Lol @hereticknight085, I can't tell if you seriously think the problem is people can't get to 70k DPS. Because it's not!
If the DPS crowd were as skilled and understanding as you claim then they wouldn't be afraid to get into PvP (pre and post DR). Let me tell you, they are. Because PvP is where you test your "skill and understanding" of STO against someone that can adapt to your build. PvE doesn't teach that.
Anything above 25k DPS is quite frankly unnecessary for 5man STFs. The only reason you add more is to show off or to do as little as possible for the rewards without having to think. Seeing as PvE is easy enough that you don't have to think anyway, you see where I'm going.
Balance is necessary for an enjoyable experience. Its not to make it easy for people who can't hit 30k+, it's not for people who don't buy the broken lockbox cheese cryptic dishes out and it's not to eliminate powercreep and cap damage. It's to encourage, teamwork, encourage build variety, skilful play, understanding the game quicker by providing some actual boundaries in what abilities can and can't do.
This will cripple PvPer's build's and damage potential as much as PvE/DPSers but it's for the better.
• It'll vastly improve the game. • It'll bring back some of the PvP community who spent a lot of money on getting the lastest gear to test it. • It'll attract new players who want to play a fulfilling and fun mmo with a very good (balanced) combat system.
I do, I take my PvP t5u defiant build into PvE. It has good spike but very poor DPS. I have a whale of time. Especially when every now and then a DPSer points out how pointless my ship with a DBB, DHCx2 and torp build is compared to their 90k-100k DPS build. I point out that's it not useless, they challenge me to prove it, and boy aren't they surprised when it spanks their scimitar/odissey back to the Bassen Rift.
Also you assume I PvE often, I don't. I'm usually in Ker'rat and PvP queues doing the PvP missions to get the sweet 4320 dilithium for an hour and half's play.
I do, I take my PvP t5u defiant build into PvE. It has good spike but very poor DPS. I have a whale of time. Especially when every now and then a DPSer points out how pointless my ship with a DBB, DHCx2 and torp build is compared to their 90k-100k DPS build.
I point out that's it not useless, they challenge me to prove it, and boy aren't they surprised when it spanks their scimitar/odissey back to the Bassen Rift.
Also you assume I PvE often, I don't. I'm usually in Ker'rat and PvP queues doing the PvP missions to get the sweet 4320 dilithium for an hour and half's play.
Isn't DBB+Torp overkill in the spike department? Especially with the weapon power resist available now and with BO no longer draining extra and the rebalancing of beams and DHCs... Wouldn't single DBB with three DHCs be a better combo?
I'd rather see new content introduced that promotes gameplay styles OTHER than simply having ridiculously high damage output. Power creep is definitely something that should be curtailed, but it means nothing if other gameplay styles serve no purpose. I know CC has some limited use in a few queues, but more often than not whatever the CC can help deal with can just as easily be dealt with using high damage output. And I frequently see people dismiss a tank-style gameplay because "they are useless" but the people who say this are frequently in groups where enemies dissolve in seconds. I'd like to see player damage need to be smarter about its application rather than being able to simply alpha-strike everything. I'd like to see FAW need more intelligent use than an always-on ability. It's not about reducing the absolute maximum potential dps, it's about making it mean something more than just completing ISA in 2 minutes. I don't necessarily want the holy trinity of RPGs to become mandatory, but at the same time I don't want DPS to itself BE the holy trinity of this game.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
I see that once again, this going to become an issue of PvE vs. PvP. I get it, as far as STO is concerned, PvP got the short end of the stick. But blaming the DPS crowd isn't going to get you what you want. Start a petition, rally support for your cause, and make your case to the Devs.
We DID that while we had a community, we got ignored, we had some very frank talks with the devs on these very forums and we achieved nothing, now we have no community because game balance is beyond non-existent so none of the old players are interested and nobody new even wants to consider it and frankly, I don't blame them.
Lol, monster play, let the few PvPers that remain take control of NPCs in STFs, choose the NPC abilities and see what the DPS community makes of the more "elite" content.
I can almost imagine the rage on the forum...
As a pvper I love this idea, can I have the million or so HP these Borg cubes come with as well?
Well howbout, Tier 1, you get access to a full suite abilities, but the HPs are set to "normal" mode type HPs. This will be ELITE.
Then Tier 2, you get access to a full suite of abilities AND all those HPs. We'll call that "super insane crazy more elite than elite" or whatever other tag that fits better.
I think that would be fun to try. Would definitely be an radical PvP adjustment.
This thread just got very interesting to me.
"Super insane crazy more elite than elite" mode is an awesome name and they should totally implement it. The immediate questions this raises though are:
- Do we get to choose our abilities?
-- Do we get a say in the equipment on the ships or is that all pre-set?
-- Do we get access to doff abilities?
- How many weapons do we get? (Remembering that NPCs only get two-four each)
- Do we get our captain skills?
Choose abilities? Yes. I think this is where you can really leverage the challenge. Allowing that type of flexibility so that players need to stay on their toes. And that gets into the heart of the "versus" challenge.
Choose equipment? I'd lean toward pre-set, but make them powerful (I mean hell you're in a Borg tactical CUBE). But even then, maybe offer a choice of pre-sets? This is Monster Play. So some customization can be done?
DOFF abilities seems harder to pull off.
Weapons? Keep it at NPC level. But also, you know, make them hit hard to make it challenging!
Captain Skills? YES!
This is just my opinion. There's definitely a case to be made for yes or no to each question. But wow, this could definitely be a lot of fun. It's got potential to really draw in both the PVE and PVP crowd. You're using the Borg (people love fighting the Borg). You're using maps that are popular. You're upping the challenge.
Sure there's a ton of obstacles and this still might not work. But it's fun to speculate. I dig this.
I agree with choosing abilities, to a great extent I agree with choosing from equipment pre-sets, maybe make it so faction equipment sets (Borg, MACO, Honour guard, etc) are in all of them, same for weapon type.
I'm not sure on doffs myself, I know at least some NPCs use them so perhaps make it so all doff skills are available? (If only in the Borg case) Given that you can only use so many with 12/13 skills anyway.
I'm not sure on weapons now either, I consider one of the problems with NPCs to be that they lack weapons and thus lack pressure damage capability.
And yeah, I thought captain abilities should be available, SNB could be fun and Borg photo fleet mwahahaha.
Ooh! I just had a genius idea toward monetisation, they can sell upgrades in the same way they do for players (new rep passive slots, doff slots, etc) NPC only abilities you can buy like their named officer skills... That'd be cool.
I like that! That would be cool. There are so many different ways this can go you know?
My DBB has Acc3 mod and a bo2 hit with full alpha buff will hit for 60k+ if I time it right and get a critical but against a player using resists it won't do much. It often is enough to get a shield facing down to hopefully squeeze a hy3 quantum through and take out the hull.
My build has no lockbox broken cheese and no immunities with the exception of plasmonic leech to just about cope with the powercreep. I therefore rely heavily on timing for the alphastrike (not vape) and the DHCx2 with CRF2 to add some pressure damage.
@repetitiveepic I'm not happy with the state of STO. Having fun once in a blue moon isn't happiness. I have work twice has hard as other PvPers when I'm in Ker'rat or C&H just to do some damage and hopefully take someone out, but often I don't due to the build I use. And i won't resort to cheese because that doesn't prove how skilled I am. More importantly however, I don't think it's fair that people can get away with the overpowered spacebar-hero builds in PvP and PvE, call it skill and faceroll everyone and NPCs while claiming everyone they loose to or hasn't got similar DPS is a noob.
The current state of STO isn't balanced and therefore unfair to everyone.
I see that once again, this going to become an issue of PvE vs. PvP. I get it, as far as STO is concerned, PvP got the short end of the stick. But blaming the DPS crowd isn't going to get you what you want. Start a petition, rally support for your cause, and make your case to the Devs.
We DID that while we had a community, we got ignored, we had some very frank talks with the devs on these very forums and we achieved nothing, now we have no community because game balance is beyond non-existent so none of the old players are interested and nobody new even wants to consider it and frankly, I don't blame them.
Lol, monster play, let the few PvPers that remain take control of NPCs in STFs, choose the NPC abilities and see what the DPS community makes of the more "elite" content.
I can almost imagine the rage on the forum...
As a pvper I love this idea, can I have the million or so HP these Borg cubes come with as well?
Well howbout, Tier 1, you get access to a full suite abilities, but the HPs are set to "normal" mode type HPs. This will be ELITE.
Then Tier 2, you get access to a full suite of abilities AND all those HPs. We'll call that "super insane crazy more elite than elite" or whatever other tag that fits better.
I think that would be fun to try. Would definitely be an radical PvP adjustment.
This thread just got very interesting to me.
"Super insane crazy more elite than elite" mode is an awesome name and they should totally implement it. The immediate questions this raises though are:
- Do we get to choose our abilities?
-- Do we get a say in the equipment on the ships or is that all pre-set?
-- Do we get access to doff abilities?
- How many weapons do we get? (Remembering that NPCs only get two-four each)
- Do we get our captain skills?
Choose abilities? Yes. I think this is where you can really leverage the challenge. Allowing that type of flexibility so that players need to stay on their toes. And that gets into the heart of the "versus" challenge.
Choose equipment? I'd lean toward pre-set, but make them powerful (I mean hell you're in a Borg tactical CUBE). But even then, maybe offer a choice of pre-sets? This is Monster Play. So some customization can be done?
DOFF abilities seems harder to pull off.
Weapons? Keep it at NPC level. But also, you know, make them hit hard to make it challenging!
Captain Skills? YES!
This is just my opinion. There's definitely a case to be made for yes or no to each question. But wow, this could definitely be a lot of fun. It's got potential to really draw in both the PVE and PVP crowd. You're using the Borg (people love fighting the Borg). You're using maps that are popular. You're upping the challenge.
Sure there's a ton of obstacles and this still might not work. But it's fun to speculate. I dig this.
I agree with choosing abilities, to a great extent I agree with choosing from equipment pre-sets, maybe make it so faction equipment sets (Borg, MACO, Honour guard, etc) are in all of them, same for weapon type.
I'm not sure on doffs myself, I know at least some NPCs use them so perhaps make it so all doff skills are available? (If only in the Borg case) Given that you can only use so many with 12/13 skills anyway.
I'm not sure on weapons now either, I consider one of the problems with NPCs to be that they lack weapons and thus lack pressure damage capability.
And yeah, I thought captain abilities should be available, SNB could be fun and Borg photo fleet mwahahaha.
Ooh! I just had a genius idea toward monetisation, they can sell upgrades in the same way they do for players (new rep passive slots, doff slots, etc) NPC only abilities you can buy like their named officer skills... That'd be cool.
I like that! That would be cool. There are so many different ways this can go you know?
Yeah, it feels sort of like building a pre-S10 science ship for pvp, I miss those days, general ship disruption on a warp core was such fun.
I frequently see people dismiss a tank-style gameplay because "they are useless" but the people who say this are frequently in groups where enemies dissolve in seconds.
It's less that people are frequently in groups that vaporise things in seconds, tanking hasn't been a thing really among STO's above average players since years before the dps league became what we know, this dates back to when escorts were kings of the game and when built right, the escort could not only dish out many times more damage than a cruiser could hope to, it could also tank nearly as well as the cruiser could.
That said, outside dps tanking the cruiser is still outmatched today, an escort built to balance damage, tanking and speed will as a general rule beat the cruiser in endurance but lose in spike. A science ship built for mixed conventional and exotic damage balanced against tanking will beat the cruiser in spike but lose in endurance (in most cases). The one thing the cruiser has going for it in the defensive play department is healing, put extend shields, Aux2SIF and TT on global cooldown and you can turn any player who employs even the basics of survivability (i.e EPtS on global and resist on the skill table) into a tank, which is great in the rare non-pvp cases where a proper tank is needed although chances are another balanced damage/tank would be more useful anyway.
I can't lay blame on any player 'group' for the state STO is in, and has been in, particularly after "the best expansion ever and the players love it."
Foremost I'd postulate it to be economics: the IP license is without question incredibly expensive, combined with whatever royalties PWE expect, on top of server up-keep, bug fixes, game development, etc.
Developers by definition have to create content that sells. To the suits it doesn't matter whether the game is well received by some die-hard fans or niche group and still is somewhat profitable. If other games do better in terms of profit, they'll shut it down for not meeting their expectations and projections, or cut back on development altogether.
I believe Devs are bound by those demands first and foremost even though they can't openly say this for obvious reasons. There's probably only so much content they can propose and produce that's less popular (less profit potential) before someone pulls the plug on it on that basis alone. On top of that, there's only so much that can be produced given the resources they have to work with.
That much I will acknowledge in their favor. As pointed out in another thread, some Devs are also gamers and enthusiasts of the game itself off work hours, and it has been acknowledged that internal testing does exist and isn't completely outsourced to coders themselves, bug hunters, and everyone else's ongoing bug reporting.
Beyond that, I do question many decisions which really tie in with the game's 'health,' some of which are listed here as they relate to the topic:
- Why PvP wasn't either taken seriously, or removed altogether early on. People, myself included, pay and play/grind for content with the hope for making use of it in PvP as well. I PvP other competitive games, and balance is absolutely essential, as is keeping the paid-for content in completely in check so it never feels like, as others coined, a wallet war (pun not intended). It should be obvious that creating content (PvP maps, scoreboards, etc.) only to have its content removed, monetized into absurdity, power-creeped rapidly, and separated from overall gameplay progression (rewards?) serves only to frustrate those who invested a lot into it, or used it as justification for doing the rest of the PvE gameplay. The mostly silent voices on the matter is because they've long moved on to other games where PvP is taken seriously along with game balance.
- Why haven't PvE content incentives been equalized so that the DPS chasers can stick to elite, nightmare more, whatever, and get their big rewards along with the big risks? Why were those maps removed, and why have new ones not been introduced already even if it involves recycling artwork and content but simply in new ways? Where's the PvE End-Game Content to match the endless end-game oriented lockbox sales upon sales of ever more rare and expensive virtual stuff?
- Why have abilities been left bugged and broken for such a long time (eg. kemocite), especially long after their point of sale? This may be relevant to DPSers lagging each other out as much as they do those around them, and possibly escaping into advanced and even normal difficulty pugs turning maps into non-events as everything is obliterated - I'm partly guilty of this myself but back when such help was actually useful to a team of sub-10K who couldn't tank or CC either whereas now it seems skill revamp power-creeped everyone.
- Where's the balance for different career types (ex. tac skills deal more damage to boss while subnuke they're mostly immune to) or ship types (healers and tank nowadays don't seem relevant while a group of tacs can auto-self-heal based on their own damage output)?
Something is definitely seriously wrong with the state of the game, has been since DR, and in my experience of pugging post skill revamp I can't even find interest in it anymore. It should be as much a DPSer's playground as a PvPer, or Science or Engineering captain, or gimmicky clicky strategy, or whatever else is sold or grinded for.
It isn't the players' job either to figure it out for the developers and cause in-fighting and make the game atmosphere less friendly: they sold the powers and brought on mk 14 gold, lockbox stuff, skill revamps, abilities that leech heals from damage dealt, temporary hit points upon ever more invulnerabilities nevermind the overall game pace itself from CD reductions on top of instant speed boosts, it is their responsibility to sort this mess that's already a sold and a done deal. There's no question new stuff was added since DR that amplified everything (Damage output, Tanking, Healing), and in my opinion it was added carelessly and irresponsibly without considering the repercussions and the gaming environment, including the limitations of NPCs and player progression as a MMO. Reporting on it is really all the assistance we can offer.
I am going to quote this for the m- Truth that this is, and for how many times this message has been repeated, yet fell on deaf ears on multiple sides of the balance issue.
But if you're already happy doing your thing, why not let other people be happy doing their thing?
Because I find it hard to be happy when I get commentary like:
"Someone's DPS sucks. Either he leaves the queue or I do because I'm not carrying anyone under 10k DPS" <post in-mission parse>
"Why you in a science ship. You only get DPS out of Escorts / Cruisers"
"Man, this STF is taking too long" <Ragequit>. Time Elapsed: 2 min
<Watching AFKer lambast those who don't have the "DeePS" instead of helping in the combat>
<"mysterious drop" at the formation area because a science ship was seen / too many KDF not enough Scimitards>
As you can see, either "logged" DPS, or the perception of a lack of DPS, combined with a touch of "troll-itis" can ruin someone else's day.
And here's a question for some of the "DPS crowd":
Explain to me how knowledge of the specialized maths, builds, etc., necessary to pull 18k with a Mk X Green loadout when the "average joe / PWE representative (Smirk, anyone?)" can't pull 10k with MK XIV "purples / Golds" is good for the game?
Some of my thoughts as to why this is not good for the game:
1. If the math's "that specialized", perhaps a "condensation" of the factors should be brought into play (ie, no more this is a Cat 1 buff, this is a cat 2 multiplier, whatnot - if it says +X damage it gives +X damage to the same value each time.)
2. If it's positioning / abusing BFaW/CSV by repeatedly striking targets for no "functional" damage, cut the TRIBBLE out. Stop waving your e-wanker around saying "it's this big" when it's only that big because you rack up numbers that don't mean anything to the mission.
3. If it's being nannied, say so. Nice to know when someone's big number is a team effort and not something they can easily replicate in a generic PuG without the specialized nanny gearings.
4. If it requires an "exotic" build - such as $60 or $90 in C-store ship traits, or can't be replicated due to the "removal" of the ship from common acquisition - then don't brag that it can be done by anyone - or make it clear that it requires massive amounts of grind/expenditure
5. Is a lot of this only possible via keybind? Can it be reliably replicated by either spamming of individual hotkeys / mouse clicking? To me, the only difference between a "keybind" and a "third party macro generator bot" is the fact that they bothered to code it into the game...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I think that being good should tied more to that persons skills and less to the gear that they get. So if the all Tier XIV gear gives out the same DPS then it becomes more about how a person flies his ship to get the best shots and using the right abilities at the right time. DPS should not be what defines how good a person is nor should it be a barrier to completing content.
But if you're already happy doing your thing, why not let other people be happy doing their thing?
Because I find it hard to be happy when I get commentary like:
"Someone's DPS sucks. Either he leaves the queue or I do because I'm not carrying anyone under 10k DPS" <post in-mission parse>
"Why you in a science ship. You only get DPS out of Escorts / Cruisers"
"Man, this STF is taking too long" <Ragequit>. Time Elapsed: 2 min
<Watching AFKer lambast those who don't have the "DeePS" instead of helping in the combat>
<"mysterious drop" at the formation area because a science ship was seen / too many KDF not enough Scimitards>
As you can see, either "logged" DPS, or the perception of a lack of DPS, combined with a touch of "troll-itis" can ruin someone else's day.
If someone says any of that jibba jabba, throw them a curveball and tell them you parsed 75k with the same build in Viscous Cycle and that was PRE-11.5! See if they even remember what that map has in it.
Yes, this is somewhat important, but there is one other issue that I would have to be solved first.
The endgame is only about DPS and this sux. A lot of players leave because the game is too simple. There is no challenge. The easiest game is the most efficient. Remember the times when you're having to do anything other than to destroy everything as fast as possible ?
Remember the times when we feared of borg cube (lol) ?
...As you can see, either "logged" DPS, or the perception of a lack of DPS, combined with a touch of "troll-itis" can ruin someone else's day...
This is easily solved: don't PUG. Find a group of like minded-players and form your own private queues. You'll never see another troll again.
The more I think about that solution, the less appealing it becomes. The game should offer me actual choices to just get into a fight, not force me to read 20 webpages on possible channels, most of which are dead or active in the wrong timezone.
Agreed. I'm in a few channels and a large fleet already, and still have trouble getting into most queues.
My DBB has Acc3 mod and a bo2 hit with full alpha buff will hit for 60k+ if I time it right and get a critical but against a player using resists it won't do much. It often is enough to get a shield facing down to hopefully squeeze a hy3 quantum through and take out the hull.
My build has no lockbox broken cheese and no immunities with the exception of plasmonic leech to just about cope with the powercreep. I therefore rely heavily on timing for the alphastrike (not vape) and the DHCx2 with CRF2 to add some pressure damage.
@repetitiveepic I'm not happy with the state of STO. Having fun once in a blue moon isn't happiness.
I have work twice has hard as other PvPers when I'm in Ker'rat or C&H just to do some damage and hopefully take someone out, but often I don't due to the build I use. And i won't resort to cheese because that doesn't prove how skilled I am.
More importantly however, I don't think it's fair that people can get away with the overpowered spacebar-hero builds in PvP and PvE, call it skill and faceroll everyone and NPCs while claiming everyone they loose to or hasn't got similar DPS is a noob.
The current state of STO isn't balanced and therefore unfair to everyone.
Heh, your build's still a few notches above mine. (But a lot closer to what I'd be comfortable with using, I'll grant you that. )
The endgame is only about DPS and this sux. A lot of players leave because the game is too simple. There is no challenge. The easiest game is the most efficient. Remember the times when you're having to do anything other than to destroy everything as fast as possible ?
Remember the times when we feared of borg cube (lol) ?
When was that, the tutorial? (Oh god, the tutorial... on my first run through it, back around F2P, I remember thinking I was playing a completely different game from what it turned out to be, only to be increasingly disappointed as I leveled up...)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
yes! Nerf the game. Make sure no one does more than 5k dps - I mean, I Keep trying to improve my game and I am wasting so much time trying out different combinations - and I was in an ISA the other day where I was THE ONLY Player who did morre than 3k DPS.
Now my solution: remove the mechanics. Everytime you join a PvE you watch an unskippable Video and then you get the message that you have won. No unhappy players anymore. Those over the top hardcore players who spent a lot of time and Money on this game will finally move on and let the new players and occasional players enjoy the game!
18 characters
KDF: 2 tacs, 2 engs, 3 scis
KDF Roms: 3 tacs, 1 eng, 1 scis
FED: 2 tacs, 1 eng, 2 scis
TOS: 1 tac
all on T5 rep (up to temporal)
all have mastered Intel tree (and some more specs Points)
highest DPS: 60.982
But if you're already happy doing your thing, why not let other people be happy doing their thing?
Because I find it hard to be happy when I get commentary like:
"Someone's DPS sucks. Either he leaves the queue or I do because I'm not carrying anyone under 10k DPS" <post in-mission parse>
"Why you in a science ship. You only get DPS out of Escorts / Cruisers"
"Man, this STF is taking too long" <Ragequit>. Time Elapsed: 2 min
<Watching AFKer lambast those who don't have the "DeePS" instead of helping in the combat>
<"mysterious drop" at the formation area because a science ship was seen / too many KDF not enough Scimitards>
As you can see, either "logged" DPS, or the perception of a lack of DPS, combined with a touch of "troll-itis" can ruin someone else's day.
Universal retort: "If your DPS is so low you need to care about other players, you have no business talking about DPS." And then /ignore of course.
But I do think all queues should have the leaver penalty, and that it should be applied account-wide. Because ragequitting in a game this easy just isn't cool.
And here's a question for some of the "DPS crowd":
Explain to me how knowledge of the specialized maths, builds, etc., necessary to pull 18k with a Mk X Green loadout when the "average joe / PWE representative (Smirk, anyone?)" can't pull 10k with MK XIV "purples / Golds" is good for the game?
Because there's gotta be something challenging in the game, and it don't look like it's gonna be the enemies any time soon.
Although I don't rightly know why it is that some people fail to get even 10-20k. There is no "specialized math" involved. Just using weapons, consoles and abilities that match. It would be better if the game provided good information on the subject, though. And a built-in DPS meter.
It would be better if the game provided good information on the subject
It might also help if the in game community was more approachable rather than being shut up in dps channels and dying fleets. I can say with some certainty, if I had no idea what I was doing and my only options for chat were Local and Zone chats I wouldn't want to ask questions about how things work, and even knowing what I'm doing I don't feel any desire to ask people in team chat how things work after an STF run. There was a time when I has giving people advice day in and day out, giving them the basic info needed to develop from barely scratching a target to dealing 5k+ dps (most of which being about orderly builds and power levels) and then leaving them to experiment with ideas on their own.
I also feel now that bad pug runs are worse than they were before.
DPS is not the culprit. Design philosophy is the culprit-the absolute refusal to make NPC's follow the same rules players do, the outright refusal to give the NPC's effective AI, and the complete and utter refusal by development staff to consider game-balance when adding new stuff until three months after the game goes live.
[...]
we're debating the symptom-the disease marches cheerfully along.
I agree with this.
In reply to those who suggest finding like-minded players and fleets cause it's "minimal effort:"
Let me point out that the ones I've supported/continue to support with considerable resources and time over months and even anniversaries have practically zero members online, unlike before, and these are either fully finished fleets or near-finished, on both Fed and KDF sides. Entire armadas with perhaps 2 or 3 members online. I'm in Eastern Standard Time which is a peak-point of activity, and I make endless STF calls across different channels, and very rarely does one or two join. Large friends lists with no one online anymore.
It is my current objective to find those active like-minded players and hope they have active STF channels to join where alts and mains are welcome without DPS requirements (I'm already part of DPS channels) or catering towards certain playstyles in addition to finding members to add to the armada fleets.
No, this is not important enough to require developer attention
Walls and walls of text, and all I keep reading is excuse after excuse. If you have "too much" dps, you can simply change your build to lower it and its not an issue. The real issue is simple old fashioned jealousy. Jealousy of high dps players is nothing new, and has been seen for years in many a game.
The fact that some people seem to have either no willpower of their own to "downgrade" the damage they have (if thats an issue), or cannot be bothered to muster enough effort to make a decent ship build in the first place is not the game at fault.
And the whole "casual vs hardcore" is a total red-herring, as is the "steam roll the ai" debate. Its simply designed to obfuscate the truth of the matter, which is some people just play badly and want to handicap other players.
And no i am not a high dps'er. I am just honest enough to admit its not actually a problem.
Comments
If the DPS crowd were as skilled and understanding as you claim then they wouldn't be afraid to get into PvP (pre and post DR). Let me tell you, they are.
Because PvP is where you test your "skill and understanding" of STO against someone that can adapt to your build. PvE doesn't teach that.
Anything above 25k DPS is quite frankly unnecessary for 5man STFs. The only reason you add more is to show off or to do as little as possible for the rewards without having to think. Seeing as PvE is easy enough that you don't have to think anyway, you see where I'm going.
Balance is necessary for an enjoyable experience.
Its not to make it easy for people who can't hit 30k+, it's not for people who don't buy the broken lockbox cheese cryptic dishes out and it's not to eliminate powercreep and cap damage. It's to encourage, teamwork, encourage build variety, skilful play, understanding the game quicker by providing some actual boundaries in what abilities can and can't do.
This will cripple PvPer's build's and damage potential as much as PvE/DPSers but it's for the better.
• It'll vastly improve the game.
• It'll bring back some of the PvP community who spent a lot of money on getting the lastest gear to test it.
• It'll attract new players who want to play a fulfilling and fun mmo with a very good (balanced) combat system.
I point out that's it not useless, they challenge me to prove it, and boy aren't they surprised when it spanks their scimitar/odissey back to the Bassen Rift.
Also you assume I PvE often, I don't. I'm usually in Ker'rat and PvP queues doing the PvP missions to get the sweet 4320 dilithium for an hour and half's play.
Isn't DBB+Torp overkill in the spike department? Especially with the weapon power resist available now and with BO no longer draining extra and the rebalancing of beams and DHCs... Wouldn't single DBB with three DHCs be a better combo?
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
I like that! That would be cool. There are so many different ways this can go you know?
My build has no lockbox broken cheese and no immunities with the exception of plasmonic leech to just about cope with the powercreep. I therefore rely heavily on timing for the alphastrike (not vape) and the DHCx2 with CRF2 to add some pressure damage.
@repetitiveepic I'm not happy with the state of STO. Having fun once in a blue moon isn't happiness.
I have work twice has hard as other PvPers when I'm in Ker'rat or C&H just to do some damage and hopefully take someone out, but often I don't due to the build I use. And i won't resort to cheese because that doesn't prove how skilled I am.
More importantly however, I don't think it's fair that people can get away with the overpowered spacebar-hero builds in PvP and PvE, call it skill and faceroll everyone and NPCs while claiming everyone they loose to or hasn't got similar DPS is a noob.
The current state of STO isn't balanced and therefore unfair to everyone.
Yeah, it feels sort of like building a pre-S10 science ship for pvp, I miss those days, general ship disruption on a warp core was such fun.
It's less that people are frequently in groups that vaporise things in seconds, tanking hasn't been a thing really among STO's above average players since years before the dps league became what we know, this dates back to when escorts were kings of the game and when built right, the escort could not only dish out many times more damage than a cruiser could hope to, it could also tank nearly as well as the cruiser could.
That said, outside dps tanking the cruiser is still outmatched today, an escort built to balance damage, tanking and speed will as a general rule beat the cruiser in endurance but lose in spike. A science ship built for mixed conventional and exotic damage balanced against tanking will beat the cruiser in spike but lose in endurance (in most cases). The one thing the cruiser has going for it in the defensive play department is healing, put extend shields, Aux2SIF and TT on global cooldown and you can turn any player who employs even the basics of survivability (i.e EPtS on global and resist on the skill table) into a tank, which is great in the rare non-pvp cases where a proper tank is needed although chances are another balanced damage/tank would be more useful anyway.
I am going to quote this for the m- Truth that this is, and for how many times this message has been repeated, yet fell on deaf ears on multiple sides of the balance issue.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Because I find it hard to be happy when I get commentary like:
"Someone's DPS sucks. Either he leaves the queue or I do because I'm not carrying anyone under 10k DPS" <post in-mission parse>
"Why you in a science ship. You only get DPS out of Escorts / Cruisers"
"Man, this STF is taking too long" <Ragequit>. Time Elapsed: 2 min
<Watching AFKer lambast those who don't have the "DeePS" instead of helping in the combat>
<"mysterious drop" at the formation area because a science ship was seen / too many KDF not enough Scimitards>
As you can see, either "logged" DPS, or the perception of a lack of DPS, combined with a touch of "troll-itis" can ruin someone else's day.
And here's a question for some of the "DPS crowd":
Explain to me how knowledge of the specialized maths, builds, etc., necessary to pull 18k with a Mk X Green loadout when the "average joe / PWE representative (Smirk, anyone?)" can't pull 10k with MK XIV "purples / Golds" is good for the game?
Some of my thoughts as to why this is not good for the game:
1. If the math's "that specialized", perhaps a "condensation" of the factors should be brought into play (ie, no more this is a Cat 1 buff, this is a cat 2 multiplier, whatnot - if it says +X damage it gives +X damage to the same value each time.)
2. If it's positioning / abusing BFaW/CSV by repeatedly striking targets for no "functional" damage, cut the TRIBBLE out. Stop waving your e-wanker around saying "it's this big" when it's only that big because you rack up numbers that don't mean anything to the mission.
3. If it's being nannied, say so. Nice to know when someone's big number is a team effort and not something they can easily replicate in a generic PuG without the specialized nanny gearings.
4. If it requires an "exotic" build - such as $60 or $90 in C-store ship traits, or can't be replicated due to the "removal" of the ship from common acquisition - then don't brag that it can be done by anyone - or make it clear that it requires massive amounts of grind/expenditure
5. Is a lot of this only possible via keybind? Can it be reliably replicated by either spamming of individual hotkeys / mouse clicking? To me, the only difference between a "keybind" and a "third party macro generator bot" is the fact that they bothered to code it into the game...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
^ This is my approach, and life is great. Best advice so far in this thread.
If someone says any of that jibba jabba, throw them a curveball and tell them you parsed 75k with the same build in Viscous Cycle and that was PRE-11.5! See if they even remember what that map has in it.
Remember the times when we feared of borg cube (lol) ?
Agreed. I'm in a few channels and a large fleet already, and still have trouble getting into most queues.
Heh, your build's still a few notches above mine. (But a lot closer to what I'd be comfortable with using, I'll grant you that.
When was that, the tutorial? (Oh god, the tutorial... on my first run through it, back around F2P, I remember thinking I was playing a completely different game from what it turned out to be, only to be increasingly disappointed as I leveled up...)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Now my solution: remove the mechanics. Everytime you join a PvE you watch an unskippable Video and then you get the message that you have won. No unhappy players anymore. Those over the top hardcore players who spent a lot of time and Money on this game will finally move on and let the new players and occasional players enjoy the game!
KDF: 2 tacs, 2 engs, 3 scis
KDF Roms: 3 tacs, 1 eng, 1 scis
FED: 2 tacs, 1 eng, 2 scis
TOS: 1 tac
all on T5 rep (up to temporal)
all have mastered Intel tree (and some more specs Points)
highest DPS: 60.982
But I do think all queues should have the leaver penalty, and that it should be applied account-wide. Because ragequitting in a game this easy just isn't cool.
Because there's gotta be something challenging in the game, and it don't look like it's gonna be the enemies any time soon.
Although I don't rightly know why it is that some people fail to get even 10-20k. There is no "specialized math" involved. Just using weapons, consoles and abilities that match. It would be better if the game provided good information on the subject, though. And a built-in DPS meter.
It might also help if the in game community was more approachable rather than being shut up in dps channels and dying fleets. I can say with some certainty, if I had no idea what I was doing and my only options for chat were Local and Zone chats I wouldn't want to ask questions about how things work, and even knowing what I'm doing I don't feel any desire to ask people in team chat how things work after an STF run. There was a time when I has giving people advice day in and day out, giving them the basic info needed to develop from barely scratching a target to dealing 5k+ dps (most of which being about orderly builds and power levels) and then leaving them to experiment with ideas on their own.
I also feel now that bad pug runs are worse than they were before.
I agree with this.
In reply to those who suggest finding like-minded players and fleets cause it's "minimal effort:"
Let me point out that the ones I've supported/continue to support with considerable resources and time over months and even anniversaries have practically zero members online, unlike before, and these are either fully finished fleets or near-finished, on both Fed and KDF sides. Entire armadas with perhaps 2 or 3 members online. I'm in Eastern Standard Time which is a peak-point of activity, and I make endless STF calls across different channels, and very rarely does one or two join. Large friends lists with no one online anymore.
It is my current objective to find those active like-minded players and hope they have active STF channels to join where alts and mains are welcome without DPS requirements (I'm already part of DPS channels) or catering towards certain playstyles in addition to finding members to add to the armada fleets.
The fact that some people seem to have either no willpower of their own to "downgrade" the damage they have (if thats an issue), or cannot be bothered to muster enough effort to make a decent ship build in the first place is not the game at fault.
And the whole "casual vs hardcore" is a total red-herring, as is the "steam roll the ai" debate. Its simply designed to obfuscate the truth of the matter, which is some people just play badly and want to handicap other players.
And no i am not a high dps'er. I am just honest enough to admit its not actually a problem.