Wouldn't the first step to be evaluate why those Advanced Queues are failing? Then proceed based on that? What's going on that is causing them to fail? Is it actually a lack of DPS or is something else going on there?
Not killing all the things before the timer hits 0 has been the biggest issue.
I saw a 35k Pathfinder build that I believe did ~8k with Science abilities alone. That's more than enough to do their necessary share in Advanced queues.
Frankly, lots of people think their DPS and builds are okay, with absolutely no objective evidence that it is true. Not even any subjective evidence that it's true, considering these same people then complain about queue difficulty and failures.
Talking about Neverwinter specifically - lots of DPS characters who can do damage, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're useful in the dungeons.
Particularly in the earlier skill-check dungeons, where the DPS tend to be newbies who are trying to burn down the boss that the tank has locked down (simple tank&spank), while the CC is running around trying to stay alive and hold off the adds.
The CC is incapable of actually killing the adds before more can spawn, and the DPS are too stupid to help him, so eventually the CC is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of spawns and then the DPS and tank will then wipe within a minute as they're suddenly overrun.
Anyway, solo play isn't too difficult since there's companions. If you're a tank you can grab a healer or a DPS companion, if you're CC you can grab a tank, and so on.
I was going to type up an analogy that covers what I keep trying to say but what is the point.
Soon players won't be able to fail advanced and still get their rewards. You won't even have to step into advanced to get BNPs or any other advanced mark so really what is the point any more? The "DPS meta" is dead and so is the bulk of players' reason to make an effort to learn how to play.
And to add to that i would say that basically its a problem of the way the game was designed, without the holy trinity,without the need for tanks and healers basically the game is all about the pew pew and that is what makes this game stale and boring in the long run.
<<snip>>
As the game is right now you can choose 3 different classes,place each of those classes in 3 different type of ships but in the end you have no other purpose than pew pew pew...and that is where the problem lies,game is filled with dps'ers...holy trinity has been around so long you know why? because IT WORKS,period,end of the line and its a fact!!!
Plenty of games have worked fine without the trinity. In particular, I loved city of heroes. Without the trinity different challenges arise that require the devs to innovate. The lack of that innovation is the issue.
If they go the Trinity route, there are cookie cutter development options and patterns, and players are generally familiar with them. If developers instead create a more flexible character development situation then they need more flexible content.
In city you could debuff enemies to the point that trivial damage was lethal. You could use dead allies as bombs to wipe out encounters. You could tank-heal-damage if you wanted. You could stack holds and plink away for hours, you could summon swarms of minions and wear them down. Challenges had to be developed that accounted for these different styles of problem solving. Some content rewarded one more than another., but over the years everyone had their time in the spotlight. Lack of the trinity was a strength.
Here in sto there is some content that really plays to the strength of the flexible system we have. Not much, but it is there. My favorite example, as always, is mine trap. Undine infiltration is another one, though not as refined as mine trap. You need to fight at the temple, disable (not kill) bajoran civilians (dps is barely relevant here), or avoid them entirely (DPs is irrelevant here), and have people doing basic detective work / glowies clicking. The trinity doesn't help at all in this scenario, and for lots of it, damage is irrelevant. And yet it is a fun mission.
The trinity is one option. It is around for the same reason that Hollywood prefers to remake old successful movies rather than create new successful movies: risk vs reward spreadsheets in the hands of people with business degrees.
I was going to type up an analogy that covers what I keep trying to say but what is the point.
Soon players won't be able to fail advanced and still get their rewards. You won't even have to step into advanced to get BNPs or any other advanced mark so really what is the point any more? The "DPS meta" is dead and so is the bulk of players' reason to make an effort to learn how to play.
It's a mix of Farmville Star Trek Edition and Barbie & Ken: The Star Trek Fashionstravaganza.
And yet all they do is dps,dps,dps,dps,dps,dps,etc,etc....because the way the encounters are laid out there really isnt the need for anything else is there?
There isn't anywhere the need for what potentially can be done - which leaves all sorts of room for folks to do what's required by the content while doing whatever else they please.
And it gives players a choice of how to play,as of right now you can only choose one way or the highway,yeah dps no more than that...oh sure you can choose how you want to do the dps but apart from that there is no other way to play.
My Corvette survives in a different way than my Kumari. My Solanae Science Destroyer survives in a different way than my Samsar. And so far it appears the B'Rel has it's own unique style as well.
Here you can be your own tank and healer. And unless you're running with a pre-made, it's a good idea to do so. Some people enjoy nothing more than playing whackamole with friendly health bars and having the tank on autofollow. On some planets they juggle geese.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
English isnt my native language so after reading your post im kinda lost...have room to do what exactly?
In a game where the potential DPS is well over 100k DPS and there is almost no content that requires over 10k DPS, there is plenty of room for folks to play Tank, Heals, Buff, Debuff, Crowd Control, or even all of them while still more than meeting any content requirements.
Technically you don't have to do DPS. There's been a run done T1 ships, and a run where nothing but hanger pets or Photonic fleet were used. And those runs used far less than massive DPS.
Can you make a profession use their respective expert knowledge of things? Yes, it takes the right application of it to make it work though.
The only problem that there is is that the game is making you do a destroy all enemy pattern more and more. There is no go in and detect xyz anomaly that will solve abc issue. But that isn't a DPS or a player issue. It's a storyline issue.
Need help with a mission to beat it? Visit http://pilotreviewshow.com to learn how we can help!
Introduce NPC companion ships (we are Admirals, anyway).
So, even when you play solo you'd have a couple escorts with you to do the DPS for you while you enhance their abilities with controll/debuffing/healing/tanking.
balance the enemies against that instead of making pure DPS sponges.
So a pure DPS set up, dies to fast to get an uncontested victory.
if you fly DPS yourself, you'd better be served with a scie and cruiser at your side to take heat of your and soften up he targets.
It's always about DPS, even in a trinity game, because it always boils down to killing enemies. (Talking about the damage output of players, not a specific role.)
The only time it doesn't is if you aren't facing enemies. If you have to defend, if you have to solve a puzzle, anything - so long as there are foes trying to stop you, it comes down to DPS.
All the trinity model means is that you split the defensive and offensive components among different characters.
All the lack of a trinity model means is that each character needs to take care of their own defensive and offensive components.
I mean i can use my cruiser,get it geared for tanking and yet if i run an STF in tank mode it just doesnt really feel like im tanking,threat in this game is all over the place.
While you're unlikely to run into a 100k ship in a pug, if you've gone old school tank with no damage but massive threat modifiers to that no damage you're still not going to be tanking anything if the rest of the team is even close to half ways competent.
Old school "I do no damage but have high threat" tanks need to be nuked from orbit and then thrown into a black hole. That's outdated (and poor) game design to enforce an unneeded trinity.
A tank should be able to, and be expected to, do decent damage.
Same with a healer.
Just like DPS should be expected to be tougher than the wet tissue paper of trinity games.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Sitting at Earth Spacedock and I can't think of anything to do.
I could do a normal queue...but thats pointless...
I could go into an advanced queue, fail, get 10 marks and a 30 minute wait to do it again...
I could work making my build more 1 dimensional and boring (but more effective), but that has huge timers on it. Craft a console, upgrade it, upgrade it, upgrade it...near the end each step takes multiple hours. But really, why bother? So I can FINALLY do advanced stuff that by then I won't care because none of the rep items are useful once you build for optimal DPS, which you have to do to complete advanced queues.
I could make ANOTHER Delta, but...well, Cardassian story and frankly I'm just going to end up in this same situation again.
Literally can't think of anything worth doing in this game. Frankly I don't want to get into this "DPS chase" TRIBBLE, its not enjoyable. I like making my build more effective, but I want to use abilities the the DPS crowd ignores because well...they don't give the most DPS.
I'm really bored, nothing I CAN do seems worthwhile.
reduce AI HP and Shields dramatically but institute heals to the point where it evens out but offers a window where the player can prevent the heals (like with subnucleonic) or catch the AI in between heals
have AI weapons hit a bit harder
institute ship injuries during gameplay for both AI and player and a progressive deterioration of subsystem power and malfunctions as the ships hull gets closer and closer to 0. healing a ship injury now requires a longer cooldown period, like 30 seconds depending on injury type.
improve AI flight mechanics - i don't remember the last time i have played a romulan NPC that actually cloaked. All the ships fly the same way, right up to your n*ts.
allow us to change weapons and boff powers during battle. if we get a ship injury and need to run but are slower than the target firing at us switching to a target engines subsystem would be useful, or to jam sensors. I don't recall once in a show where LeForge responded with, "sorry captain. I'm unable to move or make any changes while we are under fire."
The idea here is you can finish a battle just as quickly as you could now, maybe even a little quicker, but it takes precision and strategy or the battle will be long and drawn out almost to the point of stalemate. At the same time AI have stronger weapons and if they catch you slipping can really damage your ship forcing you to repair or be destroyed.
Can you actually tank and properly taunt the enemy ships off your teammates?
Yes, you can stay over 90% off hull, while tanking all enemies while doing decent dps. In that regard, STO is the closest MMO-mechanic to reality, a combined dps+threatenhancement instead of some stupid "you use this ability, enemies have to attack you for xx seconds".
If you cant tank while holding aggro, that says more about you than the game, because it is in the game. Same with CC and Healing.
Yes, you shouldnt need a special healer for a mission, but you can play it, while still doing damage. As someone else already mentioned: It always comes down to dps, in any game, since your mainobjective is killing a foe. In STO you are able to perfom multiple tasks at once. I dont see where or why this should be a bad thing.
It's driven by Cryptic efforts to push players into the upgrade system...
^^^
Yep - the current paradigm is VERY MUCH by design and supported by Cryptic management. They WANT something that drives players to use (and spend Zen/Dilithium) the itm upgrade system.
I you have patience you CAN actually make a DPS build 'for free' (by earning/converting Dil, etc.); but it won't be fast.
But yeah, as many have observed - don't expect it to change as it's STO's main chaarcter advancement monetization method.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
It's driven by Cryptic efforts to push players into the upgrade system.
I'd say it was more a case of them taking advantage of folks than pushing folks. Cause for the vast majority of content, you don't have to upgrade a thing - and - Cryptic's even said that.
But there are folks that will throw resources after resources at upgrading stuff without addressing how they're flying...so they'll get miniscule benefit from the upgrades compared to somebody else...and they'll just keep dumping more and more resources into the upgrades thinking they'll get somewhere they never will. Somebody Cryptic is taking advantage of by not providing the basic information/tutorials so folks would know better.
And there are folks that need to have everything done as quickly as possible. Upgrades function pretty much like a "Finish Now/Faster" feature for them, allowing them to finish content faster than they may have otherwise. So they'll throw resources after resources at upgrading stuff so they can run the treadmill to nowhere faster and faster. Somebody Cryptic is taking advantage of by understanding some basic psychology and how times have changed.
There are all sorts of folks Cryptic is taking advantage of...but pushing? Nah, it's more of a passive aggressive thing - kind of like hiding the Wet Floor sign so somebody walks through and falls rather than Cryptic coming up behind them and shoving them.
Would love to fly a cruiser and actually tank for a change...but lets be honest where would that be needed? Can you actually tank and properly taunt the enemy ships off your teammates?
Tanks are needed in many pug teams. Anytime you see teammates dying more than once, a tank would help.
The most common I run into is handling the 4 cubes that spawn in khitomer. Many pugs have people who can't handle those.
As for taunt, well, yes. The power you are looking for is "subspace intervention" and it is command spec. Makes an ally untargetable and warps your ship in between them and the ai giving you all aggro.
I'd say it was more a case of them taking advantage of folks than pushing folks. Cause for the vast majority of content, you don't have to upgrade a thing - and - Cryptic's even said that.
But there are folks that will throw resources after resources at upgrading stuff without addressing how they're flying...so they'll get miniscule benefit from the upgrades compared to somebody else...and they'll just keep dumping more and more resources into the upgrades thinking they'll get somewhere they never will. Somebody Cryptic is taking advantage of by not providing the basic information/tutorials so folks would know better.
And there are folks that need to have everything done as quickly as possible. Upgrades function pretty much like a "Finish Now/Faster" feature for them, allowing them to finish content faster than they may have otherwise. So they'll throw resources after resources at upgrading stuff so they can run the treadmill to nowhere faster and faster. Somebody Cryptic is taking advantage of by understanding some basic psychology and how times have changed.
There are all sorts of folks Cryptic is taking advantage of...but pushing? Nah, it's more of a passive aggressive thing - kind of like hiding the Wet Floor sign so somebody walks through and falls rather than Cryptic coming up behind them and shoving them.
Well, imho...
All the hail the holy man Virus Dancer! Telling the truth of the matter.
And to add to that i would say that basically its a problem of the way the game was designed, without the holy trinity,without the need for tanks and healers basically the game is all about the pew pew and that is what makes this game stale and boring in the long run.
Tanking ranged targets is a PITA.
How much ground tanking experience do you even have? And if any, is it limited to the modern MMOs, with their rofleasy aoe taunts and similar?
I could go into an advanced queue, fail, get 10 marks and a 30 minute wait to do it again...
I could work making my build more 1 dimensional and boring (but more effective), but that has huge timers on it. Craft a console, upgrade it, upgrade it, upgrade it...near the end each step takes multiple hours. But really, why bother? So I can FINALLY do advanced stuff that by then I won't care because none of the rep items are useful once you build for optimal DPS, which you have to do to complete advanced queues.
You could seek out someone who can walk you through the wide variety of build options that would work in advanced.
Assuming you lack the MMO/gaming experience to build one yourself.
No one's going to do the leg work of compiling the build pieces or upgrading them for you.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
The problem really boils down to 3 things. High DPS builds aren't squishy enough, healing abilities take to long to recharge to facilitate a healing role, and npc's don't use enough abilities often enough to present a need for a specific person to focus on... there's also no snap aggro mechanic that I know of.
Attempting a trinity group is almost certainly going to be a failure, the game mechanics just don't viably support it.
I could work making my build more 1 dimensional and boring (but more effective), but that has huge timers on it. Craft a console, upgrade it, upgrade it, upgrade it...near the end each step takes multiple hours. But really, why bother? So I can FINALLY do advanced stuff that by then I won't care because none of the rep items are useful once you build for optimal DPS, which you have to do to complete advanced queues.
This sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.
Build and Gear are distinctly different, and each factor has considerably different impacts on performance.
The biggest problem is that everything can be solved in STO with MOAR POWER!!!
Need to finish a mission quicker = more DPS
Need to beat a big boss = more DPS
Farming marks? = more DPS
Want to be good in PVP = more DPS
There is literally nothing in the game that more DPS can't make faster, easier or more efficient.
And that is the problem, there's really no point in playing any other way unless you like you fly a different style of ship.
Plus additional to that is the fact that even if you min-max it and go for full-on massive DPS you can still tank better than most NPCs you'll encounter. So you have players with massive DPS who don't need or use heals and can tank most targets. Plus add in some science tricks and you've got players who can run the whole "trinity" through one ship.
That just shouldn't be possible, but it is.
There is literally nothing in the game that more DPS can't make faster, easier or more efficient.
And there's all sorts of things that don't involve clubbing a mob over the head with a bigger stick that can improve DPS...which opens up all sorts of roles for people to help contribute to the completion of the mission.
Comments
Not killing all the things before the timer hits 0 has been the biggest issue.
Frankly, lots of people think their DPS and builds are okay, with absolutely no objective evidence that it is true. Not even any subjective evidence that it's true, considering these same people then complain about queue difficulty and failures.
Talking about Neverwinter specifically - lots of DPS characters who can do damage, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're useful in the dungeons.
Particularly in the earlier skill-check dungeons, where the DPS tend to be newbies who are trying to burn down the boss that the tank has locked down (simple tank&spank), while the CC is running around trying to stay alive and hold off the adds.
The CC is incapable of actually killing the adds before more can spawn, and the DPS are too stupid to help him, so eventually the CC is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of spawns and then the DPS and tank will then wipe within a minute as they're suddenly overrun.
Anyway, solo play isn't too difficult since there's companions. If you're a tank you can grab a healer or a DPS companion, if you're CC you can grab a tank, and so on.
Soon players won't be able to fail advanced and still get their rewards. You won't even have to step into advanced to get BNPs or any other advanced mark so really what is the point any more? The "DPS meta" is dead and so is the bulk of players' reason to make an effort to learn how to play.
Not really, its just the same as a religion. People simply believe unreal things.
If they go the Trinity route, there are cookie cutter development options and patterns, and players are generally familiar with them. If developers instead create a more flexible character development situation then they need more flexible content.
In city you could debuff enemies to the point that trivial damage was lethal. You could use dead allies as bombs to wipe out encounters. You could tank-heal-damage if you wanted. You could stack holds and plink away for hours, you could summon swarms of minions and wear them down. Challenges had to be developed that accounted for these different styles of problem solving. Some content rewarded one more than another., but over the years everyone had their time in the spotlight. Lack of the trinity was a strength.
Here in sto there is some content that really plays to the strength of the flexible system we have. Not much, but it is there. My favorite example, as always, is mine trap. Undine infiltration is another one, though not as refined as mine trap. You need to fight at the temple, disable (not kill) bajoran civilians (dps is barely relevant here), or avoid them entirely (DPs is irrelevant here), and have people doing basic detective work / glowies clicking. The trinity doesn't help at all in this scenario, and for lots of it, damage is irrelevant. And yet it is a fun mission.
The trinity is one option. It is around for the same reason that Hollywood prefers to remake old successful movies rather than create new successful movies: risk vs reward spreadsheets in the hands of people with business degrees.
Engineer
Rotate Shield Frequency
EPS Power Transfer
Nadion Inversion
Miracle Worker
Engineering Fleet
EPS Manifold Efficiency
Grace Under Fire (Miracle Worker)
Fleet Technician (Engineering Fleet) (Voth Lock Box)
Science
Sensor Scan
Subnucleonic Beam
Scattering Field
Photonic Fleet
Science Fleet
Conservation of Energy
Photonic Capacitor (Photonic Fleet)
Fleet Physicist (Science Fleet) (Voth Lock Box)
Tactical
Attack Pattern Alpha
Fire On My Mark
Tactical Initiative
Go Down Fighting
Tactical Fleet
Crippling Fire
Last Ditch Effort (Go Down Fighting)
Fleet Tactician (Tactical Fleet) (Voth Lock Box)
That's what separates the Careers in Space. Everything else? Not restricted by Career choice.
Weapons? Nope.
Deflector? Nope.
Secondary Deflector? Nope.
Engine? Nope.
Core? Nope.
Shields? Nope.
Devices? Nope.
Engineering Consoles? Nope.
Science Consoles? Nope.
Tactical Consoles? Nope.
Hangar Pets? Nope.
Ships? Nope.
Starship Mastery? Nope.
Other Personal Traits? Nope.
Reputation Passive Traits? Nope.
Reputation Active Traits? Nope.
Starship Traits? Nope.
BOFFs? Nope.
BOFF Abilities? Nope.
DOFFs? Only if they affect a specific Captain ability.
Careers are nowhere near as restrictive as Classes would be.
It's a mix of Farmville Star Trek Edition and Barbie & Ken: The Star Trek Fashionstravaganza.
The unholy trinity is around because it makes balancing and content design easier.
There isn't anywhere the need for what potentially can be done - which leaves all sorts of room for folks to do what's required by the content while doing whatever else they please.
My Corvette survives in a different way than my Kumari. My Solanae Science Destroyer survives in a different way than my Samsar. And so far it appears the B'Rel has it's own unique style as well.
Here you can be your own tank and healer. And unless you're running with a pre-made, it's a good idea to do so. Some people enjoy nothing more than playing whackamole with friendly health bars and having the tank on autofollow. On some planets they juggle geese.
In a game where the potential DPS is well over 100k DPS and there is almost no content that requires over 10k DPS, there is plenty of room for folks to play Tank, Heals, Buff, Debuff, Crowd Control, or even all of them while still more than meeting any content requirements.
Can you make a profession use their respective expert knowledge of things? Yes, it takes the right application of it to make it work though.
The only problem that there is is that the game is making you do a destroy all enemy pattern more and more. There is no go in and detect xyz anomaly that will solve abc issue. But that isn't a DPS or a player issue. It's a storyline issue.
Top DPS 102k
So, even when you play solo you'd have a couple escorts with you to do the DPS for you while you enhance their abilities with controll/debuffing/healing/tanking.
balance the enemies against that instead of making pure DPS sponges.
So a pure DPS set up, dies to fast to get an uncontested victory.
if you fly DPS yourself, you'd better be served with a scie and cruiser at your side to take heat of your and soften up he targets.
The only time it doesn't is if you aren't facing enemies. If you have to defend, if you have to solve a puzzle, anything - so long as there are foes trying to stop you, it comes down to DPS.
All the trinity model means is that you split the defensive and offensive components among different characters.
All the lack of a trinity model means is that each character needs to take care of their own defensive and offensive components.
While you're unlikely to run into a 100k ship in a pug, if you've gone old school tank with no damage but massive threat modifiers to that no damage you're still not going to be tanking anything if the rest of the team is even close to half ways competent.
Old school "I do no damage but have high threat" tanks need to be nuked from orbit and then thrown into a black hole. That's outdated (and poor) game design to enforce an unneeded trinity.
A tank should be able to, and be expected to, do decent damage.
Same with a healer.
Just like DPS should be expected to be tougher than the wet tissue paper of trinity games.
Sitting at Earth Spacedock and I can't think of anything to do.
I could do a normal queue...but thats pointless...
I could go into an advanced queue, fail, get 10 marks and a 30 minute wait to do it again...
I could work making my build more 1 dimensional and boring (but more effective), but that has huge timers on it. Craft a console, upgrade it, upgrade it, upgrade it...near the end each step takes multiple hours. But really, why bother? So I can FINALLY do advanced stuff that by then I won't care because none of the rep items are useful once you build for optimal DPS, which you have to do to complete advanced queues.
I could make ANOTHER Delta, but...well, Cardassian story and frankly I'm just going to end up in this same situation again.
Literally can't think of anything worth doing in this game. Frankly I don't want to get into this "DPS chase" TRIBBLE, its not enjoyable. I like making my build more effective, but I want to use abilities the the DPS crowd ignores because well...they don't give the most DPS.
I'm really bored, nothing I CAN do seems worthwhile.
reduce AI HP and Shields dramatically but institute heals to the point where it evens out but offers a window where the player can prevent the heals (like with subnucleonic) or catch the AI in between heals
have AI weapons hit a bit harder
institute ship injuries during gameplay for both AI and player and a progressive deterioration of subsystem power and malfunctions as the ships hull gets closer and closer to 0. healing a ship injury now requires a longer cooldown period, like 30 seconds depending on injury type.
improve AI flight mechanics - i don't remember the last time i have played a romulan NPC that actually cloaked. All the ships fly the same way, right up to your n*ts.
allow us to change weapons and boff powers during battle. if we get a ship injury and need to run but are slower than the target firing at us switching to a target engines subsystem would be useful, or to jam sensors. I don't recall once in a show where LeForge responded with, "sorry captain. I'm unable to move or make any changes while we are under fire."
The idea here is you can finish a battle just as quickly as you could now, maybe even a little quicker, but it takes precision and strategy or the battle will be long and drawn out almost to the point of stalemate. At the same time AI have stronger weapons and if they catch you slipping can really damage your ship forcing you to repair or be destroyed.
Yes, you can stay over 90% off hull, while tanking all enemies while doing decent dps. In that regard, STO is the closest MMO-mechanic to reality, a combined dps+threatenhancement instead of some stupid "you use this ability, enemies have to attack you for xx seconds".
If you cant tank while holding aggro, that says more about you than the game, because it is in the game. Same with CC and Healing.
Yes, you shouldnt need a special healer for a mission, but you can play it, while still doing damage. As someone else already mentioned: It always comes down to dps, in any game, since your mainobjective is killing a foe. In STO you are able to perfom multiple tasks at once. I dont see where or why this should be a bad thing.
You two guys just won the sto internets. Yeah, stuff like this, for the win.
Yep - the current paradigm is VERY MUCH by design and supported by Cryptic management. They WANT something that drives players to use (and spend Zen/Dilithium) the itm upgrade system.
I you have patience you CAN actually make a DPS build 'for free' (by earning/converting Dil, etc.); but it won't be fast.
But yeah, as many have observed - don't expect it to change as it's STO's main chaarcter advancement monetization method.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I'd say it was more a case of them taking advantage of folks than pushing folks. Cause for the vast majority of content, you don't have to upgrade a thing - and - Cryptic's even said that.
But there are folks that will throw resources after resources at upgrading stuff without addressing how they're flying...so they'll get miniscule benefit from the upgrades compared to somebody else...and they'll just keep dumping more and more resources into the upgrades thinking they'll get somewhere they never will. Somebody Cryptic is taking advantage of by not providing the basic information/tutorials so folks would know better.
And there are folks that need to have everything done as quickly as possible. Upgrades function pretty much like a "Finish Now/Faster" feature for them, allowing them to finish content faster than they may have otherwise. So they'll throw resources after resources at upgrading stuff so they can run the treadmill to nowhere faster and faster. Somebody Cryptic is taking advantage of by understanding some basic psychology and how times have changed.
There are all sorts of folks Cryptic is taking advantage of...but pushing? Nah, it's more of a passive aggressive thing - kind of like hiding the Wet Floor sign so somebody walks through and falls rather than Cryptic coming up behind them and shoving them.
Well, imho...
Tanks are needed in many pug teams. Anytime you see teammates dying more than once, a tank would help.
The most common I run into is handling the 4 cubes that spawn in khitomer. Many pugs have people who can't handle those.
As for taunt, well, yes. The power you are looking for is "subspace intervention" and it is command spec. Makes an ally untargetable and warps your ship in between them and the ai giving you all aggro.
All the hail the holy man Virus Dancer! Telling the truth of the matter.
How much ground tanking experience do you even have? And if any, is it limited to the modern MMOs, with their rofleasy aoe taunts and similar?
You could seek out someone who can walk you through the wide variety of build options that would work in advanced.
Assuming you lack the MMO/gaming experience to build one yourself.
No one's going to do the leg work of compiling the build pieces or upgrading them for you.
Attempting a trinity group is almost certainly going to be a failure, the game mechanics just don't viably support it.
This sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.
Build and Gear are distinctly different, and each factor has considerably different impacts on performance.
Need to finish a mission quicker = more DPS
Need to beat a big boss = more DPS
Farming marks? = more DPS
Want to be good in PVP = more DPS
There is literally nothing in the game that more DPS can't make faster, easier or more efficient.
And that is the problem, there's really no point in playing any other way unless you like you fly a different style of ship.
Plus additional to that is the fact that even if you min-max it and go for full-on massive DPS you can still tank better than most NPCs you'll encounter. So you have players with massive DPS who don't need or use heals and can tank most targets. Plus add in some science tricks and you've got players who can run the whole "trinity" through one ship.
That just shouldn't be possible, but it is.
More DPS should = lower surivability
And there's all sorts of things that don't involve clubbing a mob over the head with a bigger stick that can improve DPS...which opens up all sorts of roles for people to help contribute to the completion of the mission.
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If you can show me an escort that can park in advanced content I will agree with you.