IMHO, I disagree with the core of what the OP said. Oh sure, there are all sorts of buzzwords and snippets that I agree with...however, where the OP is using them to get to a certain state of the game...I hope Cryptic does not go that way. They can address various issues of balance without turning the game into an alt-needy mess with nothing to do again.
Balance mechanics? Balance rewards for time/effort? Definitely...but that has nothing to do with what the OP wants and is just part of the persuasive trickery that saturates the OP's post. They're just there to get folks to agree with something they may not agree with...even the length of the post has been crafted based on the average attention span so that folks might agree and then skim, resulting in them agreeing to something they've got no clue as to what they're agreeing with...
...basically, it's a con - and - I hope Cryptic ignores the underlying request while still addressing actual matters of balance.
IMHO, I disagree with the core of what the OP said. Oh sure, there are all sorts of buzzwords and snippets that I agree with...however, where the OP is using them to get to a certain state of the game...I hope Cryptic does not go that way. They can address various issues of balance without turning the game into an alt-needy mess with nothing to do again.
Balance mechanics? Balance rewards for time/effort? Definitely...but that has nothing to do with what the OP wants and is just part of the persuasive trickery that saturates the OP's post. They're just there to get folks to agree with something they may not agree with...even the length of the post has been crafted based on the average attention span so that folks might agree and then skim, resulting in them agreeing to something they've got no clue as to what they're agreeing with...
...basically, it's a con - and - I hope Cryptic ignores the underlying request while still addressing actual matters of balance.
I can assure you that my post is in no way an attempt to con people into agreement. My core desires here are for the balanced reward for time/effort and for the balanced mechanics.
I'll say this on the topic of "alt-neediness." While it could be said by some that pre-Delta Rising you virtually needed at least a couple of alts to get the most out of the game, I found it to be one of the appealing things about the game for me personally. You're right that we shouldn't simply "go back to the way things were" so to speak, but I want at least the option of having more than one character to play at an endgame level. We've pretty much now swung completely the other direction in regards to alts. Instead of them being encouraged nearly to the point of requirement, they are now so completely discouraged to the point of being completely infeasible to maintain. I for one desire the game to find some sort of middle ground between these two extremes. I want the option to play and upgrade more than one character with a reasonable amount of effort, without feeling like I'm missing out or run out of things to do if I prefer to stick to one character.
As for the length of my post, it is an honest attempt to be thorough enough to cover the topic at hand while being succinct enough to be readable in a short amount of time.
I can assure you that my post is in no way an attempt to con people into agreement. My core desires here are for the balanced reward for time/effort and for the balanced mechanics.
The half-truths & lies in your OP suggest otherwise or you're misinformed yourself. Prime example is the Spec removal form players, Cryptic reversed that and everybody got their Spec points back. Leaving that out of your OP is an outright lie intended to mislead readers. I could go on to break apart more but you'd try to weave it to suit your agenda, like various people in history distort facts to their advantage. I agree more w/Virusdancer than you, sorry.
I hear what you said OP. I think one balance issue you have not stated is the balance between players expectations and that of the STO design team. Its like the ST:TNG final episode where capt. Picard jumps back to far point mission, changes coarse to find Q, leaving the entire crew like WTF captain? See the captain, aware of the future, is so focus on his mission that he forgets for a while that the rest of the crew is clueless about why he is changing their orders. I think STO Devs are like Picard and we are left feeling like the crew. i hope this makes sense.
Getting to the point, its time for STO to let the 'crew' in on the future. Instead of compounding the irrational behavior, and then blaming the crew for the captains odd behavior.
The half-truths & lies in your OP suggest otherwise or you're misinformed yourself. Prime example is the Spec removal form players, Cryptic reversed that and everybody got their Spec points back. Leaving that out of your OP is an outright lie intended to mislead readers. I could go on to break apart more but you'd try to weave it to suit your agenda, like various people in history distort facts to their advantage. I agree more w/Virusdancer than you, sorry.
I was not aware of Cryptic returning the spec points earned to players. If they did, that's great for them, but doesn't change the fact that the initial actions were a PR disaster and came alongside a rather substantial nerf to XP gain. That nerf was compounded a few weeks later by a nerf to XP gain from doff missions. Only very recently have we seen some evidence of small amounts of XP gain being increased, but nowhere near their original numbers.
If you have other issues with statements that I've made being factually in error, by all means please share them. The last thing I want to do is argue a good cause with bad information.
Yeah you know, the consensus of where the game is at, developer apologism is where you have to go to irritate and aggitate people - calling people trolls is not allowed.
But obviously the game is exclusively for super whales now - and the people hanging in there now, are the people who have nowhere else to go, but were also respsonsible for the developer course of developers can do whatever they want, nothing is too terrible.
So when they post it's just as much, if not more, about justifying how they are responsible for the failures of the game.
In the end, the developers pulled out from their forum after they told us they "don't include the players anymore" and spent 3 year nerfing everything in the whole game, rather than adding.
That is the recorded story and reality.
2015 is going to bring about tailor, doff and exchange nerf-dil-sink-timegate, in where you see the demise of the final 3 systems, that have yet to be nerfed.
Saying that, in explaining they nerfed so many things - it took 3 years to do.
And once that is done, you have to assume they will have to actually start adding content, because there is not a single window or feature in teh entire game left, that hasn't been ruined.
Asking for balance though... we are past that point, and actually past the point of asking for anything - the whales taught them that.
In the end, the developers pulled out from their forum after they told us they "don't include the players anymore" and spent 3 year nerfing everything in the whole game, rather than adding.
Reroute Power From Life Support causes you to suffer a temporary Cooldown Penalty - it's definitely not a buff. As to whether or not that trade-off is currently worth the cost... well, that's matter we're open to hearing more feedback on. We can definitely consider improving the ability if it's seen as unanimously inferior to other Bridge Officer Ability choices.
On a more generic "FYI" sort of note, I figured I'd pop into this thread and tell all concerned parties about some upcoming changes we're making to Command Bridge Officer Abilities. Hopefully all of these will end up appearing in a patch either this week or next.
Call Emergency Artillery:
- AOE Damage increased by 60% at all ranks
- AOE Radius increased from 2km to 3km around each Artillery Vessel
Ambush Marker:
- Ambusher Ship damage increased at Rank II and III, by 25% and 50% respectively
Phalanx Formation:
- Markers are no longer visible to opponents in PvP, and do not grant their buffs to PvP opponents
Rally Point Marker:
- Instant Shield Healing value increased by 50%
- The Hull and Shield Healing values can now be increased using Hull Repair and Shield Emitters skills, respectively.
Concentrate Firepower:
- Duration extended from 15sec to 20sec
- Free "High Yield I" Mode now only triggered by Torpedo hits (to ensure it is not granted to a player that cannot use it)
- Any ally that receives the free High Yield I Mode will also instantly have all torpedo cooldowns reset
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the extra Kinetic Damage from reliably being added to Torpedo hits
...so that starting bit soliciting more feedback and the changes made based on other feedback - is not the reality, eh? :rolleyes:
People think that because the devs don't implement their particular asinine wishes that the devs aren't paying attention...
I'd really like to avoid straight out dev bashing here. By all means, call out mistakes where they happen, but also give credit where it's due. At the end of the day, if any positive changes to the game that get greenlit and funded by PWE and Cryptic, the devs are going to be the ones doing the actual work to make it a reality. Constructive criticism is the goal here.
Comments
Balance mechanics? Balance rewards for time/effort? Definitely...but that has nothing to do with what the OP wants and is just part of the persuasive trickery that saturates the OP's post. They're just there to get folks to agree with something they may not agree with...even the length of the post has been crafted based on the average attention span so that folks might agree and then skim, resulting in them agreeing to something they've got no clue as to what they're agreeing with...
...basically, it's a con - and - I hope Cryptic ignores the underlying request while still addressing actual matters of balance.
I can assure you that my post is in no way an attempt to con people into agreement. My core desires here are for the balanced reward for time/effort and for the balanced mechanics.
I'll say this on the topic of "alt-neediness." While it could be said by some that pre-Delta Rising you virtually needed at least a couple of alts to get the most out of the game, I found it to be one of the appealing things about the game for me personally. You're right that we shouldn't simply "go back to the way things were" so to speak, but I want at least the option of having more than one character to play at an endgame level. We've pretty much now swung completely the other direction in regards to alts. Instead of them being encouraged nearly to the point of requirement, they are now so completely discouraged to the point of being completely infeasible to maintain. I for one desire the game to find some sort of middle ground between these two extremes. I want the option to play and upgrade more than one character with a reasonable amount of effort, without feeling like I'm missing out or run out of things to do if I prefer to stick to one character.
As for the length of my post, it is an honest attempt to be thorough enough to cover the topic at hand while being succinct enough to be readable in a short amount of time.
This content has now been posted to the STO subreddit. For anyone interested, you can find the post here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/2w531l/stos_development_direction_where_it_went_wrong/
The half-truths & lies in your OP suggest otherwise or you're misinformed yourself. Prime example is the Spec removal form players, Cryptic reversed that and everybody got their Spec points back. Leaving that out of your OP is an outright lie intended to mislead readers. I could go on to break apart more but you'd try to weave it to suit your agenda, like various people in history distort facts to their advantage. I agree more w/Virusdancer than you, sorry.
Getting to the point, its time for STO to let the 'crew' in on the future. Instead of compounding the irrational behavior, and then blaming the crew for the captains odd behavior.
I was not aware of Cryptic returning the spec points earned to players. If they did, that's great for them, but doesn't change the fact that the initial actions were a PR disaster and came alongside a rather substantial nerf to XP gain. That nerf was compounded a few weeks later by a nerf to XP gain from doff missions. Only very recently have we seen some evidence of small amounts of XP gain being increased, but nowhere near their original numbers.
If you have other issues with statements that I've made being factually in error, by all means please share them. The last thing I want to do is argue a good cause with bad information.
But obviously the game is exclusively for super whales now - and the people hanging in there now, are the people who have nowhere else to go, but were also respsonsible for the developer course of developers can do whatever they want, nothing is too terrible.
So when they post it's just as much, if not more, about justifying how they are responsible for the failures of the game.
In the end, the developers pulled out from their forum after they told us they "don't include the players anymore" and spent 3 year nerfing everything in the whole game, rather than adding.
That is the recorded story and reality.
2015 is going to bring about tailor, doff and exchange nerf-dil-sink-timegate, in where you see the demise of the final 3 systems, that have yet to be nerfed.
Saying that, in explaining they nerfed so many things - it took 3 years to do.
And once that is done, you have to assume they will have to actually start adding content, because there is not a single window or feature in teh entire game left, that hasn't been ruined.
Asking for balance though... we are past that point, and actually past the point of asking for anything - the whales taught them that.
Hrmm...
...so that starting bit soliciting more feedback and the changes made based on other feedback - is not the reality, eh? :rolleyes:
People think that because the devs don't implement their particular asinine wishes that the devs aren't paying attention...