with them all as a new player. Admittedly, I *am* a casual player, even after all this time and *I* feel squeezed out as a 5 year player. I've got a life. i don't have 30-90 hours a week to grind away at this game to feel like I'm getting something for the effort, let alone even play any decent content pugging. I do pre-mades from time to time but it all just feels so forced.
Maybe your point is exactly right. Perhaps Cryptic no longer sees any value in keeping people like me around any longer, based on how few of us remain at this point. Everything since DR has just felt like a full-on assault from Cryptic toward the casual player. I keep going back and forth on whether or not this is intentional.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Pretty much .
Ironically I was pretty mad (still am in a way) when they chopped up the original STF's into 15 minute mini-raids and served them up for the "casuals" they wanted to hook when they went F2P .
And now , instead of creating new content for the "gamers" they now court , they just 'steal' the game from those casuals they have courted and the Trekkies they have managed to keep this long and serve it up to the "you need DPS / learn how to play yo !" nitwits .
... in the end it will be the timers that will spell this game doom , as you have little to no true "MMO" group content that is not infected by them ...
There is no reason to play Elite... the rewards for the effort are inconsequential, so if you're playing elite thinking that will progress you faster, it won't. Knock it down to Advanced.
The damage can be tailored to suit much easier than currently. Also it would require a rethink on time vs reward which only became a problem when the grind became ridiculous, a la Dilithium Rising.
First you deal with the perception problem. People are using a ship with base 45-60000 hull then they launch frigates from their carrier which have 75000 hull (ok that dropped recently but they are still around 35-40000). When the ships have parity with yours the perception problem is gone. Then you work on the damage issues and the reward issues and ......
However the list for reigning in DPS from under 1K to 180K is pretty long. Would take me a few months to sort out and require Cryptic to pay me in cash
Thing is though if players perceive they are on an even playing field it instantly reduces a lot of the rage/frustration.
"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."
Difficulty is subjective. Things that Jerry might not even give a second thought about might be near impossible for Tom to think he could ever do it.
Different people want different things, and while it is likely that many if not most would prefer fewer bugs; one can only speak for themselves in saying that they have fun throwing thermonuclear grenades into a barrel of goldfish to get that pat on the back. Others might want something more.
The feeling about the timers will definitely be subjective, and Cryptic should, imho, consider the means by which they're collecting data for their metrics. They may have done so, already though, so if folks are uncomfortable with timers compared to others it may simply be a case that they are not quite ready for the content they are attempting just yet.
Cryptic has Normal, Advanced, and Elite...they need to tune them and players need to accept it, no?
Again, this is something subjective and Cryptic's going to get mixed messages on it; cause to some folks it's no longer casual while to others it may still be highly casual. Personally, it's along the lines of where I felt it was extremely casual and made some jokes about Geko wanting puppies on iPads to be able to play the game...that it was basically a simple tablet app or Facebook like game.
I'm in no rush for anything, so it still feels like a casual game to me - only it's a casual game with stuff to do instead of finding myself rolling new characters over and over again because of having nothing to do.
Which is where we get into there being different players and stuff, yeah? It's a tough balancing act for a company to try to provide for those different players, eh? Can't think of a MMO off-hand where there haven't been bitter arguments about almost every little thing because of those different players.
One of my favorites is folks complaining about the "grind" to level, because they want to hurry up and get to the "endgame" so they can "grind"...yes, that's being said in a mocking tone toward them; I'm biased toward the journey rather than the destination, and I've never been a fan of the race to the repetitive end. Though, in all fairness, many of the folks that complain about the speed of leveling often mention it being repetitive. It's just about what different folks enjoy...and a company trying to decide who to favor there, yeah?
But still, I find it odd that when a company tries to cater to different groups by offering different options how much of a protest tends to arise with things that are stated to be a higher difficulty actually are more difficult, eh?
Reminds me of that one mission during the LoR beta, folks raged about it - I was actually having fun for the first time in forever in PvE, cause I had to do more than just fly around in circles resting on the spacebar. But yeah, different folks are going to enjoy different things there...would be nifty for a company to provide content for both; and would be even niftier if the players could accept that there might be different content for different folks.
They're just trying to balance the queues in general. They've got some queues that are massively easy and over-rewarding compared to other queues. With balanced queues, players would have options - they could do X, Y, Z and feel that they're being rewarded for their efforts rather than just being shoehorned into some path of least resistance which can lead to tedium and a feeling of it being grindy....same thing over and over sort of thing.
There was this Cryptic Golden Rule thing, where a player would earn X reward in Y time with Z effort sort of thing. As the game went along, stuff ended up being way out of balance.
But that's the thing, nothing is actually required to do the content...so to speak. There are folks that end up using "crutches" as the case may be, so they can tackle content they're not otherwise ready for; and so those folks may feel that they're being pressured into buying stuff...but if they just made the slightest effort to get better instead of getting worse (yes, many folks actually get worse by becoming reliant on those upgrades - Hell, I get worse and worse with every new toy that comes out since it results in my needing to put forth less effort).
In the end, when one accepts that it's basically a treadmill to nowhere where all one is doing is getting upgrades to run on that treadmill to nowhere faster; well...I think the perspective changes; and one might just be able to enjoy the game more.
But doesn't that get into the potential reasons for why it can't be pugged? If somebody can toss together a channel pug (not a DPS channel pug, but just a random channel pug) and do it, doesn't that point more to an issue with players in the public queues than it does the content? ie, AFKers, Leechers, Unprepared, Trolls, and the like?
I think the "rage" part should be telling you something.
I believe it's something some folks might take for granted, that there is all sorts of information available out there - that there are forums where folks can ask additional questions - all those resources that are available for somebody that perhaps could provide them a more enjoyable gaming experience...some folks just take those for granted, while others are clueless about them and would rather rage at Cryptic.
Almost everything in the game is from people listening to Cryptic. For almost everything that Tom might be complaining about now, odds are there was some post from Jerry complaining about it being the way it was...and Cryptic addressed it.
There are different voices, different folks want different things, and just because Cryptic listens to some other group doesn't mean they're not listening to their players. The game ended up so single-player and extremely casual from listening to players. Cryptic is simply trying to balance what's there, imho. Shouldn't have Content A and Content B which are supposed to be at the same level of difficulty be so wildly different, imho. At the same time that they're doing this, they've also talked about offering more rewards from the single-player stuff.
Sure, imho, they probably could work on their production schedule for how they're rolling stuff out to make things a wee bit smoother all around...but oh well, will have to see how it all plays out or if it just falls flat.
But you didn't need that for the L50 endgame...and you don't even need that (the L50 stuff) to do the L60 stuff. There's a big difference between facerolling and completing stuff.
I mean, if we look back to ISE. So there was the initial encounter and then a 15 minute optional started. That's an optional...as in something that only the better groups should be able to do, right? And it was ISE...E for "Elite"...yeah? Random pugs were doing it how fast?
So those 5-7 minute runs in T5 ships with mission gear are 9-11 minutes or so now - that's still lolstomping the content.
Because of the way things work with STO and it being percentage based, folks would get far more out of learning to play better than they would out of just throwing resources at stuff to upgrade. Just fundamentals of range, positioning, and the like.
Personally, I've got mixed feelings on that. Well, not the it's Cryptic's fault - I hate the monster farm design of the game; but the "poor" builds aspect. Cause they're not really "poor" builds in regard to the content. If everything is dead, then you don't have to worry about taking damage or healing.
It's a trip to download some of the logs from the DPS League table and look at the incoming damage. Better defense through better offense...
...but that, imho, definitely does get into it being Cryptic's fault. If the NPCs were anywhere near the threat that a player is, then those kind of things would be far more risky - and - I think that's where Cryptic tried to make it more risky by adding the HP to the mobs. But the mobs are still doing pissall as far as attacks and enough easily obtainable powercreep was added that they're just shredded.
Imagine if mobs were firing off attacks at the 10-20 APS (attacks per second) rate that some players are...instead of the less than 1 to 2 APS, eh? If instead of a bunch of low health mobs spread out to allow for that lobbing of atomic waterballoons every which way, that there were actual challenging NPCs?
Then again, since this is a thread where many are complaining about the difficulty already...suggesting an increase to introduce some varied gameplay and allow for more roles is likely to be met with "oh Hell noes!".
IMHO, it's definitely a mess there...meh.
They're not going to look at a single group that's slaughtering the content at a certain level, but when that becomes the norm - then there is a problem there.
Hrmm, personally I wouldn't call it a hardcore game under that casual veneer - a complex one? Sure, there's all sorts of intertwined mechanics under the stuff that folks take for granted. There are a bunch of confusing and misleading tooltips. There are all sorts of potential obstacles for folks there trying to min/max...but much of it simply works without having to know why or how it works and for those that want to know more, there are plenty of folks out there that came before them and have been looking into it - and - there's nothing stopping them from looking into it themselves.
Slotting A makes for bigger booms! Wheeeee! Works for a bunch of folks out there. Hell, some of them complain when one of the spreadsheet warriors comes along and mentions that Slotting A makes for too bigger of a boom.
I just don't understand complaints like this. I talked to the girlfriend once about it, and we both wondered if it was a generational thing. Because of how things changed over the decades, some folks never had to face any sort of failure in anything in their lives...so they're left unprepared to deal with the smallest of failures and it becomes some hugely melodramatic event.
Consider the following...two folks with the same weapon that might do 5000 damage a hit. Let's make it a cannon-type weapon.
Tom's just inside 10km and has 50 Weapon Power (after other weapons firing).
Jerry's just inside 5km and has 125 Weapon Power (after other weapons firing).
Tom hits for...2000 damage.
Jerry hits for...9062.5 damage.
Tom (5000 * 0.4 * 1 = 2000)
Jerry (5000 * 0.725 * 2.5 = 9062.5)
Nothing was changed between those two outside of where they were firing from and how they were managing their Subsystem Power.
Tom could upgrade all sorts of things, and let's say somehow he gets to the point where it could be 20000 damage a hit, eh?
Tom hits for...8000 damage.
Tom (20000 * 0.4 * 1 = 8000)
Yep, his potential damage is four times that of Jerry, but he's still hitting for less than Jerry. What if we give Jerry those same upgrades?
Jerry hits for...36250 damage.
Jerry (20000 * 0.725 * 2.5 = 36250)
Same upgrades, but Tom gained 6000 damage while Jerry gained 27187.5 damage.
Let's say each was using the broken Enhanced Armor Penetration on an otherwise non-debuffed target, eh?
Tom hits for...
Jerry hits for...
Tom (8000 * 1.4884 = 11907.2)
Jerry (36250 * 1.4884 = 53954.5)
So our difference at 5000 was...7062.5 damage.
Our difference at 20000 was...28250 damage.
Our difference with EAP added was...42047.3 damage.
All because of where Tom was shooting from and his Weapon Power compared to where Jerry was shooting from and his Weapon Power.
It's one of the reasons I've complained about the ratios/percentages for years, no pun intended - it just scales for TRIBBLE.
And well, hrmmm...I'm going to stop there - cause I've already repeated myself on a few things there and would likely continue to do so.
Besides, it's not the first time the topic has come up...not by a longshot.
I agree, I do not want to have to sit with a spreadsheet and calculator trying to figure out which weapons to use, which consoles support which weapons, which rep set to use with certain weapons/consoles ect.
To me this is a game and as such we should be able to go in and play without having to make it seeming like a job. I do this to get away from my job and enjoy myself.
I did make a 10k dps toon due to coming on the forums and asking for help and you know now that I have her built she has nothing left to do. she has Tier 5 in all rep, done all missions and literly needs nothing. so now I log her in to do duties only as I don't need to do the stf's since she has all rep and is geared out pretty good.
To me fun is about playing around with different builds and not having to make sure it can do 20k plus to do any of the content
And just what content requires 20k DPS?
just having lots of enemies and/or high HP doesn't make things harder it just creates a need for high DPS. I don't think it's even about being harder at all. It's about the complexity of the engagements being to low. mostly we need better AI. we need an AI that favors different strategies depending on what kind of enemy it is. for instance voth are defensive they will try to keep shield up at all costs, while having little offence. the key should be to not allow them to do that. a tachyon beam should be devastating against voth since it fundamentally undermines their strategy. they gave up much of their offensive capability to outlast their foes strip that away from them and then they simply cant recover.
borg shoud do a group hug strategy. they are a collective after all they will should boost regeneration speed, rate of fire and cool down speeds simply by being near each-other. the solution than is to either isolate them (they should be smart enough not to let that just happen) or quickly take one out to weaken all its friends.
currently we either get zerged by at least 20 trash mobs at once or a damage sponge that has twice that groups collective HP but isn't impressive otherwise. the damage sponge should have been a boss whit some interesting mechanics and exploitable weakness but it's just a trash-mob whit lots of HP most of the time. the stereotypical game boss whit obvious weak point that must be hit X times would be an improvement to what we get most of the time.
the key point here is that we need to be able to somewhat predict what NPCs will do based on what type/species they are. because when we know this we can then manipulate them. our encouters whit them become more interesting and we will naturally strategize to take advantage of their weaknesses and mitigate their strengths.
again the key point here is that we need to be able to somewhat predict what NPCs will do. because when we know this we can then manipulate them.
but this time it's related to aggro. we need to get them to attack the cruisers who can take it and the glass cannon type DPS should be able to mitigate the amount of threat they revive.
than we can play trinity and properly coordinate as a group. but when the the encounters consist out of NPCs that just soak up damage while dishing it back out indiscriminately they become stale and uninteresting. worse just killing them before you are killed becomes the best strategy. when add a timer to it you only create a hyper focus on DPS while group play falls to the sideline.
this is a huge problem I play STO for 5 year now i can still honestly say I haven't figured it out yet. one of the problems is that the gem does not work intuitively. lot's of things don't actually quite work the way you think they should. for instance lager crew sizes hurt you hull repair rate rather then helping. now I expect this is a coding error but its still the way it is. there are tone of other things that are a little odd like that or that you just need to know about without ever being told.
the other thing is that the game is overly complex mechanically in lots of places it really shouldn't be. for example each weapon has individual ratings for hit's, crit's and misses. why isn't this ship wide? It stands to reason that this is dependent on the targeting sensors and therefore ship wide. changing these kind of things would simplify the game a lot without dumbing it down. right now the game requires me to memorize the ships user manual to be effective. that's not a good thing. I know the strategies for most STFs but fly them whit a sub optimal ship because i simply refuse to memorize its user manual.
playing a game should be about learning the strategy to beat the opponents and have the mechanics be so intuitive that fireworks naturally happen when you get the strategy right. not exploiting the the hardcore details of an advanced user manual that 95% of the player-base doesn't even know exists.
First of all it's not even a crafting system! It's just a dumb game system that's nothing more than a glorified slots machine.
second the "special items" you hope will be the saving the saving grace are messed up to.
I approve of this.
Just failed BHE 2x in a row because the first alarm bug touched the rock wall
I mean plz.................
now we have to type this out to the pugs
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I'm not going to bother with the rest of the elitist pat-myself-on-the-back-because-I-think-I'm-such-an-uber-player-and-all-the-rest-of-you-suck quote. My stomach can't handle any more of that garbage.
First, not everyone does STFs.
Second, if you're getting unwanted teammates in the STFs with you, that's what the closed team settings are for.
Third, what most complaints are about regarding increased difficulty (which has even been addressed by staff as being reduced in the near future as a result) has to do with storyline missions, those blasted patrols, and other NORMAL-grade content. If a player wants increased difficulty, they should be able to increase it by playing content at the Advanced or Elite settings. But the Normal settings should be doable by casual players that have no idea what their DPS ratings are, because they're playing the GAME for FUN and not statistics to craft laurels out of. Not that the missions should be cakewalks; I'm not saying that. I'm saying challenging, but doable without being pigeonholed or dying repeatedly in the process. That's not fun, and this is a game, meant to be fun, otherwise why are we even here?
Fourth, this game was originally designed so that it could be played by many different styles and loadouts and what-have-you. If the game was only meant to be won by playing with a specific ship with specific weaponry and specific BOffs and so on, then that's all that would be available. And what may work for you may not work for others, or be any fun for them.
Fifth, we shouldn't have to "learn how to play" when we already knew how to play and had been playing all this time successfully (some of us for years) and only recently started having problems due to the increased difficulty changes (note: they were changes made to the game, not to us).
So I suggest you get off your elitist soapbox telling us how to play our game your way and go find a way to be with your fellow elitists and play all by yourselves with your own toys in your own corner of the recess yard and let us play our game the way we choose to.