Should the available range of DPS across player characters be narrowed for better game balance?

sophlogimo

DPS can vary enormously between players - some barely reach 5000, others easily crack 50.000 and much more. Should this be narrowed down to a range that allows both low-level and high-level DPS characters to contribute in a given queue?

questerius

No, there may be some issues with that, but the devs should work on several other things first.

For the sake of argument, how would you go about putting a cap in place of roughly 50k DPS

Just plain and simply cut the damage of all Mk XIV Epic gear? If that was done, then what incentive would people have to upgrade their gear at all.?

nikeix

Better is better, even when it's not 110% better. Most games find 2-5% all the incentive you need to get players to step up. 110% is ludicrous.

The base damage ramp up on XIII and XIV is just one of MANY places the Devs threw all previous standards out the airlock. The math underlying the [Acc/Dmg] affix is a blunt instrument of power creep.

The game already uses a diminishing returns curve of damage resistance, making the applied mitigation cap out short of 75% even if you have tens of thousands of points of Resistance. The math's already in place to make every point count, but the sum of all points hit whatever value they want for a peak DPS if they mood strikes them. ANd there's a similar story to be told about shield by-pass effects.

There's a lot of facets contributing to the DPS gap and a lot of little tweaks you could do to lessen the impact for those who rely on only part of that house of cards. It's not even a matter of "solving it" being a priority. Most of the solution is self-evident. The priority is finding the will to actually tell your players this need to be done for the good of the game.

thekodanarmada

No, this is not important enough to require developer attention

Counterpoint: release the Mk. XV gear. And allow every character to take a piece of equipment beyond epic to Legendary.

What do you have to fear from more deeps?

sonsofcain

No, this is not important enough to require developer attention

As has been repeatedly demonstrated, hitting a level of DPS that would allow any player contribute in an advanced queue, does not require expensive ships, traits, doffs, or gear. Hell, since 11.5 you could probably get away with not having acces to fleet gear and still hit 40K. All the power creep has done is to further highlight that some players either don't understand how basic ship builds function, or care enough about that aspect of the game to acquire decent gear. Limiting the available amount of damage possible won't change that. Even if they did, the people who take the time to learn about things such as ability activations and synchronization will still continue to outperform those who don't. The fact that some players are still struggling to break 5K with the power creep is proof of that.

A simpler solution would be to allow for greater access to the top tier items (since they aren't mission rewards). Even if we ignore the fact that that that'll never happen, having the same gear doesn't automatically mean you're going to the same results. I've seen people go out and purchase all the best gear, gild said gear, and still not be able to break 25K because they lack the necessary skills or basic understanding of how the game works. Unlike some other well known MMOs, STO draws upon a large fan base who would not consider themselves "gamers" and as such you will continue to have players fail to hit 5K even if other were hitting 500K.

peterconnorfirst

I can’t vote because the answer options are ridiculous. You talk about charcters. Low level characters can participate in easy maps in “normal” mode or ask for friends to be aided in harder settings.

What you want to talk about is achievable DPS between players I believe, right?

Now what you suggest is some sort of hardcap to DPS? Please understand that DPS means Damage Per Second so this figure can’t simply be dismantled. You want to extend the “per second” part by target poor environments that last 30 minutes to play? Sure you can get my 150K cannon build down to 1K; Question remains then if I would actually like to play what I see.

Or is it rather the Damage output itself you like to be hard caped?

That would be a bit problematic because aside from gathering knowledge, learning how to pilot the gear and traits you use is what cryptic sells to ensure them an income and give players something to play/pay for. Neither of those three things will give you good DPS alone. Only the combination of it does.

Now what do you want to be hardcaped or limited there? The players knowledge, their experience in playing STO maps or cryptic’s income?

e30ernest

No, there may be some issues with that, but the devs should work on several other things first.

sonsofcain wrote: »

All the power creep has done is to further highlight that some players either don't understand how basic ship builds function, or care enough about that aspect of the game to acquire decent gear. Limiting the available amount of damage possible won't change that.

I agree with this. The DPS gulf is more an issue of either lack of player knowledge, player indifference or deliberate avoidance than it is a problem of gear. You can get to 40k or higher with mission rewards without spending a single Dil, EC or Zen.

I used to be against the powercreep but after seeing players continue to struggle despite the recent power tsunami, I am now under the assumption that the powercreep was fine. We just need new (Elite) content for the better skilled and geared players.

Besides, powercreep sells and is probably where Cryptic is getting the majority of its income.

dalolorn

Yes! Please make solving this a #1 priority!

coldnapalm wrote: »

Should there be...yes. Games are a LOT easier to design for if you don't have a playerbase with radically different abilities when they play the game. Will there be? No. I get the feeling that this poll is about getting devs to try and fix the pickle they are in with the variance between the good and bad players...but it's WAY too late for that. The various BFAW threads have made me sure of that.

Most likely, all of this is true - even the 'too late' part.

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

I can’t vote because the answer options are ridiculous. You talk about charcters. Low level characters can participate in easy maps in “normal” mode or ask for friends to be aided in harder settings.

What you want to talk about is achievable DPS between players I believe, right?

Now what you suggest is some sort of hardcap to DPS? Please understand that DPS means Damage Per Second so this figure can’t simply be dismantled. You want to extend the “per second” part by target poor environments that last 30 minutes to play? Sure you can get my 150K cannon build down to 1K; Question remains then if I would actually like to play what I see.

Or is it rather the Damage output itself you like to be hard caped?

That would be a bit problematic because aside from gathering knowledge, learning how to pilot the gear and traits you use is what cryptic sells to ensure them an income and give players something to play/pay for. Neither of those three things will give you good DPS alone. Only the combination of it does.

Now what do you want to be hardcaped or limited there? The players knowledge, their experience in playing STO maps or cryptic’s income?

I think nikeix came up with an answer that produced sane results without outright capping damage output.

e30ernest

No, there may be some issues with that, but the devs should work on several other things first.

His solution won't solve the gap between good and bad players. There are players out there who can do 50k with Mk X-XII gear and yet people with the same gear struggle to hit 5k. I could hit 1.5-3k DPS with 1 torp and no BOff abilities or traits in CCA and yet people still struggle to hit 1k with a full complement of weapons, abilities and traits in the same map. I've seen people get lower DPS on a Starship than some of the elite ground players get in the ground.

I'm telling you, it isn't about the gear. A big part of it is the nut behind that Starship's helm.

dalolorn

Yes! Please make solving this a #1 priority!

'A full complement' by most people's standards consists solely of energy weapons. CCA is biased towards torpedo damage.

sunfrancks

Yes! Please make solving this a #1 priority!

Yes, but only because the dps in the game is woefully broken.

Since 11.5, dps has gotten to ridiculous levels..

mustrumridcully0

I think the goal needs to be to fix overpowered abilities and also - just as important - fix underpowered abilities. It's difficult to explain which abilities are the best and how things work well together.

And here are some "pipe dream" level ideas for how to help players get more effetive builds:
1) During levelling, give the player bridge officers that have abilities that fit their chosen ship and career.
2) Mission rewards could be tailored to also fit the career and ship choices.
3) Ship default loadouts should contain reasonable setups for weapons. Maybe there could even be white consoles that the ship comes with pre-equipped with, to give an idea what might be sensible for a ship.


Of course this requires first to identify the "sensible" choices for such builds. Maybe players could get involved with it - they already are, as you can see by all the builds available on reddit or the sto academy skill planner.

Say, maybe ship loadouts could be offered on a "loadout repository", and other players can vote on these loadouts and transfer them into one of their own loadout slots (that would be a monetiziation possibility - since it might cause people to buy extra loadouts). Players would still need to hunt down the requisite gear, but the repository might allow searching for loadouts based on gear available to you.

kavase

No, the game's balance is fine as it is.

I don't understand this at all.

Are you asking for a cap of what a player can do DPS wise?
Are you asking for the queues to sort through players based on DPS?
Are you asking for a revamp or a complete re-balance only from the perspective of DPS?

In any case, none of the above will or probably even can happen realistically speaking.

I'm just going to assume your talking about a revamp on just DPS. The channels in which you achieve your damage output is based on many different factors from many different areas. Another words, you would need change it from so many different angles, it's not enough to cap just equipment.

The reality of it all is, it's waaaaaay too late for anything major in terms of changes in this department. Based on the age of the game in on itself, things have gotten progressively worse balance wise almost the entire life of the game, it's hard to image now they decide to do something about it and doing it without royally annoying the player base.

Best just to accept it and go with it and enjoy it the best way you can.

seaofsorrows

No, the game's balance is fine as it is.

Absolutely not.

Why? Because blanket changes in core game mechanics aren't going to bring substandard players up in level. They are where they are because they're new and still learning (which is fine) or they just don't want to take the time and effort to improve.

The way that you're proposing to 'normalize' things would be to take those at the high end and chop them off at the knees to be more 'equal' to those at the lower end.

What you're essentially asking here is if I would support a change that heavily punishes me to favor those that don't wish to put in the effort.

My answer is not only 'no,' it's 'Hell No!.'

kavase

No, the game's balance is fine as it is.

sophlogimo wrote: »

kavase wrote: »

I don't understand this at all.

Are you asking for a cap of what a player can do DPS wise?
Are you asking for the queues to sort through players based on DPS?
Are you asking for a revamp or a complete re-balance only from the perspective of DPS?

I am asking what you think about reducing the variance, through any means the devs see fit, in dps of all the players in the game, the good, the bad and the beautiful.

Gotcha and now voted.

seaofsorrows wrote: »

My answer is not only 'no,' it's 'Hell No!.'

questerius

No, there may be some issues with that, but the devs should work on several other things first.

Might as well throw in a vote. I do feel the DPS race has gone off the deep end, but a hard cap or slamming the nerf hammer is not the solution either.

Some of the abilities should not stack with one another (which is the cause of the often ridiculous DPS), but the how and why is not an easy puzzle to sort out.

mmps1

Fix the lag before doing anything else.

Besides, space barbie is the real endgame.

e30ernest

No, there may be some issues with that, but the devs should work on several other things first.

What we need are elites with good rewards. People asking for DPS nerfs are doing so from the point of view of advanced.

Maybe cap stats for advanced (similar to how we are capped at Normal) but give us elites where we can go all out.

smokeybacon90

Change the content to require more than just dps.

warpangel

No, the game's balance is fine as it is.

There's nothing wrong with the DPS.

What the game needs is content that is meant for high-performance players. Something that does not get nerfed when the 1-5k crowd cries about it.

It's unbelievable this game has 3 difficulty levels, but fails to manage more than "babymode," "easy" and "maybe sorta medium if you squint."