Anyway, does mister Geko and the Devs know that the majority of the @handles from there are colected WITHOUT the permission and even WITHOUT the acknoledgement of said persons? Not trolling you, asking a fair question.
Several pages back now, you had suggested that players were actually being targeted by hackers and spammers, and came across as having evidence of such. I take it you don't, then, and that we're only talking about a hypothetical scenario here.
That's an issue to be taken up with whoever wrote or maintains the CLR program. If they can identify the player taking the parse from the combat log, they may be able to limit any parse submission to just that player. Wiping the database may be more challenging; I don't know.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
All players can make support and tanks. Like I said the best ones are in DPS league. Why?
First of all, you need to actually keep on doing the missions and finish it like HSE, etc or doing PvE and repeatedly. If you are a PuG, can are you even assured of finishing it? If you are a PvPer who spend more time in the forums, do you even actually do the missions?
Secondly, if you do finish it, do any of your group do 180k DPS? So the support ships are supporting 100k DPSers and tanks taking aggros from 100k DPSers. How can you say that the supports ship and tanking ships are better other than DPS league when there is no practice to take aggro from 100k DPSers and supporting 100k DPS ships?
Ok lets assume PvPers and PuGs are good at support ships and tanking. But they can only take aggros from 10k DPSers and can support runs that slow runs. However, is oblivious on how to take aggro from High DPSers and support fast runs because they have are supporting low DPS and have no idea or practice to actually take aggros from 100K DPS.
With regards to the game support high DPS, no problem. We have adapted. Certain players havent. If the game changes simply because some whinny players want to be spoon fed, I might rethink my stay in PvE. It is the reason why I left PvPin a year ago. STO PvP community has a very bad community. When you have a community asking for change of mechanics rather than adapting in game mechanics thats the time you leave the game.
Again, I repeat what other DPSers in this thread have said. If you dont like the community dont join and dont comment on this thread, be indifferent leave us with our ways and will leave you to your own ways. Because you wont see us posting the same thing over and over on RPers threads or PvPers threads.
You're hitting into territory with that which is hitting on the issues with the game anyway. Anything above 50K DPS is a luxury that isn't needed, and while you can tank well into the 180k range without breaking a sweat (that's assuming one is lucky enough to have the up-to-date stuff) it doesn't change the fact there is no need for it.
While PvP is far from working I agree the community doesn't do themselves any favours a lot of the time. That said, where I can't agree there is that you're saying you've adapted to the games support of high DPS ships, which is nonsense as that is the point of the channel in the first place, if anything it should be the other way round in that the game was adapted (poorly) to you. Honestly the game needs to be balanced for all classes more like it was when it first came out, wasn't perfect before but it was a lot better.
What gets me though is how you seem to think this game is somehow difficult to understand and people, for some reason by the way I'm reading it, have to join the DPS channel to gain a greater understanding. You don't. I mean sure you guys know stuff better than average, but it doesn't change the fact that having a grip on the games fundamentals and some basic maths skills allows you to pretty much sort yourself out pretty easily. Shouldn't have to do that mind, but then Cryptic doesn't teach players anything so....
So no, I'm not sold, because some of the best players I know are not in the channels and from what I've seen of the vids that keep getting plastered about, can do their jobs better certainly in the tanking and support roles, and in some cases I've even seen people do amazing DPS outside the channels without any support from the other players. Saying you have the best of everything is just pure ego and nothing more than that, and for the record, I don't have an issue with the concept of the channels, I take issue with the people in it who insist they're right on everything, when personal experience more often than not says otherwise.
Lastly, I could turn that logic around and point out, as I think someone did elsewhere, that you're the only community in the game to go bigging yourselves up where you aren't wanted. If you want to keep riff raff out you could stay in the PvE subsection of the forum, I mean the writers stick to Ten Forward for example, and really that logic you use only works if people aren't posting somewhere to swing their ego about.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
I didn't say there was, I'm not going to rewrite everything I put though.
I know, you just "asked" about the implication. I just spinned one possibility further and asked a counterquestion. After all, this is pretty much a philosophical debate.
I know, you just "asked" about the implication. I just spinned one possibility further and asked a counterquestion. After all, this is pretty much a philosophical debate.
Ah my bad, I'm obviously too used to the usual arguments, sanity on these forums O_o :P
There's certainly nothing wrong with teaching people mechanics so long as those doing the teaching are open and genuinely understand them and the relationships between them. In a sense that's part of the issue in a few ways because of two things;
A) Cryptic put very little into the game that actually explains the mechanics, with the few in-game methods of even registering what our stats are with some information not showing up at all. This means the players have to do their own maths which, while simple to do, shouldn't be necessary.
There's information all over about STO, however there's precious little that's any good and, more importantly, the target audience is doesn't know what information to trust.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
Add to that STO has the lowest skill rate for the avg player than I've seen in any other major MMO. Mostly because a lot of Trekkies coming to the game rather than gamers. Oddly it's similar to Squash where the top players watch the lower grades and actually wonder how people can be so uncoordinated, however some choose to take the I'm better so watch me route, while others go and offer to teach.
Neither can fix the guy/girl that will never have any coordination regardless of how much tuition they receive though. Just as others will react better to either the egotist or the teacher. A lot of it is just personalities and how they clash, but then that's just life too.
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."
While this boggles my mind considering STO is a multiplayer game, that is entirely your choice. Good hunting.
Thats made redundant though when the game conforms to the DPS crowds desires, I enjoyed the game much more before the DR changes now I cant stand it. I have neither the time nor the energy or in the interest in doing absurd amounts of DPS just to earn decent rewards and neither do most other people. You need to remember that your groups are not the entire community - at the risk of sounding mellow-dramatic Think of the little people.
They should of just left Normal and Adv (elite - PreDR) alone and given you guys Elite ... I would of been fine with that.
Id like to share a recent experience I had while observing the DPS Public Channel. As I have yet to bother trying for DPS 10k or anyting above it as I refuse to do so until I have a sufficient build and better computer that can handle the game and parsing at the same time.
The other day a random player popped into the DPSPublic and immediately began to explain that he/she had been out of the game since before Delta Rising and had realized upon return that his/her build was a PvP oriented. And that the build would be insufficient for the current state of the game. Within seconds three of the 30k + Channel members jumped onto DPSPublic and began to discuss the players build with them and the changes they would need to make to improve the build.
This discussion took well over an hour and a half. And through out the entire discussion the three high dpsers were calm and respectful. Even when the newcomer seemed frustrated and a bit uneasy about making certain changes. They simply kept their cool and explained calmly why those changes were needed to improve the build.
This is what I experience daily in regards to DPS Public. There are times where the discussion can become intense between individuals discussing builds with differing tastes. But even in DPSPublic there are people willing to step up and give advice and help those asking for it.
I don't think people are claiming the dps min max crowd are all mean or elitist, but if they aren't, why do they feel the need to create Private channels for L337 DPSers?
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
If advanced was exactly what Elite was pre-dr, I think a lot of us would be much happier right now.
LOL and we'd have sub 40s completion times with 180K DPS runs
Not saying that's bad, but what the hell would Normal be like...
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."
If advanced was exactly what Elite was pre-dr, I think a lot of us would be much happier right now.
Exactly....
but no.. they had to conform to the DPS crowds opinions on Queues across the board because they were the loudest about how "easy" it was.
For me it was never about difficulty it was about enjoying the fictional universe the way i want now I cant even do that...
Seriously I cant understand how these people can be so selfish....sorry to those of you whom are part of said crowd but seriously...when you spent months and months complaining about it alls you did was hurt the larger community base. I know it seems harsh to call you guys selfish but its basically ruined this game for me and many others at the end game.
its not 100% your fault of course but you share a lot of the blame.
but no.. they had to conform to the DPS crowds opinions on Queues across the board because they were the loudest about how "easy" it was.
For me it was never about difficulty it was about enjoying the fictional universe the way i want now I cant even do that...
Seriously I cant understand how these people can be so selfish....sorry to those of you whom are part of said crowd but seriously...when you spent months and months complaining about it alls you did was hurt the larger community base. I know it seems harsh to call you guys selfish but its basically ruined this game for me and many others at the end game.
its not 100% your fault of course but you share a lot of the blame.
I'm going to have to agree with at least some of this, I mean take a look at what's happened to pugs.
Back before my absence from STO, before all these changes, Pugs could actually complete an STF at least 50% of the time.
Now its a foregone conclusion: you want to NOT be wasting your time, you find a premade.
Everything in endgame now has a bajillion HP/Defense/Shields what have you because of rampant dps min maxing.
It's not a sin to min max, but when it becomes overly prevalent, this kind of thing does happen.
it doesn't make anyone horrible people, but it causes problems for the larger playerbase nonetheless.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Min/maxxing isn't overly prevalent, as the 1800 people in the DPS charts above bare minimum DPS can attest to. The problem is that requiring a minimum competence from the avg player has got them all going WTF? Mostly because they've had no tuition from the game itself on how to build a ship effectively.
TBH the playerbase isn't at fault for the errors in design of the dev team. They are responsible for balance, they are responsible for bug fixing and they are ultimately responsible for their failure to listen to those fromt he community who have tried to help and warn them that they were going the wrong way (both the PvP and PvE players on tribble). In turn we ended up with some of the laziest balance design in the history of gaming and the progression chances for the avg player are nigh on zilch past level 50. The new NERF (despite the claim it was a buff) to experience has only served to increase that rift.
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."
No it is not. In fact the DPSer all during the testing of DR's advanced and elite have repeatedly said that the amount of DPS needed was WAY above what the average playerbase was reaching. The devs did not listen and released it as is. Then they started the nerfs...but they were at the front of this ain't gonna work. It's not their fault the devs didn't listen to it one bit. This was when I was pretty against the DPS league too...so it ain't like I was on their side, but you seriously can't lay that blame on them.
maybe you werent but I saw multiple people that were and they know who they are. I wont name and shame Im not like that.
I also said that they dont hold all the blame, I did point out that it wasnt entirely their fault but they should at least share some of it.
Appologies I chose my words poorly I guess I should of said "some" instead of "alot" I didnt mean to come off as harsh or anything its just the ammount of DPSers I saw complain about the whole "too easy" thing then suddenly were super happy when it happened then the rest of the player base was pissed...it was very telling and quite frankly frustrating considering how much money ive put into the game...now it feels like ive wasted it because i cant even enjoy the game anymore because of the changes.
LOL and we'd have sub 40s completion times with 180K DPS runs
Not saying that's bad, but what the hell would Normal be like...
They would scale with the levels appropriate to your groups average rank but not ridiculously like
they do now stats wise.
However normals and advanced would only scale up in small amounts to the negate the increased damage from players so it would be like nothing ever changed. which by the way can be done.
Elite however would be as it is now, insanely difficult and practically only for DPSers.
but no.. they had to conform to the DPS crowds opinions on Queues across the board because they were the loudest about how "easy" it was.
For me it was never about difficulty it was about enjoying the fictional universe the way i want now I cant even do that...
Seriously I cant understand how these people can be so selfish....sorry to those of you whom are part of said crowd but seriously...when you spent months and months complaining about it alls you did was hurt the larger community base. I know it seems harsh to call you guys selfish but its basically ruined this game for me and many others at the end game.
its not 100% your fault of course but you share a lot of the blame.
Actually, no. It's because of a certain Lead Dev, who constantly feels the need to 'compete' with the top 0.1% of the player base, that everything was made so insanely dfficult for everyone. Like "You guys mock me by completing Elites so fast?! I'll show you Elite difficulty!" He made it personal.
And then, of course, turned out even CSA was undoable for most, and they turned it down, after all. But don't put this on the DPS League. Sure, they wanted a *true* Elite mode; but none of them, nary a one, asked that levels below got insanely boosted in difficulty too. That was all on Cryptic themselves.
Also, let's not ignore the elephant in the room: difficulty was increased, in no small part, so you would feel compelled to upgrade all your gear. Really that simple.
Actually, no. It's because of a certain Lead Dev, who constantly feels the need to 'compete' with the top 0.1% of the player base, that everything was made so insanely dfficult for everyone. Like "You guys mock me by completing Elites so fast?! I'll show you Elite difficulty!" He made it personal.
And then, of course, turned out even CSA was undoable for most, and they turned it down, after all. But don't put this on the DPS League. Sure, they wanted a *true* Elite mode; but none of them, nary a one, asked that levels below got insanely boosted in difficulty too. That was all on Cryptic themselves.
Also, let's not ignore the elephant in the room: difficulty was increased, in no small part, so you would feel compelled to upgrade all your gear. Really that simple.
all very true, but as ive said previously it was not the entire league itself but some of the people in it, whether you like it or not game devs do listen to their playerbase just not that often, unfortunately when they do they tend to tune into the loudest people which were unfortunately were part and maybe still are part of the league idk.
that all said i did point out that I was probably being too harsh however you cannot ignore the fact that there were quite a few who actually wanted all of these changes which I can tell you right now were definitely not casual in any way what so ever.
As for that dev then that individual should be fired for putting his own personal interests ahead of the communities and the games longevity. They should design the game ahead of their own personal preference not behind it.
Its quite apparent that it messed up the game to me at least, all my friends were playing before DR came out, 1 week later they quit. Quite literally all 50 of them with the exception of one or two others who are drudging through it.
that all said i did point out that I was probably being too harsh however you cannot ignore the fact that there were quite a few who actually wanted all of these changes which I can tell you right now were definitely not casual in any way what so ever.
aw man we're busted.
confession time i guess... us DPSers have biweekly meetings with the devs over pizza and "beer". Generally we talk about what can be done to ruin the game for the majority of players. We've had a good run so far and the devs listen to all our suggestions.
If you think things are bad now just you wait, we've just finished another brain storming sessions and have come up with loads of ideas to TRIBBLE players off even more. there will be much tears and gnashing of teeth.
BTW: it's American beer, hence why i typed it with quotation marks. It's properly called: Water Down Soapy Horse TRIBBLE.
Actually, no. It's because of a certain Lead Dev, who constantly feels the need to 'compete' with the top 0.1% of the player base, that everything was made so insanely dfficult for everyone. Like "You guys mock me by completing Elites so fast?! I'll show you Elite difficulty!" He made it personal.
And he is constantly loosing
That aside, the DPS-Requirements for advanced arent that high, its just that you need more time now, CC and -what makes it easier- a tank or pure 20k-ish DPS. Its basically promoting DPS and trinity, but since most players are just ignorant "i want it all, now"-types, they cant build either one, hence public queues went down the drain.
Yea but if you make one wrong move or misunderstand something you get blasted with bs. Nobody is perfect but the Dps group for the most part knows what they are doing. Chances of failure are way less.
The rep system itself is filled with all sorts of poor choices, with so much of its rewards being gear for niche builds or pieces that are at best side-grades to other rep pieces. But, it's also the most obvious and readily accessible progression system in the game, and isn't substantially undermined by the RNG factor that cripples crafting.
Unfortunately, that points to another major issue in STO facing PUGs: every aspect of compiling a build is fraught with countless noob-traps and other pitfalls. Worse than that, the mechanics themselves are unclear, often with the mathematics behind a mechanic functioning in a more complex or otherwise different way than the mechanic itself would suggest.
Isn't complex mechanics in a game a good thing? Nothing's forcing players to min-max their stats, but for those who are interested the complexity of a build is intriguing.
Either way, there are many ways for players to learn the mechanics. STO Wiki, the Academy section in the forums, the sub-forums for a player's faction, fleetmates, and the DPS-Public channel, just to name a few. The game's mechanics are not as dubiously hidden as I've often seen suggested. It takes some effort to seek out the information and understand how it applies to what you want to achieve with your build, but that's - in my opinion - the mark of a well-designed game with in-depth mechanics. Sure, the mechanics aren't perfect and there's some rebalancing that has and still needs to be done. But really, I'd rather have more complexity at the end-game than less.
And while I do agree that there are "noob-traps" in the game (that's... actually a funny and effective way of stating it ), it's up to the noobs who find themselves trapped to get unstuck. As I've said, there's a wealth of information available. Maybe it's not all in a 'help' button, but this is an MMO, and MMOs depend on an extensive community that self-perpetuates and continues to grow and better itself. Players who are struggling simply need to seek out the readily available sources of information out there. It's not hard to read up on the mechanics and get a good starting point. But of course, it's much easier for players to cry foul and scream at the game and devs when they run into trouble - and I have no sympathy for those players, because they're expecting the game to magically make them better, when it's in fact the player that needs to play the game and learn over time.
Add to that STO has the lowest skill rate for the avg player than I've seen in any other major MMO. Mostly because a lot of Trekkies coming to the game rather than gamers.
At one point I remember a dev speaking about the engine limitations this imposes. Because a lot of STO players aren't core gamers, they often don't have a proper gaming rig. So there are breaking points to how far STO can push the limit graphics-wise.
But yeah, there certainly is a huge variance in player skill. I think that's why there's a lot more tiered content in the game, where Advanced and Elite are for players who understand and utilize the game mechanics. Also, the missions aren't all that difficult (save for some initial balance issues when DR first dropped), and I'd expect that's the main driver for a lot of the more casual players anyways.
If advanced was exactly what Elite was pre-dr, I think a lot of us would be much happier right now.
I personally enjoy the new challenge. Pre-DR, it was very difficult to achieve a 'fail' state anywhere in the game. Now, there's a bit more of a challenge introduced. I'm enjoying it for the most part.
but no.. they had to conform to the DPS crowds opinions on Queues across the board because they were the loudest about how "easy" it was.
...
Seriously I cant understand how these people can be so selfish....sorry to those of you whom are part of said crowd but seriously...when you spent months and months complaining about it alls you did was hurt the larger community base. I know it seems harsh to call you guys selfish but its basically ruined this game for me and many others at the end game.
I fail to see that. When DR launched, I was very far over on the side of 'nowhere near good enough to play anything above Normal.' But I was fine with the changes. It made sense that there should be more difficult PvE content for players better than I was. And as a drastically sub-par player at the time, it provided me with a challenge and a goal - to get better.
I'd dare say that it's selfish to demand that the game caters to only the most casual, poorly geared, and uninformed player. But that's why there are several levels of content now - so everyone has content they can play. The only problem is when players who should being playing Elite drop down and troll in Normal, or when players who should be playing Normal go above their skill level and bugger up the runs in Advanced or Elite. The problem isn't the new dichotomy between skill levels - it's that so many players are completely ignoring the skill levels, thereby causing their own problems.
At one point I remember a dev speaking about the engine limitations this imposes. Because a lot of STO players aren't core gamers, they often don't have a proper gaming rig. So there are breaking points to how far STO can push the limit graphics-wise.
Yes but that doesn't excuse the poor quality of optimisation that STO currently has. It's bad on a low end rig and terrible on a high end rig. That makes zero sense. Look at CryEngine, it brings high end rigs to their knees, but as of CryEngine 2 and onwards it's perfectly playable on older hardware too. Even going back to Win XP. So we know that the engine is at fault when there's no good optimisation regardless of computer...
But yeah, there certainly is a huge variance in player skill. I think that's why there's a lot more tiered content in the game, where Advanced and Elite are for players who understand and utilize the game mechanics. Also, the missions aren't all that difficult (save for some initial balance issues when DR first dropped), and I'd expect that's the main driver for a lot of the more casual players anyways.
The other thing is the gulf between players who are bad and those who are good is exacerbated by the numerous unfinished build systems. There are so many that it literally takes months to learn all the in's and out's. I don't want that streamlined, but I would want that made user friendly...
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."
But this is less about complexity, and more about clarity. Complex interactions between clearly defined mechanics is a good thing.
Unclear mechanics with even less clear interactions generates its own amount of noob-bait; I'm amazed they even felt a need to pile on noob-bait in all sorts of additional places, but that's Cryptic for you.
It takes some effort to seek out the information and understand how it applies to what you want to achieve with your build
I have no problem with expecting players to turn to outside resources. Industry devs disagree; just look at features like auto-matchmaking or advanced quest tracker, both of which are deemed mandatory in the current MMO environment, and the latter of which started off as a WoW mod.
Also, judging by some of the responses in this and other threads, I think more than a few players find offensive the idea of needing to turn to outside reference material. That would be impeding on their "playing how they want."
Players who are struggling simply need to seek out the readily available sources of information out there.
Most struggling players don't have any concept that they're the one struggling.
That's where my fundamental disagreement with some positions on this topic begins; many players will instantly shut you out the minute you even begin to imply they could improve themselves. They're usually also the most obstinate and entitled, with no regard for the four poor souls they burden themselves upon in failed STF after failed STF.
At one point I remember a dev speaking about the engine limitations this imposes. Because a lot of STO players aren't core gamers, they often don't have a proper gaming rig. So there are breaking points to how far STO can push the limit graphics-wise.
That's good for a laugh; I run at the lowest settings, and feel there are plenty more graphical effects they could remove for improved performance on my end. Those stupid background nebulae found in 50% of space maps, for example; I'm sure they're fabulous on high-end rigs, but I expected them to vanish on lowest settings.
I've come across plenty of other cases, but nothing as consistent, except perhaps the sphere zones, which don't seem to use (at least some of) my graphics settings, instead defaulting to some higher minimum Cryptic deemed necessary for the zone.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
Unclear mechanics with even less clear interactions generates its own amount of noob-bait; I'm amazed they even felt a need to pile on noob-bait in all sorts of additional places, but that's Cryptic for you.
Well, they are called Cryptic, eh? I kid, I kid... and I see your points.
Also, judging by some of the responses in this and other threads, I think more than a few players find offensive the idea of needing to turn to outside reference material. That would be impeding on their "playing how they want."
Most struggling players don't have any concept that they're the one struggling.
I admittedly find it hard to identify with players who fall prey to a trap in the mechanics, and then refuse to find a way out. If I hit a wall - as I have several times in my few months of playing the game - I'll be darned if I don't find out how to blow the wall up. I consider it a nice challenge / reward when I see "hey, this isn't working for me... OH! THAT'S how you fix it!" It's part of overall progression in an MMO - not all player progression can be measured on the skill bar.
And that's a whole 'nother issue right there. Nothing the devs can do will counteract ignorance, misplaced rage-blaming, or defensiveness over being offered a helping hand. But it's hard to feel sympathetic when a player hits a wall in their understanding, only to lash out in anger. I'd venture a guesstimate that plenty of players do make the leap to seeking out the answers to problems, but like anything else we're not going to hear from those players very often - because they found their answer, and moved on. We'll most often hear from the complainers that ran into difficulty but will take no initiative to fix the problem. STO is a game, not a magic box of insta-win - and sometimes you need to practice or learn, to be good at a game.
There were plenty of non dpsers saything the game was too easy and please make it harder. That request was not something unique to the DPS league, people who DPS or any such thing.
Very true. I was excited about the new challenge of the revamped queues even before I knew what the DPS League was.
That said, most of the people who fought to say that the DR modification to advanced was completely out of whack for the average STO players were pretty much the DPSers.
And then there's players like me, who at the time of DR launch were far and away outside of the cut-off for the DPS League. I had no problem with the new Advanced, and saw it as a wicked challenge.
A couple months of learning and re-gearing later, and I've met and exceeded the challenge. Now I'm just looking forward to any more queued content they design in the future.
It's a matter of perspective. Yes, the Advanced queues were wholly above and beyond what I was capable of handling back when DR was released. But I took it as a challenge and a call to play better, as opposed to anything malicious or demeaning on the part of Cryptic or the DPSers.
I personally enjoy the new challenge. Pre-DR, it was very difficult to achieve a 'fail' state anywhere in the game. Now, there's a bit more of a challenge introduced. I'm enjoying it for the most part.
There's two huge things about old elite queues that I miss - first, old optionals worked (all the failed VCE's due to Gekli not spawning/bugged anomaly - that just didn't happen). Secondly, they were optional.
It's great that elite has fail conditions. But, IMO, Normal would be just do the mission, and get it done (no fail options, no optionals), Advanced gives optionals as entirely new stuff, and elite makes those optionals (IMO, these should just be time-based, not other stuff, but whatever) mandatory, and introduces more optionals. (I also think you should have to have 5 completions of Normal to do Advanced, and 5 completions of Advanced with the optional to do Elite - account-wide, ideally) That gives you scaling difficulty and a learning curve, and helps to prevent people from warping into an Advanced or Elite queue without a clue. (or, if that's too easy, introduce time optionals in normal, make time mandatory in advanced and introduce new optionals (such as nanites not healing the transformer), and make time and those new ones mandatory in elite.
I enjoy the currently elite queues, what few of them there are, when they don't bug out (some of these bugs, actually all the ones I can think of, have been fixed lately, so props on that). Some of them, especially HSE, provide an actual challenge. I like that.
But I also recognize that that's not for everyone. While I do my best to provide information, you can't really reach pugs - they have to start looking themselves. And the fact that there's people without a clue is a shortfall of the tutorial and leveling system, and also a statement about the intuitiveness of the game design, but really, we have to accept that a lot of people don't perform well, and while I'm not going to suggest that they should have access to Elite queues, nor that most of them should have an easy time with Advanced. But the current state of the queues shows that we're on the exact opposite spectrum.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
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That's an issue to be taken up with whoever wrote or maintains the CLR program. If they can identify the player taking the parse from the combat log, they may be able to limit any parse submission to just that player. Wiping the database may be more challenging; I don't know.
You're hitting into territory with that which is hitting on the issues with the game anyway. Anything above 50K DPS is a luxury that isn't needed, and while you can tank well into the 180k range without breaking a sweat (that's assuming one is lucky enough to have the up-to-date stuff) it doesn't change the fact there is no need for it.
While PvP is far from working I agree the community doesn't do themselves any favours a lot of the time. That said, where I can't agree there is that you're saying you've adapted to the games support of high DPS ships, which is nonsense as that is the point of the channel in the first place, if anything it should be the other way round in that the game was adapted (poorly) to you. Honestly the game needs to be balanced for all classes more like it was when it first came out, wasn't perfect before but it was a lot better.
What gets me though is how you seem to think this game is somehow difficult to understand and people, for some reason by the way I'm reading it, have to join the DPS channel to gain a greater understanding. You don't. I mean sure you guys know stuff better than average, but it doesn't change the fact that having a grip on the games fundamentals and some basic maths skills allows you to pretty much sort yourself out pretty easily. Shouldn't have to do that mind, but then Cryptic doesn't teach players anything so....
So no, I'm not sold, because some of the best players I know are not in the channels and from what I've seen of the vids that keep getting plastered about, can do their jobs better certainly in the tanking and support roles, and in some cases I've even seen people do amazing DPS outside the channels without any support from the other players. Saying you have the best of everything is just pure ego and nothing more than that, and for the record, I don't have an issue with the concept of the channels, I take issue with the people in it who insist they're right on everything, when personal experience more often than not says otherwise.
Lastly, I could turn that logic around and point out, as I think someone did elsewhere, that you're the only community in the game to go bigging yourselves up where you aren't wanted. If you want to keep riff raff out you could stay in the PvE subsection of the forum, I mean the writers stick to Ten Forward for example, and really that logic you use only works if people aren't posting somewhere to swing their ego about.
I know, you just "asked" about the implication. I just spinned one possibility further and asked a counterquestion. After all, this is pretty much a philosophical debate.
Ah my bad, I'm obviously too used to the usual arguments, sanity on these forums O_o :P
There's certainly nothing wrong with teaching people mechanics so long as those doing the teaching are open and genuinely understand them and the relationships between them. In a sense that's part of the issue in a few ways because of two things;
A) Cryptic put very little into the game that actually explains the mechanics, with the few in-game methods of even registering what our stats are with some information not showing up at all. This means the players have to do their own maths which, while simple to do, shouldn't be necessary.
Neither can fix the guy/girl that will never have any coordination regardless of how much tuition they receive though. Just as others will react better to either the egotist or the teacher. A lot of it is just personalities and how they clash, but then that's just life too.
"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."
Thats made redundant though when the game conforms to the DPS crowds desires, I enjoyed the game much more before the DR changes now I cant stand it. I have neither the time nor the energy or in the interest in doing absurd amounts of DPS just to earn decent rewards and neither do most other people. You need to remember that your groups are not the entire community - at the risk of sounding mellow-dramatic Think of the little people.
They should of just left Normal and Adv (elite - PreDR) alone and given you guys Elite ... I would of been fine with that.
If advanced was exactly what Elite was pre-dr, I think a lot of us would be much happier right now.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
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I don't think people are claiming the dps min max crowd are all mean or elitist, but if they aren't, why do they feel the need to create Private channels for L337 DPSers?
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
LOL and we'd have sub 40s completion times with 180K DPS runs
Not saying that's bad, but what the hell would Normal be like...
"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."
Exactly....
but no.. they had to conform to the DPS crowds opinions on Queues across the board because they were the loudest about how "easy" it was.
For me it was never about difficulty it was about enjoying the fictional universe the way i want now I cant even do that...
Seriously I cant understand how these people can be so selfish....sorry to those of you whom are part of said crowd but seriously...when you spent months and months complaining about it alls you did was hurt the larger community base. I know it seems harsh to call you guys selfish but its basically ruined this game for me and many others at the end game.
its not 100% your fault of course but you share a lot of the blame.
I'm going to have to agree with at least some of this, I mean take a look at what's happened to pugs.
Back before my absence from STO, before all these changes, Pugs could actually complete an STF at least 50% of the time.
Now its a foregone conclusion: you want to NOT be wasting your time, you find a premade.
Everything in endgame now has a bajillion HP/Defense/Shields what have you because of rampant dps min maxing.
It's not a sin to min max, but when it becomes overly prevalent, this kind of thing does happen.
it doesn't make anyone horrible people, but it causes problems for the larger playerbase nonetheless.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
TBH the playerbase isn't at fault for the errors in design of the dev team. They are responsible for balance, they are responsible for bug fixing and they are ultimately responsible for their failure to listen to those fromt he community who have tried to help and warn them that they were going the wrong way (both the PvP and PvE players on tribble). In turn we ended up with some of the laziest balance design in the history of gaming and the progression chances for the avg player are nigh on zilch past level 50. The new NERF (despite the claim it was a buff) to experience has only served to increase that rift.
"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."
maybe you werent but I saw multiple people that were and they know who they are. I wont name and shame Im not like that.
I also said that they dont hold all the blame, I did point out that it wasnt entirely their fault but they should at least share some of it.
Appologies I chose my words poorly I guess I should of said "some" instead of "alot" I didnt mean to come off as harsh or anything its just the ammount of DPSers I saw complain about the whole "too easy" thing then suddenly were super happy when it happened then the rest of the player base was pissed...it was very telling and quite frankly frustrating considering how much money ive put into the game...now it feels like ive wasted it because i cant even enjoy the game anymore because of the changes.
They would scale with the levels appropriate to your groups average rank but not ridiculously like
they do now stats wise.
However normals and advanced would only scale up in small amounts to the negate the increased damage from players so it would be like nothing ever changed. which by the way can be done.
Elite however would be as it is now, insanely difficult and practically only for DPSers.
that way both parties are happy.
Actually, no. It's because of a certain Lead Dev, who constantly feels the need to 'compete' with the top 0.1% of the player base, that everything was made so insanely dfficult for everyone. Like "You guys mock me by completing Elites so fast?! I'll show you Elite difficulty!" He made it personal.
And then, of course, turned out even CSA was undoable for most, and they turned it down, after all. But don't put this on the DPS League. Sure, they wanted a *true* Elite mode; but none of them, nary a one, asked that levels below got insanely boosted in difficulty too. That was all on Cryptic themselves.
Also, let's not ignore the elephant in the room: difficulty was increased, in no small part, so you would feel compelled to upgrade all your gear. Really that simple.
all very true, but as ive said previously it was not the entire league itself but some of the people in it, whether you like it or not game devs do listen to their playerbase just not that often, unfortunately when they do they tend to tune into the loudest people which were unfortunately were part and maybe still are part of the league idk.
that all said i did point out that I was probably being too harsh however you cannot ignore the fact that there were quite a few who actually wanted all of these changes which I can tell you right now were definitely not casual in any way what so ever.
As for that dev then that individual should be fired for putting his own personal interests ahead of the communities and the games longevity. They should design the game ahead of their own personal preference not behind it.
Its quite apparent that it messed up the game to me at least, all my friends were playing before DR came out, 1 week later they quit. Quite literally all 50 of them with the exception of one or two others who are drudging through it.
aw man we're busted.
confession time i guess... us DPSers have biweekly meetings with the devs over pizza and "beer". Generally we talk about what can be done to ruin the game for the majority of players. We've had a good run so far and the devs listen to all our suggestions.
If you think things are bad now just you wait, we've just finished another brain storming sessions and have come up with loads of ideas to TRIBBLE players off even more. there will be much tears and gnashing of teeth.
BTW: it's American beer, hence why i typed it with quotation marks. It's properly called: Water Down Soapy Horse TRIBBLE.
And he is constantly loosing
That aside, the DPS-Requirements for advanced arent that high, its just that you need more time now, CC and -what makes it easier- a tank or pure 20k-ish DPS. Its basically promoting DPS and trinity, but since most players are just ignorant "i want it all, now"-types, they cant build either one, hence public queues went down the drain.
Terrance and Phillip?
If morale is better served by my roaming the halls weeping about better dps being bad, I will gladly defer to their scientific expertise. Excuse me
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Isn't complex mechanics in a game a good thing? Nothing's forcing players to min-max their stats, but for those who are interested the complexity of a build is intriguing.
Either way, there are many ways for players to learn the mechanics. STO Wiki, the Academy section in the forums, the sub-forums for a player's faction, fleetmates, and the DPS-Public channel, just to name a few. The game's mechanics are not as dubiously hidden as I've often seen suggested. It takes some effort to seek out the information and understand how it applies to what you want to achieve with your build, but that's - in my opinion - the mark of a well-designed game with in-depth mechanics. Sure, the mechanics aren't perfect and there's some rebalancing that has and still needs to be done. But really, I'd rather have more complexity at the end-game than less.
And while I do agree that there are "noob-traps" in the game (that's... actually a funny and effective way of stating it
At one point I remember a dev speaking about the engine limitations this imposes. Because a lot of STO players aren't core gamers, they often don't have a proper gaming rig. So there are breaking points to how far STO can push the limit graphics-wise.
But yeah, there certainly is a huge variance in player skill. I think that's why there's a lot more tiered content in the game, where Advanced and Elite are for players who understand and utilize the game mechanics. Also, the missions aren't all that difficult (save for some initial balance issues when DR first dropped), and I'd expect that's the main driver for a lot of the more casual players anyways.
I personally enjoy the new challenge. Pre-DR, it was very difficult to achieve a 'fail' state anywhere in the game. Now, there's a bit more of a challenge introduced. I'm enjoying it for the most part.
I fail to see that. When DR launched, I was very far over on the side of 'nowhere near good enough to play anything above Normal.' But I was fine with the changes. It made sense that there should be more difficult PvE content for players better than I was. And as a drastically sub-par player at the time, it provided me with a challenge and a goal - to get better.
I'd dare say that it's selfish to demand that the game caters to only the most casual, poorly geared, and uninformed player. But that's why there are several levels of content now - so everyone has content they can play. The only problem is when players who should being playing Elite drop down and troll in Normal, or when players who should be playing Normal go above their skill level and bugger up the runs in Advanced or Elite. The problem isn't the new dichotomy between skill levels - it's that so many players are completely ignoring the skill levels, thereby causing their own problems.
The other thing is the gulf between players who are bad and those who are good is exacerbated by the numerous unfinished build systems. There are so many that it literally takes months to learn all the in's and out's. I don't want that streamlined, but I would want that made user friendly...
"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."
But this is less about complexity, and more about clarity. Complex interactions between clearly defined mechanics is a good thing.
Unclear mechanics with even less clear interactions generates its own amount of noob-bait; I'm amazed they even felt a need to pile on noob-bait in all sorts of additional places, but that's Cryptic for you.
I have no problem with expecting players to turn to outside resources. Industry devs disagree; just look at features like auto-matchmaking or advanced quest tracker, both of which are deemed mandatory in the current MMO environment, and the latter of which started off as a WoW mod.
Also, judging by some of the responses in this and other threads, I think more than a few players find offensive the idea of needing to turn to outside reference material. That would be impeding on their "playing how they want."
Most struggling players don't have any concept that they're the one struggling.
That's where my fundamental disagreement with some positions on this topic begins; many players will instantly shut you out the minute you even begin to imply they could improve themselves. They're usually also the most obstinate and entitled, with no regard for the four poor souls they burden themselves upon in failed STF after failed STF.
That's good for a laugh; I run at the lowest settings, and feel there are plenty more graphical effects they could remove for improved performance on my end. Those stupid background nebulae found in 50% of space maps, for example; I'm sure they're fabulous on high-end rigs, but I expected them to vanish on lowest settings.
I've come across plenty of other cases, but nothing as consistent, except perhaps the sphere zones, which don't seem to use (at least some of) my graphics settings, instead defaulting to some higher minimum Cryptic deemed necessary for the zone.
Well, they are called Cryptic, eh?
I admittedly find it hard to identify with players who fall prey to a trap in the mechanics, and then refuse to find a way out. If I hit a wall - as I have several times in my few months of playing the game - I'll be darned if I don't find out how to blow the wall up. I consider it a nice challenge / reward when I see "hey, this isn't working for me... OH! THAT'S how you fix it!" It's part of overall progression in an MMO - not all player progression can be measured on the skill bar.
And that's a whole 'nother issue right there. Nothing the devs can do will counteract ignorance, misplaced rage-blaming, or defensiveness over being offered a helping hand. But it's hard to feel sympathetic when a player hits a wall in their understanding, only to lash out in anger. I'd venture a guesstimate that plenty of players do make the leap to seeking out the answers to problems, but like anything else we're not going to hear from those players very often - because they found their answer, and moved on. We'll most often hear from the complainers that ran into difficulty but will take no initiative to fix the problem. STO is a game, not a magic box of insta-win - and sometimes you need to practice or learn, to be good at a game.
Very true. I was excited about the new challenge of the revamped queues even before I knew what the DPS League was.
And then there's players like me, who at the time of DR launch were far and away outside of the cut-off for the DPS League. I had no problem with the new Advanced, and saw it as a wicked challenge.
A couple months of learning and re-gearing later, and I've met and exceeded the challenge. Now I'm just looking forward to any more queued content they design in the future.
It's a matter of perspective. Yes, the Advanced queues were wholly above and beyond what I was capable of handling back when DR was released. But I took it as a challenge and a call to play better, as opposed to anything malicious or demeaning on the part of Cryptic or the DPSers.
There's two huge things about old elite queues that I miss - first, old optionals worked (all the failed VCE's due to Gekli not spawning/bugged anomaly - that just didn't happen). Secondly, they were optional.
It's great that elite has fail conditions. But, IMO, Normal would be just do the mission, and get it done (no fail options, no optionals), Advanced gives optionals as entirely new stuff, and elite makes those optionals (IMO, these should just be time-based, not other stuff, but whatever) mandatory, and introduces more optionals. (I also think you should have to have 5 completions of Normal to do Advanced, and 5 completions of Advanced with the optional to do Elite - account-wide, ideally) That gives you scaling difficulty and a learning curve, and helps to prevent people from warping into an Advanced or Elite queue without a clue. (or, if that's too easy, introduce time optionals in normal, make time mandatory in advanced and introduce new optionals (such as nanites not healing the transformer), and make time and those new ones mandatory in elite.
I enjoy the currently elite queues, what few of them there are, when they don't bug out (some of these bugs, actually all the ones I can think of, have been fixed lately, so props on that). Some of them, especially HSE, provide an actual challenge. I like that.
But I also recognize that that's not for everyone. While I do my best to provide information, you can't really reach pugs - they have to start looking themselves. And the fact that there's people without a clue is a shortfall of the tutorial and leveling system, and also a statement about the intuitiveness of the game design, but really, we have to accept that a lot of people don't perform well, and while I'm not going to suggest that they should have access to Elite queues, nor that most of them should have an easy time with Advanced. But the current state of the queues shows that we're on the exact opposite spectrum.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!