Idea for Queue Participation Increase

sheldonlcooper

I was thinking about why I like Crystalline. Yes, it's the fastest. But this is not why I prefer it to all pugs. It's the chance at winning 1st or 2nd and maybe getting a small EC prize as well as getting a performance based prize at all.

I think it would be very nice to add similar prizes to other queues. Maybe even upgrades or just common purple equipment like crystalline. I know I would get excited by that sort of competition. How say you?

captaintroika

A free basic upgrade is going to go right into the trash if I ever get one. Superior and up are the only ones used for a reason.

peterconnorfirst

Good idea, EC is welcome and rankings are sporty and fun!

At this point I’m for every option that can be pulled to increase participation in queues so why not.

I’m greatfull for each and everybody who queues up no matter how good or bad he is.

seaofsorrows

I always liked the way CCA awards top scores. Players that are doing the bulk of the load get a little extra. If someone is less effective or less skilled, they still get their reward but the player(s) shouldering the brunt of the work get a little extra.

I would be for adopting this system on other ques as well, even if the reward was the same (2 Mk XII VR items) that would work for me. Elite Ques could award Mk XIV or even have a percentage chance for a random epic quality drop. Even with this system though, people are still going to do the ques that offer the best reward to time ratio. No one is going to run a 20 min que when they could have a shot at the same reward doing a 5-10 min que.

nebfab

Actually there's also the 3rd place in Crystalline, it awards a blue item...

Anyway, while it's a neat thing to have, I doubt it will improve queue participation that much if done exactly the way it's in CCA. Part of the problem (in my experience) is that people simply haven't got a good feel for what it takes to participate, go under-prepared and then conclude that you really need to have all-meta can vaporize tac cube by looking at it DPS machine (and while those are fun, few people have time and/or money to actually get one.)

Maybe we need some kind of formal handicap system, like in sailing races or golf, with end prizes based on handicapped DPS (or whatever) instead of the raw number. So if you are a sporty type, you'd have a motivation to improve it, and if you're a casual player you still have a chance to get something nice out of the exercise. With some series of practice solo missions that let you establish your initial handicap and a recommended (not required) handicap number for all the queues. The issue would be of course to actually come up with a system that's both meaningful (not revarding mostly dumb luck) and not too constraining.

snoggymack22

It's a solid idea. And something they have the tech and capability to do. I caution its use though as Cryptic tends to focus on DPS. And CE is great because it doesn't award based solely on that scale. But in the past (ye old Starbase 24) and in other games (Champions) the way they worked it only DPS ever got the bonus. And that just becomes a point of contention after awhile.

So the idea is good. The implementation needs to be creative enough to reward more than just one simple metric though.

peterconnorfirst

nebfab wrote: »

Actually there's also the 3rd place in Crystalline, it awards a blue item...

Anyway, while it's a neat thing to have, I doubt it will improve queue participation that much if done exactly the way it's in CCA. Part of the problem (in my experience) is that people simply haven't got a good feel for what it takes to participate, go under-prepared and then conclude that you really need to have all-meta can vaporize tac cube by looking at it DPS machine (and while those are fun, few people have time and/or money to actually get one.)

Maybe we need some kind of formal handicap system, like in sailing races or golf, with end prizes based on handicapped DPS (or whatever) instead of the raw number. So if you are a sporty type, you'd have a motivation to improve it, and if you're a casual player you still have a chance to get something nice out of the exercise. With some series of practice solo missions that let you establish your initial handicap and a recommended (not required) handicap number for all the queues. The issue would be of course to actually come up with a system that's both meaningful (not revarding mostly dumb luck) and not too constraining.

Not everything is or has to be based on DPS. CC also factors in other aspects like shield healing. 1st place is also relative meaning that when a group is bad enough you end up being first automatically. I got first places there on all epic builds as well as on those which are in the process of development.

But yea other missions, especially ground ones, often demand other stuff from a player where nothing but a little skill is needed.

Just imagine what a successful map Undine Infiltration Elite could be if a player giving a right interview result would grab 200k EC each time. I mean we get such stuff out of doing nothing in admirality, why not here?

lordsteve1

Its a good idea OP.

CC is one of the better ones because to do well it's not all about "MOAR DPS!!!!!" so it gives everyone a chance to get top prizes.

Only problem is how you measure performance outside of DPS.

Time in combat?
Outgoing healing?
Debuffs landed?
Crits landed?
Accuracy?
Number of deaths?
Number of kills?
Number of enemy held/CC'd?

Half of that stuff doesn't even get logged by the combat reader and some would just be open to abuse, or let the DPS monster rule the roost constantly.
I mean in ISA I can lock the nanite-train down for pretty much infinity if I want to but it's not worth TRIBBLE because the game doesn't track that at all, only damage output. My grav wells will save the mission from failing most runs but that doesn't tell the game i'm good and worth of a prize.

nebfab

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

Not everything is or has to be based on DPS.

Definitely. Actually the whole point of my idea was to filter out the raw DPS out of the competition and to provide some persistent yardstick for how you are doing. I only used DPS as a shorthand.

But, being mostly an idea rat I'm not quite ready yet to suggest how such a system could work exactly...

gradii

seaofsorrows wrote: »

I always liked the way CCA awards top scores. Players that are doing the bulk of the load get a little extra. If someone is less effective or less skilled, they still get their reward but the player(s) shouldering the brunt of the work get a little extra.

I would be for adopting this system on other ques as well, even if the reward was the same (2 Mk XII VR items) that would work for me. Elite Ques could award Mk XIV or even have a percentage chance for a random epic quality drop. Even with this system though, people are still going to do the ques that offer the best reward to time ratio. No one is going to run a 20 min que when they could have a shot at the same reward doing a 5-10 min que.

Extra items yes, but not mark rewards.

sheldonlcooper

I think there's a lot of possibilities for the criteria. For example one of my characters is unbeatable in crystalline due to extreme healing. It's amusing because she has been a part of many 30 second runs. Someone out there with 100k dps must be scratching their head and pouring over spreadsheets.

The one thing I would caution against is awarding too many points for various acts of participation. Let's say we award a lot of points for borg freed in borg disconnected. Well then you get everyone wanting to free the borg and no one wanting to take agro. Or if giving points to be the one to click the interract to move the missions on then everyone is just racing to be the clicker.

It has to be thought a bit. DPS and healing yes. Some points for mission objectives. For me it is not about the prize, though some prize is necessary. I do not need any of the currencies anymore. It's about the anticipation of seeing if I 'won.' I truly get excited each time. Back in the day I've played ISE maybe 2000 times. And an equal amount of crystalline easily - maybe much more. There is no excitement for ISA unless you are trying to beat your parse record. But for me anyway there is still excitement every single time with crystalline.

bobbydazlers

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

I was thinking about why I like Crystalline. Yes, it's the fastest. But this is not why I prefer it to all pugs. It's the chance at winning 1st or 2nd and maybe getting a small EC prize as well as getting a performance based prize at all.

I think it would be very nice to add similar prizes to other queues. Maybe even upgrades or just common purple equipment like crystalline. I know I would get excited by that sort of competition. How say you?

that's cool if all players were on the same level of competency as yourself Sheldon, the problem is there are a lot of players who like me probably don't understand the skill system and what weapons work best together.
sure we do our best and make an impact on the game but we will never end up getting a 1st or 2nd as we are just not good enough.
I think more along the lines of the event rewards, there is always plenty of participation in these events because there is a good reward to get from taking part and this is even true of the events that players are not so keen to play like mirror and breach.
if they were to offer a good per character bonus reward say 10k dil on one of the queued missions each week gained by playing that mission once a day for say 5 of the 7 days with a small added bonus of say 2k dil extra for playing that mission over all 7 days gradually week by week cycling through all of the missions in the queues you would find there would always be at least one of the queued missions that is getting plenty of activity.

this would also encourage players who are unlikely to ever get 1st or 2nd as you would get the reward regardless of your level of competency.

burstorion

How about three or four prizes per group (its possible to win all of them on one character)

1) DPS - we all know dps shifts ships and drives stos economy so to ignore it is rediculous
2) Tanking - ie, damage coming in - basically, the more damage taken -without dying (which resets the counter)
3) Healing - Preferably only cross healing, but any healing is fine - shields, hull, ect
4) (possible) Science! - basically the damage caused by science abilities, with certain powers weighted for certain maps (such as dropping gws on isa) and points given for activation of rare abilities, such a jam sensors, ect​​

sheldonlcooper

bobbydazlers wrote: »

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

I was thinking about why I like Crystalline. Yes, it's the fastest. But this is not why I prefer it to all pugs. It's the chance at winning 1st or 2nd and maybe getting a small EC prize as well as getting a performance based prize at all.

I think it would be very nice to add similar prizes to other queues. Maybe even upgrades or just common purple equipment like crystalline. I know I would get excited by that sort of competition. How say you?

that's cool if all players were on the same level of competency as yourself Sheldon, the problem is there are a lot of players who like me probably don't understand the skill system and what weapons work best together.
sure we do our best and make an impact on the game but we will never end up getting a 1st or 2nd as we are just not good enough.
I think more along the lines of the event rewards, there is always plenty of participation in these events because there is a good reward to get from taking part and this is even true of the events that players are not so keen to play like mirror and breach.
if they were to offer a good per character bonus reward say 10k dil on one of the queued missions each week gained by playing that mission once a day for say 5 of the 7 days with a small added bonus of say 2k dil extra for playing that mission over all 7 days gradually week by week cycling through all of the missions in the queues you would find there would always be at least one of the queued missions that is getting plenty of activity.

this would also encourage players who are unlikely to ever get 1st or 2nd as you would get the reward regardless of your level of competency.

This is something I had not really considered and I agree that it should be to make it appealing to all. But if we take a 5 person mission and give 1st 2nd and 3rd. 3rd can be very small prize. I suspect people that play a couple a day will all place sometimes - especially if it's not a pure dps criteria.

The important thing I'm trying to get across is that it's a terrible idea to make the missions competitive to the point of anger against your team. Rather it's meant to be a neat little thing. Oh I got 3rd place for the first time in such and such mission. That's cool.

jaguarskx

lordsteve1 wrote: »

Its a good idea OP.

CC is one of the better ones because to do well it's not all about "MOAR DPS!!!!!" so it gives everyone a chance to get top prizes.

Only problem is how you measure performance outside of DPS.

Yeah, DPS is not the be all, end all metric for overall performance in a queued mission.

For example, I play Assault on Terok Nor Advanced a lot with my captains. During the part of the mission where there is the optional objective to shut down the force field before advancing to the final stage of the mission to face off against Adm Leeta. I generally do not bother to shoot anyone. Instead, I concentrate on figuring out the correct console sequence to quickly advance to the final stage. My best time was less than 1 minute which I was able to achieve twice last night. My actions resulted in zero DPS, but yet I was able to help my team advance more quickly to the final stage of the mission.

During the battle against Adm. Leeta, DPS is important. However, what's more important is to zap Adm. Leeta three times while she is standing on the electro pads which helps to make her vulnerable to attack to end the mission more quickly and achieve the optional objective. This takes a lot of patience, coordination and teamwork since the objective is to get Leeta to chase you as you lure her to one of the electro pads while someone else activates the proper console to zap her to make her vulnerable to attack.

While the player that activates the console to zap Leeta may be credited with some DPS for "scoring purposes", what about the other players who are trying to lure Leeta to an electro pad whether or not they are successful in luring her?

bobbydazlers

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

bobbydazlers wrote: »

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

I was thinking about why I like Crystalline. Yes, it's the fastest. But this is not why I prefer it to all pugs. It's the chance at winning 1st or 2nd and maybe getting a small EC prize as well as getting a performance based prize at all.

I think it would be very nice to add similar prizes to other queues. Maybe even upgrades or just common purple equipment like crystalline. I know I would get excited by that sort of competition. How say you?

that's cool if all players were on the same level of competency as yourself Sheldon, the problem is there are a lot of players who like me probably don't understand the skill system and what weapons work best together.
sure we do our best and make an impact on the game but we will never end up getting a 1st or 2nd as we are just not good enough.
I think more along the lines of the event rewards, there is always plenty of participation in these events because there is a good reward to get from taking part and this is even true of the events that players are not so keen to play like mirror and breach.
if they were to offer a good per character bonus reward say 10k dil on one of the queued missions each week gained by playing that mission once a day for say 5 of the 7 days with a small added bonus of say 2k dil extra for playing that mission over all 7 days gradually week by week cycling through all of the missions in the queues you would find there would always be at least one of the queued missions that is getting plenty of activity.

this would also encourage players who are unlikely to ever get 1st or 2nd as you would get the reward regardless of your level of competency.

This is something I had not really considered and I agree that it should be to make it appealing to all. But if we take a 5 person mission and give 1st 2nd and 3rd. 3rd can be very small prize. I suspect people that play a couple a day will all place sometimes - especially if it's not a pure dps criteria.

The important thing I'm trying to get across is that it's a terrible idea to make the missions competitive to the point of anger against your team. Rather it's meant to be a neat little thing. Oh I got 3rd place for the first time in such and such mission. That's cool.

personally I would avoid missions that give prizes depending on where you place like the plague sure it must be fun to say "Oh I got 3rd place for the first time in such and such mission. That's cool" but what about the players who say "oh look I took 5th place ... AGAIN!" its never going to be fun for them to know other players are always getting better rewards and they always get diddlysquat.
in fact I would probably never play a queued mission again if this were the case.

ilithyn

Well it's not going to solve my main problem with participating in pugs, hostile and entitled players who think yelling at new comers is acceptable and a good strategy for getting them to come back. Given the mentality most players in pugs display I'm generally not eager to do them and I doubt any kind of reward would change that with the current reigning mentality.
This may be less of a problem with space based pves, but in the ground ones this has got entirely out of hand and I rarely go in as I simply don't have the energy for this amount of bs.

alcyoneserene

Any ideas to make PUGs more fun and worthwhile are fine, especially if they aren't turned into yet another DPS race. The problem is if they're even implemented, they're 1.5 years too late.

Armada rosters are empty, friends list are empty, popular queues take ever longer to pop and contain wild mixtures of OP and totally new players that for whatever reason I'm seeing disconnect/reconnect in greater numbers than ever before. This is a direct observation over the years I've played and not crying doom.

The Breach illustrated beyond a doubt that a single event, even if it isn't popular or as well received as CC or even Mirror Invasion is enough to obliterate PUGs and cause a downward spiral as more get frustrated that it takes so long to get some team play going which after all is the reason it's an MMO and not a 'massively Single Player online game.'

I like PUGs because they have some measure of unpredictability, because I play all my alts, because DPS-or-nothing single style gameplay against predictable NPCs isn't my idea of fun, and because team end-game content is otherwise nowhere to be found.

Keep the suggestions coming, but I doubt any of them will ever be considered given that in the recent podcast the Queues weren't even a priority, and worse, they're considering removing all of them in favor of rotation because the masses apparently are horrified by choice overload and need pampering and spoon feeding or they'll cry and not queue anymore.

It is nice to have all sorts of gear, traits, skills, careers, factions, ships, abilities, fleet facilities, etc., but seeing the end-game teamed gameplay not receive priority is a major disappointment, right next to the amount of time it has taken to fix bugs and improve server stability.

dareau

alcyoneserene wrote: »

Keep the suggestions coming, but I doubt any of them will ever be considered given that in the recent podcast the Queues weren't even a priority, and worse, they're considering removing all of them in favor of rotation because the masses apparently are horrified by choice overload and need pampering and spoon feeding or they'll cry and not queue anymore.

My take was that implementing a "solution" isn't necessarily a priority, especially in light of the fact that the "lead option" right now is, as you claim, "pampering" the playerbase with a massive queue reduction.

However, "coming up" with a solution seems "fairly high" on their lists. Because I think the... issue... isn't that people queue, it's that people queue for the optimal solution to their needs. Take Rommie marks, for example. Isn't it a lot easier to spend a minute or two in CCA for your daily dose over a "dedicated" Romulan queue like Rhinno Station or Elachi alert?

Top it off with those who have "maxxed out" their reps and are just looking for "generic" marks to repeat ad-nauseum to feed the turn-in machines find that rotating ISA or CCA over a pile of alts is much faster than anything else on the market - compounding that Rommie mark issue (those who need Rommie marks to finish off their reputation jump on the CCA bandwagon as that's the popping queue)...

Thusly, and I think it was their "community question" - how can the queue system be "optimized" to get people playing in a larger variety of queues without necessarily resorting to the "rotation thingie"...

nebfab

Apart from CCA not awarding Romulan marks (IIRC...) that's actually a very good point... A new player/alt who most likely wants specific marks is also the least likely to have a good experience in queues right now, so you do anything but queues for them, and if you just need dil and materials short and straightforward queues would be naturally preferred...