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How well do you think most of the playerbase can adapt to harder content?
rosetyler51
Member Posts: 1,631 Arc User
When I say harder content I don't just mean things like new (soon to be old) Advanced. It could be things like no gear switching on combat maps, NPCs that use the same types of powers and tactics of players, and more. Do you think players would adapt or would they push back until NPCs are nerfed into pointlessness?
How well do you think most of the playerbase can adapt to harder content? 156 votes
It would take some time but I trust in my fellow players to rise to meet any battle
17%
28 votes
NOPE.avi
49%
77 votes
The Devs are out to push P2W by changing the NPCs. Fight until they are back to normal.
21%
33 votes
Other
11%
18 votes
0
Comments
But it is not the question of this poll. So asking, if Cryptic did give us smarter AI used some of the tactics of lets say The Wizards of STO. Do you think most players would rise to fight the mobs or devs?
nope... considering last week I was in a conduit REGULAR that failed because ppl had nfc what they were doing and they struggled to kill spheres quickly
This. So much this.
It's gotten worse with each season. Voth, Undine, Heralds, all just rely on their one power they constantly spam till they die and some even after they're dead.
And that there is the heart of it. Before Profits Rising hit and Cryptic talking about more difficult content for those that want it, I was ecstatic. I was tired of the TRIBBLE, dumb NPCs that don't do anything despite all the fire and magic being thrown their way. I believed that we'd get smarter NPCs that can do abilities like players can, with closer frequency that players can. I hoped that they could do something simple like running TT, EPTS, PH, and FBP or something like that when under damage spikes. Or that they'd move to protect collapsed shield facings and rebalance their shields right. Or that they'd run things like Tractor Beaming players, pop APO3, then BO3 on a player.
But that was foolish hope. Then one of the Tribble Videos on YT came up a week or so before Delta Rising hit about some testers running Battle of Korfez. I watched with dismay that it was still the same, TRIBBLE AI. I watched with dismay as NPCs barely do any abilities, run no BUFFs of any significance. I watched with dismay that the only way the battle was long despite the damage output of the players was really only due to bloated HPs.
That was so disappointing.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
They can't. A thing they have proven time and time again.
Unreal Tournament? Some Fighting Games?
Any MMOs?
Good point. This whole thread is pretty much set in the land of make believe so look at it as one big what if.
Every MMO raid I have been requires some sort of killing. Except those players/group. Players who completed the raids pass the Damage requirement. The same can be reasoned for players who cannot finish those raids in other games, to them they are just bloated HP since Their group isn't capable of killing the mobs.
Nor those raid npc function like high caliber players. Name me a raid MMO who's AI is as good as the best pvp player?
Which brings me to agreeing at this point...
I agree.
this is why I enjoy playing things like Infected: The Conduit, The Cure Found and Khitomer Vortex on advanced.
I feel there is just the right balance of obstacles to overcome and the enemy appear to be just hard enough to be challenging but not too hard to be unbeatable.
Brotherhood of the Sword is also fun for the same reason.
recent changes have gone a long way to getting the balance right but there are still some missions that are all pew pew and little else and just seem to go on forever.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Then I think the answer is no.
Look at this game's PvP. It's as close as you get to the type of challenge players would face, and you see there are not many that bother with it anymore. All the power available to players useable against players? It can quickly suck the fun out of the game.
It's not just the challenge. It's also the type of gameplay you have to face. Being stunned, confused and vaped can be quite frustrating, and it requires a special mindset to deal with all of that.
But hey, if it's a big What If we can also pretend that the gameplay result would be more satisfying and the more annoying parts are gone.
I still don't think that players would adapt to that.
And, quite frankly, I also don't think they need to. If people are having fun without nail-biting challenges, we don't need to force it on them. The people that want nail-biters - we should try to provide them something, too, but we don't need to require everyone to rise to that challenge.
Making good, strong and powerful builds and devise elaborate tactics and counter-tactics doesn't just require "skill". First and foremost, it requires a lot of dedication. Some people want to dedicate themselves that much to the game, but many will not. It's still just a game. A game among many, and only a hobby to distract of all the challenges of real life.
I honestly believe that the players using sensible and reasonably thought out builds are in the vast minority. Anything harder then the normal story line content on normal difficulty is too much for a lot of players.
Sad but true.
While there sure aren't MMOs who have player rivaling AI they do have other things to compensate for that.
Stuff like varying behavior patterns, changing battle conditions, basic buffs for enemies (tactical team would be our example), etc . STO really has nothing besides insane HP scaling to ramp up the difficulty and the devs are caught in a terrible, lazy, loop. Make stronger weapons => buff mob hp => make stronger weapons => buff mob hp =>...... etc, etc.
Generally STO has one of the worst mob AIs I've seen in a MMO and no amount of hp scaling can hide that.
Engineers once a buff
So the Borg too
Spheres got fast and kicked some backdoor
And everyone cried boo hoo
That was pretty awful. Let me try again. EPTE got a buff, some NPCs use that power as well (key group being Borg spheres), so for 30 seconds you got ships speeding across the map like players. As you can guess spheres are the causes of most failed STFs so if you let them get fast and failed STFs get on the rise and remember, this was before "Profit Rising".
Long story short, the borg got hit with the nerf hammer and players get to remain the fastest things around.
So let another question. What happens to a pug when a pack of borg ships cross heal each other?
Option 1: They realize the power of love and friendship and overcome the challenge with teamwork?
Option 2: Ragequit.
Because there is no such thing as hard difficulty in this game.
Cryptic has already stated that they will not put in an AI. Let's face it, an AI would potentially make the game even more unplayable for most and technically, could only apply in story arc missions. So Cryptic increased the hull of ships and resistances that they have. They put in timers for completing the missions. They had rewards worth getting if you completed said missions.
Upon completion of this, those who did the old "elite" facerolling missions until the enemy died missions took to the new advanced and elite missions. They failed gloriously. Complained heavily. Meanwhile some of us who wanted a real challenge found the VERY first changes extremely challenging. For the first time we couldn't go in focus on the transformer and generators like we used to. We had to take out the cubes on both sides first and then could do the generators and transformer. It made a 90second mission into 4-5 minutes easily for us. And kept us on our toes. Some of us loved it. But enough felt it was too difficult and so they nerfed it. Our first real challenge was met with such opposition that it never stood a change.
So upon changing it again after this, it became doable for a lot more. But still more are complaining about the content. Instead of trying to better themselves, either from spending time on the game in other areas or by repeating missions for gear rewards they simply tried to stay as they were. And while there was some minor tweaks here and there, it wasn't until recently that the time to complete missions was removed. So now or at least in due time, once again with doing a one thing at a time completion it can basically be facerolled again until completion.
Honestly, even IF Cryptic came out with some elite content, there's not a lot of challenge going on anymore. Biggest challenge is hitting Iconians and that's only a challenge because they can stop you in your tracks for a few seconds and disable your ship weapons thus delaying their demise. And even the couple Elite missions we have can be done in the right team setups. So it's less a matter of time and just a matter of skill and team work for those. Something a lot don't particularly aim to improve or even do.
Top DPS 102k
My character Tsin'xing
I played many normal queued missions with two of my captains because I wanted to tryout different type of weapon loadouts. I was using Mk XII rare quality weapons and tactical consoles because they are relatively inexpensive and effective enough to determine if it was worth investing time, effort and EC in crafting and upgrading those types of weapons.
Many the PUGs I was involved with basically did not know what they were doing such as in Infect Spaced where the other 4 players split up; two attacking the Borgs on the right and two attacking the Borgs on the left. Other times it seems their starships were armed with "laser pointing devices" rather than energy weapons. I see beams of light shooting forth at enemies, but the enemies do not take any damage.
I'd like harder content, but not in the sense of bloating them with shield and hull HP, while at the same time limit access to this different type of advanced by first ensuring players are capable of reacting to various scenarios in mandatory single-player story missions, and then have each player individually assigned certain simple tasks in a PvE that if they themselves fail they are the ones to be kicked out of the mission so they can no longer break it for everyone else, and passing those, then it becomes a true team-effort.
I'm gonna say it. PvE is a so dumbed down game mode, without a decent AI, that I don't think the playerbase would be smart enough to overcome. It's a vicious cycle: they screamed to have harder content, they got it, they cried for being too hard, it was rolled back, now they're screaming again.
It's also one of the reason why I avoid PvE community.