They will adapt yes, but that's part of the fun isn't it?
Yes! It really is a big part of the fun. I think you're on the right track. I fear my personal bias may play a part in your suggestion. I've played a tank in some for or another in every MMO I've ever done. Like at this point it's mostly just habit. (I was actually kind of surprised when I took a step back and looked at my actual playstyle in STO and it turned out that, true to form, flying a cruiser type ship with survival BOFF skills has been my most comfortable build and ship choice since day 1, and it was a total facepalm moment, I was like, DUH!)
But I think in STO, since adding survivability is possible without sacrificing DPS too much, that's where I think your ideas really start to show they can work with the game. And your HSE example pretty much drives that home for me.
I really need yours help. I have problem with my moving on the Ground scenarios. I playing on my notebook Lenovo G50-70 more then 2 and half years. Evertyhing was O.K., before season 11.5. Now in a groung mission my charakter in "B" mode going only forward. I have still click on button "Ctrl", if I want turn not only with camera look, but with my charakter move. Anytime, when I do not running and I stoped, I must have one my finger on Touchpad (for move), with another my finger click on Ctrl, and after I could moving with my charakter for look around, see enemies, could shooting and moving on ground. But if I stop run (moving), after I must doing everything again. What is wrong with Options?! I'am absolutly powerless and tired from that problem. Thank you, for any resolution and answer. Sincerelly, author and writer Victoria Kanakaredes.
No, this is not important enough to require developer attention
So let's say we gave NPCs the ability to Sci spam, or whatever enhancements are deemed necessary. Who is this really hurting? Not the high DPS crowd. Replace BIC with SRF. Instead of slotting 5 offensive active traits, slot two as AHH, Aux-Defense, or Energy Refreq. They can drop IPttM for Invicible. Or Sub-Warp Sheath for Desperate Repairs. To take it to the extreme, they could do all of this and then some and still sit atop to DPS mountain. But what about the lower tier players. They're probably already running mostly defensive traits. They've probably got a couple Neutroniums and a field Gen or two. What are they going to drop to survive. Or perhaps the better question is what can they afford to drop in order to actually be able to take down these improved NPCs?
No, this is not important enough to require developer attention
A more likely scenario is that more players would make allowances for slotting some sort of CC abilities like GW. The only way the 10% rule would make a comeback is if the the transformers got another boost to their HP, which seems to be idea that most would not advocate for.
Whats the title of his poll/thread? You are complaing about the variance between high and low dps, not the NPC's not adapting (even if the NPC's adapted, there would still he a wide variance, guys that know how to do high damage would still do high damage, low guys would stay low).
The wide variance has been wide for quite some time now (years), therefore, to your statement about Cryptic to sit "4-6 weeks" and wait for complainers to adapt, you arent following your own train of thought, its been more than 4-6 weeks since this "issue" arose, time for you to adapt to it (and stop complaining), find a way to increase your own capabilites, live by your own example.
The 10% rule isnt needed if one or two players have a good grav well to hold the spheres in place, and thats only once possibility to avoid needing a "10% rule".
High DPS players are high DPS players for a reason- they learn, adapt and understand how to play the game and implement those things and incorporate what they learnt into their builds.
Low DPS players (not all low end DPS players btw) are the polar opposite,
So capping dmg because the better player excels and the bad player doesn't, so the bad player doesn't feel as bad, is not the answer. The bad player needs to do what the good player did and learn and understand how the game works. Isn't that the goal of Federation Humanity to better one self
Indeed... all justified too and I will say why.
People who complain about the gap and difference of player strength fail to realize that even if you narrow that gap it will still always exist, and people (by mental processing) will always notice that gap and find inefficiencies in their own character builds. You could narrow the damage range to 500-2000 and people would still pay attention to it... and complain.
Where am I going with this? Well, I am not telling you to lie down flat on your back like a submissive dog and accept everything. However, I want people who complain and find damage such a major issue to come more to terms with the fact that a gap will always exist in this type of game with this type of game design. In this game damage will always be a determining factor in how you generally perform and that will not change. You can either live with it or you can find a different game that has nothing to do with damage as performance (like Tetris or Snake).
So as mean as this may sound... yes. To anyone reading, "get good" or perhaps find something else that is more tailored to your idea of gaming.
Indeed... all justified too and I will say why.
People who complain about the gap and difference of player strength fail to realize that even if you narrow that gap it will still always exist, and people (by mental processing) will always notice that gap and find inefficiencies in their own character builds. You could narrow the damage range to 500-2000 and people would still pay attention to it... and complain.
Where am I going with this? Well, I am not telling you to lie down flat on your back like a submissive dog and accept everything. However, I want people who complain and find damage such a major issue to come more to terms with the fact that a gap will always exist in this type of game with this type of game design. In this game damage will always be a determining factor in how you generally perform and that will not change. You can either live with it or you can find a different game that has nothing to do with damage as performance (like Tetris or Snake).
So as mean as this may sound... yes. To anyone reading, "get good" or perhaps find something else that is more tailored to your idea of gaming.
There's a world of difference when the "scaling" is within 10% to 20% of each other ("base" of 10k, 11k = Advanced, 12k = elite), and when the scaling is on the order of 1,000% or even 10,000%. (Grav well "listed" to do 1.8k, pops off a 18k hit, that's a 1,000% bigger whack). Going from 10k to 100k is 10,000%...
Like some of these "legitimate" 100k builds (you know, the "real" DPSers and not the "I got nannied so I can haz me a big e-peen" peeps) that claim AHoD and Reciprocity are "necessary" traits to their build - that's $60 and/or months of grinding that I don't have. Same with Kemocite I... Perhaps to the level that I might be... dissuaded... from playing "competitive" STO (Read: participating in Queues & Events) because of a distinct "Pay(Grind) 2 Win" feel and the onslaught of... negative commentary... on how my "usually" 13k sustained DPS on a big target build is "fail" for Advanced content...
(and for those who see me parse at like 6k, yeah, I know that I'd be a lot closer to that 13k if I did silly things like stay around the transformer instead of heading over to GW a Nanite Train and then get killed / run to shed aggro or elect to "neglect" some aspect of my build to get higher engine power...)
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]
A "gap" is acceptable a canyon isn't, as pointed out by @dareau.
As a side note, my PvP build for my t5u defiant clocks about 10-15k on ISA, last time I checked. No cheese, no gimmicks, no kemocite, FAW or sprd3. The plasmonic leech is the only lockbox console it has but I also carry the cloak console so I don't get a massive benefit from the leech. However it can demolish the tac cube on its own, the gate and out-tank some cruisers out there. In PvP land, however, there is a big trade off. My build lacks the ability to 1shot people or overpower other escorts and this leads to very hairy situations that 'I myself' have to work around and compensate for.
But with the "canyon" created by the imbalanced state of powercreep equipment combined with abilities/traits/immunities that haven't been balanced tested there isn't a trade off, there's no consequence for putting everything into maximum DPS. It's why PvP is inhospitable and PvE boring.
There's no strategy and involved in STO now. That is the problem.
I am puzzled by the replies and the result so far (which, at this point, show more "No" than "Yes" votes).
So people honestly believe that blasting through a mission within a few minutes is a fun game experience? Or that the devs should create more Elite queues that then nobody (especially not the top DPSers) queues up for?
While i agree that power creep has gone off the charts, really look at e30 ernest's post, better/more elite content for top geared dps players.
Nerfs aren't needed, they especially need to keep their gruby hands off of sci from now on, more content for those top lvl players is better than nerfs.
Taking things away from players in your video game is almost always a very very bad idea.
No cheese, no gimmicks, no kemocite, FAW or sprd3 . . . . The plasmonic leech is the only lockbox console it has but I also carry the cloak console so I don't get a massive benefit from the leech.
So let me get this straight. You've essentially given the PvP stamp-of-approval for running the absolute best console in the game, save for torp builds, but everything else is a gimmick?
There's a world of difference when the "scaling" is within 10% to 20% of each other ("base" of 10k, 11k = Advanced, 12k = elite), and when the scaling is on the order of 1,000% or even 10,000%. (Grav well "listed" to do 1.8k, pops off a 18k hit, that's a 1,000% bigger whack). Going from 10k to 100k is 10,000%...
Like some of these "legitimate" 100k builds (you know, the "real" DPSers and not the "I got nannied so I can haz me a big e-peen" peeps) that claim AHoD and Reciprocity are "necessary" traits to their build - that's $60 and/or months of grinding that I don't have. Same with Kemocite I... Perhaps to the level that I might be... dissuaded... from playing "competitive" STO (Read: participating in Queues & Events) because of a distinct "Pay(Grind) 2 Win" feel and the onslaught of... negative commentary... on how my "usually" 13k sustained DPS on a big target build is "fail" for Advanced content...
(and for those who see me parse at like 6k, yeah, I know that I'd be a lot closer to that 13k if I did silly things like stay around the transformer instead of heading over to GW a Nanite Train and then get killed / run to shed aggro or elect to "neglect" some aspect of my build to get higher engine power...)
And I will say it again. The definition of world's apart, large and small are irrelevant. The difference is always there. People will always notice that difference and find that their builds are not always up to par with other builds. People will always see the advantage in other builds and disadvantage in their own builds... and they will always ask for fair play. A more narrow gap is not fair play. Fair play is when everyone has the same number of chess pieces and equal number and equal size of grids to traverse.
And that $60 dollar may be why they might have a stronger character/ship than you. They just invested more time, effort, learning, research and money into their gaming. You said it yourself, you do not have time for it... and by all means then do not force yourself to playing the game and putting effort and resources into the game that you do not feel comfortable with. At the same time, do not ask the players who actually do that to play and invest in this game at the same level as you. I am not saying that their level is higher and yours is lower. Your levels of gaming are just different and perhaps just respect and accept that.
It is like going to the gym and seeing all the fit and strong looking men and women in there, and realizing that you yourself do not have the time, energy, resources and knowledge to do what they do... so instead you want to force the gym to reduce the amount of weights, limit how they can exercise and limit the number of hours they can exercise so that everyone is on equal platform.
You are missing the point. If everybody gets good, the problem becomes worse.
Do you even see the flawed idea there? Narrowing the gap or even removing the gap entirely (if it were possible) would practically make everyone "good" as you point it out. At least on a mechanical level as far as equipment, traits and abilities goes etc. Right now we have a variety of builds and distinct differences (even if some builds are more favored than others) because the gap is as wide as it is.
I am mostly shrugging at these threads and I will tell you why. Despite the few exceptions I have yet to see somebody from this DPS minority to really speak up about these issues. Yeah, they may not want to indiscriminate themselves but the point is. So far it's just one perspective and I consider this level of feedback perhaps a bit entitled and spoiled. It's not wrong and it's not stupid. Is it constructive criticism? Sometimes and sometimes not, but more often I personally see it more as plain complaining and whining than good arguments. Some of the things to get more "DPS"... and yes that is what we are talking about now, is not so difficult to achieve. I have posted some very decent and easy-to-get builds that I think can do more than people perhaps initially thought or expected. It just takes one to get off one's butt.
I see players post here asking for advice and help, and do you know why? It is because they acknowledge that they may not have enough knowledge to achieve a better build with the least resources invested, so instead they turn to the forums because they have are hungry for that knowledge. They want to learn and they did so because they got off their butts. If they have more questions they return. If they want things faster than what their time allows they may spend some money. Whatever they did and whichever way they chose to walk they nonetheless took that extra step and that is all what may be needed.
When I see players not being able to destroy things as fast and as efficient as I do... I do not care. I may giggle but it is not to make fun of them. It is because I know I was there once and to see how far I have pushed my own interest in this game to this level and see these results is rewarding. I don't complain or whine because these low DPS players are allowed to play that way and they are allowed to learn. Everyone has been there and everyone will be there. In the same way I hope that people will allow me to play the way I want in the way the game allows without complaining that I have learned too much, invested too much effort, time and knowledge, and spent too much money in this game. That's like a big slap in the face and I find it disrespectful and a lack of humility.
If you find that some members of the DPS community disrespect your way and your level of gaming then you should do what you would do in real life. You tell them to treat you the way they want to be treated. You tell them to back off in a civil way and accept that you are where you are because you are either learning or because you just want to be there and like it. Or you just ignore their comments altogether. I honestly don't even read the chat and parsing info that some people may post. I think people would feel so much more healthy playing STO if they just ignored the bad things that people say and just play the game the way they want, and didn't pay so much attention to all the differences in builds.
@sonsofcain Seeing as everyone either carries a plasmonic leech or uses immunities and zhal and I don't, the leech barely factors into it as I'm a console down anyway because of the cloak console (t5u defiant). Not only that everyone uses CritD/Pen weapons with EPtW2/3 or A2B and I still use an Accx3 DBB and 2 fleet DHCs. I'm not even going to mention the sci spam that's regularly thrown around in PvP that makes my build useless.
I am puzzled by the replies and the result so far (which, at this point, show more "No" than "Yes" votes).
So people honestly believe that blasting through a mission within a few minutes is a fun game experience? Or that the devs should create more Elite queues that then nobody (especially not the top DPSers) queues up for?
While i agree that power creep has gone off the charts, really look at e30 ernest's post, better/more elite content for top geared dps players.
Nerfs aren't needed, they especially need to keep their gruby hands off of sci from now on, more content for those top lvl players is better than nerfs.
Taking things away from players in your video game is almost always a very very bad idea.
"Narrowing the gap" could have been done in different ways, "taking away" would just be one of them. Another one could be, for instance, a console or set that is easy to get and makes anyone who equips it get to a minimum of X dps (say, 20k) without increasing anyone'd dps who is beyond that minimum, and then plan the missions with that minimum X in mind.
But the poll has shot that general notion down. As there apparently has been another vote that sais "we can only talk about this is in this thread", we have shifted to finding other solutions for that problem, preferably solutions that give everyone what they want.
I believe a battle value (BV) system, driven by data of past performance of that player character with that ship, could do that. Players get a BV computed, the total BV of the team is calculated, then compared to the map's BV difficulty, and the rewards uon completion are then assigned according to that relation.
While i understand what your trying to get at here, A) The console you mention will never happen unless Cryptic can sell it for profit on the Z-store. A battle value system,? you honestly feel that with all the stability and bug issues in this game that Cryptic is even remotely capable of patching such a system without it being a trainwreck.?
A week or two ago, I was in a pugged HOSA. Most members of the team were not good, which became clear after about a minute of fighting the queensguard fleet. So one captain left. With four people, it became really tough and intense, yet we kept our nerves and finally succeeded - and I was happy that my Jupiter class fleet carrier did not explode a single time. It was tough, it really felt like a battle whose outcome was far from certain (because it was), and that was fun.
This ... this is almost a completely different issue. If this is what you find to be fun, nothing in this thread really will help you find more of that. What you're looking for, however, can be achieved. In fact it can be achieved in the queues right now. Or with friends and fleetmates. What you need is an ALTS-only queue. You're looking to fly with undergeared alts.
This makes a lot more sense. And is something I really think you could and/or should start a channel and even a forum movement to capitalize on.
Many people have undergeared alts. And many people have some issues about what to do with them. Because by the very nature of them being undergeared alts, they don't put the same amount of time into the gear/build/performance. You run into theme builds more. You definitely run into lower DPS, and people flying builds/ship combinations that aren't powered by muscle memory.
I ran an ISA last night on my romulan in a pilot warbird. We failed both optionals. I didn't parse it, but the DPS for everyone was strange and had to be poor overall. The weird thing about it was, there was coordination of a sort. The spheres were kept away from the transformer. And people even seemed to be working under the 10% rule to an extent.
But in the second transformer, some spheres leaked through. And because the damage was split between spheres and the objectives, we failed the second optional by about 10 seconds.
Still the way this fight went, you would have loved it. It was intense. From go.
If that's what you're looking for, then BV and adjusting the NPCs and all of that, won't get you the action you crave. You need to fly with people in less optimized setups. And that's out there already. There are a ton of people running with undergeared alts. I think if you were to work with some people to set up a channel like Star Trek Battles, but for undergeared alts, you might find more instances of the kind of intense crazy fights you crave. You're looking to fly in bad PUGs to up your action and intensity. And that's out there. Less so after 11.5 unfortunately. But it is out there. In fact much of what you're pushing forward in this thread is likely to have the opposite effect as it further differentiates players based on DPS metrics and you're trying to tap into the much more chaotic randomness of PUGging.
One of the reasons many of us still PUG frequently is because you get those random few where everything goes wrong. And that can be very very fun.
Sure they could. It is a relatively simple concept that has no direct interactions with other parts of the game other than taking data from them as input.
You also however do have to consider the impact that adding several sets of additional calculations to each queue would have, remember that to carry out these calculations correctly the server may be required to handle the data in a different manner to satisfy it's own logic protocols than you or I would if applying this to a tabletop game.
The next hurdle to implementation would be to consider how many alterations to the code would be required - remember it may not be as simple to implement as just adding an instruction to "handicap" each player, this could in theory run to several hundred lines of code which would need altered, debugged and corrected before it even was ready to test. You would then have to consider where the data was held, I doubt that there would be sufficient physical RAM to hold the required data for each player and to maintain other game functions so we would be looking at virtual RAM which introduces a whole plethora of IO requests to the hard drive.
Whilst not dismissing the idea, I would caution that stating that there would be no direct interactions with other parts of the game does not equate to will not have an impact on them. The additional calculations and IO interactions would undoubtedly have some impact in terms of CPU time and drive access which would affect other parts of the game - remember that unlike a tabletop game where you have the luxury of making your calculations before each turn for example, the server has to do everything almost simultaneously.
Can someone relieve me of holding a gun to all these players heads? I need to pee.. seriously folks, if you have issues with Bob doing 40K dps more than Dave... you need to walk away
There's a world of difference when the "scaling" is within 10% to 20% of each other ("base" of 10k, 11k = Advanced, 12k = elite), and when the scaling is on the order of 1,000% or even 10,000%. (Grav well "listed" to do 1.8k, pops off a 18k hit, that's a 1,000% bigger whack). Going from 10k to 100k is 10,000%...
Like some of these "legitimate" 100k builds (you know, the "real" DPSers and not the "I got nannied so I can haz me a big e-peen" peeps) that claim AHoD and Reciprocity are "necessary" traits to their build - that's $60 and/or months of grinding that I don't have. Same with Kemocite I... Perhaps to the level that I might be... dissuaded... from playing "competitive" STO (Read: participating in Queues & Events) because of a distinct "Pay(Grind) 2 Win" feel and the onslaught of... negative commentary... on how my "usually" 13k sustained DPS on a big target build is "fail" for Advanced content...
(and for those who see me parse at like 6k, yeah, I know that I'd be a lot closer to that 13k if I did silly things like stay around the transformer instead of heading over to GW a Nanite Train and then get killed / run to shed aggro or elect to "neglect" some aspect of my build to get higher engine power...)
And I will say it again. The definition of world's apart, large and small are irrelevant. The difference is always there. People will always notice that difference and find that their builds are not always up to par with other builds. People will always see the advantage in other builds and disadvantage in their own builds... and they will always ask for fair play. A more narrow gap is not fair play. Fair play is when everyone has the same number of chess pieces and equal number and equal size of grids to traverse.
And that $60 dollar may be why they might have a stronger character/ship than you. They just invested more time, effort, learning, research and money into their gaming. You said it yourself, you do not have time for it... and by all means then do not force yourself to playing the game and putting effort and resources into the game that you do not feel comfortable with. At the same time, do not ask the players who actually do that to play and invest in this game at the same level as you. I am not saying that their level is higher and yours is lower. Your levels of gaming are just different and perhaps just respect and accept that.
It is like going to the gym and seeing all the fit and strong looking men and women in there, and realizing that you yourself do not have the time, energy, resources and knowledge to do what they do... so instead you want to force the gym to reduce the amount of weights, limit how they can exercise and limit the number of hours they can exercise so that everyone is on equal platform.
You are missing the point. If everybody gets good, the problem becomes worse.
Do you even see the flawed idea there? Narrowing the gap or even removing the gap entirely (if it were possible) would practically make everyone "good" as you point it out. At least on a mechanical level as far as equipment, traits and abilities goes etc. Right now we have a variety of builds and distinct differences (even if some builds are more favored than others) because the gap is as wide as it is.
I am mostly shrugging at these threads and I will tell you why. Despite the few exceptions I have yet to see somebody from this DPS minority to really speak up about these issues. Yeah, they may not want to indiscriminate themselves but the point is. So far it's just one perspective and I consider this level of feedback perhaps a bit entitled and spoiled. It's not wrong and it's not stupid. Is it constructive criticism? Sometimes and sometimes not, but more often I personally see it more as plain complaining and whining than good arguments. Some of the things to get more "DPS"... and yes that is what we are talking about now, is not so difficult to achieve. I have posted some very decent and easy-to-get builds that I think can do more than people perhaps initially thought or expected. It just takes one to get off one's butt.
I see players post here asking for advice and help, and do you know why? It is because they acknowledge that they may not have enough knowledge to achieve a better build with the least resources invested, so instead they turn to the forums because they have are hungry for that knowledge. They want to learn and they did so because they got off their butts. If they have more questions they return. If they want things faster than what their time allows they may spend some money. Whatever they did and whichever way they chose to walk they nonetheless took that extra step and that is all what may be needed.
When I see players not being able to destroy things as fast and as efficient as I do... I do not care. I may giggle but it is not to make fun of them. It is because I know I was there once and to see how far I have pushed my own interest in this game to this level and see these results is rewarding. I don't complain or whine because these low DPS players are allowed to play that way and they are allowed to learn. Everyone has been there and everyone will be there. In the same way I hope that people will allow me to play the way I want in the way the game allows without complaining that I have learned too much, invested too much effort, time and knowledge, and spent too much money in this game. That's like a big slap in the face and I find it disrespectful and a lack of humility.
If you find that some members of the DPS community disrespect your way and your level of gaming then you should do what you would do in real life. You tell them to treat you the way they want to be treated. You tell them to back off in a civil way and accept that you are where you are because you are either learning or because you just want to be there and like it. Or you just ignore their comments altogether. I honestly don't even read the chat and parsing info that some people may post. I think people would feel so much more healthy playing STO if they just ignored the bad things that people say and just play the game the way they want, and didn't pay so much attention to all the differences in builds.
To respond to the commentary aimed at me:
1. "Game vs Gym" is a flawed comparison. A game should be "reasonably" fun for as many people as theoretically possible to choose to play, while Gym - and by extension exercise, is an activity that should be performed by everyone in one, way, shape, or form for health benefits, despite the "fun" factor they may find in it...
2. Same commentary about "PuGging vs Premade" applies to "e-peeners" as well, especially if their "intent" is to drop or AFK at the first sign of "unfavorable conditions"...
Now, to the "remaining" commentary - which is obviously directed more at the heart of this thread:
I'll ask one simple question:
How is "play the way you want to play" supported with "look into the forums to the specific build(s) listed, find the one that best fits your playstyle and budgets (time or financial), and use it - nothing else"?
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]
And now imagine you had a way to reliably produce such experiences whenever you feel like it. Let us call that way... Elite queues?
Now, for that, a Battle Value system would be quite useful. "Normal" for the people who want to effortlessly blast through content. Advanced for people who want to think a bit. Elite for those who want extreme and tough fights. The battle value for the team is then selected for that difficulty level.
But that won't be the result of the BV system. And there's no way to reliably do that type of breakdown. And that also segregates the community. And ... more to the development team's own goals, that's not really the function of elite content.
I understand what you want out of the queuing process a lot better now. And I too find a lot of excitement in PUGs that go awry. But from everything I've read thus far, there's no real way I can think of to get the queuing system to do that consistently.
Starting an Undergeared Alt channel though, can get that done much more effectively. I've got three or four I'd happily run together with folks in a channel like that.
How would "effortlessly blast through content" be possible if the team's DPS (as determined as part of the BV of the team) is not enough to do that? If if it is barely enough to defeat everything in the given time?
How can it be true that a BV would not deliver that, if the BV is set to the right value?
I'm not a programmer. But I've played Cryptic games long enough to have quite a lot of firsthand experience with how their queues work and this seems like some coding and programming that doesn't fit anything they've ever done. Bort or Taco would be able to speak to this directly, but just working off of my experience with all of the company's games that I've played, I just don't see them being able to provide that level of player segragation.
I'd rather say it assigns people to the kind of play they want to enjoy, and brings those who are similar in that regard together.
It's still a segregation. And that does contradict some of your goals and commentary. I'm not trying to split hairs here either. It's kind of a core issue from what I've read.
What, if not tough content, is the function of the Elite queues?
In an MMO it's about tiered progression. All content ages in MMOs. And gets easier for players as powercreep or mudflation takes place. The dragon boss raid that debuts in 2016 and is super hard for your guild to finish and win, gets progressively easier as you do it more often. 1- Your guild gets used to the encounter and devises a strategy that works. 2- As you repeatedly defeat it with that winning strategy it becomes muscle memory for the group to defeat it. And 3- With each victory, the encounter rewards players with treasure. Each time you win more and more of your team get built up with those rewards. And eventually the encounter gets put on "farm mode" because everyone has geared up, learned to beat it with their eyes closed, and is currently moving on to other challenges.
Cryptic games are historically bad at implementing this type of tiered progression. But this game has a lot of those elements. It has reward system that takes progression to work through. (The reputations, and the resource cost for those items ... so like Iconian 4pc set is considered for a lot of builds, Best in Class ... or getting Lobi items, Very expensive or rare DOFFs, getting items from your fleet stores ... all of this requires time, effort and resources, and that is the progression path).
This is the root of powercreep. ISA is a perfect example. It's 5 years and change old in a 6 year game. That's more than 5 years of time spent getting newer items that increase your power while the map and its contents haven't improved nearly as much as the combatants.
Most MMOs are fine leaving old content old. They create newer encounters. That are progressively harder. So in 2016, it's not a big deal if you can run ISA in minutes and bully/faceroll/pummel it with ease. The larger problem is that while the gear has mudflated and power has crept, the encounters haven't kept at the same pace.
The development team would address this by creating newer content. Newer encounters. And they do. And they have.
But you run into some of the other design limitations of this game. Normal mode, casual play, and the very architecture built into the game and its development goals. Point blank, STO isn't designed and wasn't ever intended to be designed, like Everquest or World of Warcraft. So the content wasn't really intended to be as challenging as you want it to be. And that's a goal that you are not likely to see change. It's based on the game's own 6 years of being alive, as well as some of the results you see in your poll. A lot of players do not find the same fun in what you find fun and are aggressively (as you've seen) going to argue against the ideas you have.
I can. A battle value system.
I don't see it working the way you intend.
First, the game's own queueing system (as mentioned above) likely can't produce the effect you need.
And second, you seek chaos and the BV system as laid out here is actually organization, order and streamlining.
Here's a horrible unmathematic example, but from the thread on what people think average player DPS is, myself and another poster shared our anecdotal evidence of the past few months. It roughly correlates in that of the 5 man ISA team, 1 player is high DPS, over 75k. 3 players are in that 20 to 50k range. And 1 player is in the less than 10k range.
Your BV system makes this popular queue pop less.
The high DPS player has to now wait 5 times as long for a queue to pop. They won't bother with the queue at that point. Waiting 5 minutes to do a run that they plan to spend less than 5 minutes running, is a waste of their time.
The 3 players in the medium range have to wait longer as well. Likely about twice as long. This is the sweet spot so now you're waiting 2 minutes to pop a queue that takes you less than 5 minutes to defeat (because at 30k each that map goes away fast). This is not challenging. Nothing has changed except the wait time.
And finally the less than 10k group now waits 5 times as long to queue for a map that just got extremely hard for them to complete. Your idea makes it a longer wait to get to content. And as you've seen by the mountain of feedback you have collected, a lot of players do not want to be faced with that kind of challenge. Those players will get very upset.
Your idea for BV is an amazing suggestion and really can go far toward segregating and differentiating the playerbase more. But if your goal is to make more exciting, chaotic, fun and dangerous battle experiences, you're not going to achieve that goal with BV.
Anyone start one, I'd join. But I can't create and maintain it.
That's fine. I would like to take a moment to point out that Star Trek Battles Channel was originally created way back when by people who wanted a more canon-like experience (Fed ships with phasers and torps like in the shows being the most obvious example). But many of those players have evolved and are doing great with their builds and their parses and their metrics. Still that channel is really popular and it started out on a similar concept, trying to group up players who didn't want to perform at the bleeding edge of DPS, but rather wanted to play the way they found fun and the long time together and teamwork got them both far more popular and extremely effective results.
You may not be able to start the Undergeared Alt channel. But I think if it does get started, it can get you the experiences you are looking for in a way that I really don't think the development team can effectively code into the way the queue system works.
That's fine. I would like to take a moment to point out that Star Trek Battles Channel was originally created way back when by people who wanted a more canon-like experience (Fed ships with phasers and torps like in the shows being the most obvious example). But many of those players have evolved and are doing great with their builds and their parses and their metrics. Still that channel is really popular and it started out on a similar concept, trying to group up players who didn't want to perform at the bleeding edge of DPS, but rather wanted to play the way they found fun and the long time together and teamwork got them both far more popular and extremely effective results.
You may not be able to start the Undergeared Alt channel. But I think if it does get started, it can get you the experiences you are looking for in a way that I really don't think the development team can effectively code into the way the queue system works.
Funnily enough, I tried PvPing against someone on their STB build - it looked like a load of dual plasma beams with very little interruption. Not quite canon-like for me, that's for sure.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Comments
Yes! It really is a big part of the fun. I think you're on the right track. I fear my personal bias may play a part in your suggestion. I've played a tank in some for or another in every MMO I've ever done. Like at this point it's mostly just habit. (I was actually kind of surprised when I took a step back and looked at my actual playstyle in STO and it turned out that, true to form, flying a cruiser type ship with survival BOFF skills has been my most comfortable build and ship choice since day 1, and it was a total facepalm moment, I was like, DUH!)
But I think in STO, since adding survivability is possible without sacrificing DPS too much, that's where I think your ideas really start to show they can work with the game. And your HSE example pretty much drives that home for me.
I think you're on to something. Definitely.
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We already know what happens when Cryptic gives NPCs powers.
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Really high and low dps has been out there for more than 6-8 weeks and you havent adapted and are still complaining.
Whats the title of his poll/thread? You are complaing about the variance between high and low dps, not the NPC's not adapting (even if the NPC's adapted, there would still he a wide variance, guys that know how to do high damage would still do high damage, low guys would stay low).
The wide variance has been wide for quite some time now (years), therefore, to your statement about Cryptic to sit "4-6 weeks" and wait for complainers to adapt, you arent following your own train of thought, its been more than 4-6 weeks since this "issue" arose, time for you to adapt to it (and stop complaining), find a way to increase your own capabilites, live by your own example.
...All I hear is "git gud"
People who complain about the gap and difference of player strength fail to realize that even if you narrow that gap it will still always exist, and people (by mental processing) will always notice that gap and find inefficiencies in their own character builds. You could narrow the damage range to 500-2000 and people would still pay attention to it... and complain.
Where am I going with this? Well, I am not telling you to lie down flat on your back like a submissive dog and accept everything. However, I want people who complain and find damage such a major issue to come more to terms with the fact that a gap will always exist in this type of game with this type of game design. In this game damage will always be a determining factor in how you generally perform and that will not change. You can either live with it or you can find a different game that has nothing to do with damage as performance (like Tetris or Snake).
So as mean as this may sound... yes. To anyone reading, "get good" or perhaps find something else that is more tailored to your idea of gaming.
There's a world of difference when the "scaling" is within 10% to 20% of each other ("base" of 10k, 11k = Advanced, 12k = elite), and when the scaling is on the order of 1,000% or even 10,000%. (Grav well "listed" to do 1.8k, pops off a 18k hit, that's a 1,000% bigger whack). Going from 10k to 100k is 10,000%...
Like some of these "legitimate" 100k builds (you know, the "real" DPSers and not the "I got nannied so I can haz me a big e-peen" peeps) that claim AHoD and Reciprocity are "necessary" traits to their build - that's $60 and/or months of grinding that I don't have. Same with Kemocite I... Perhaps to the level that I might be... dissuaded... from playing "competitive" STO (Read: participating in Queues & Events) because of a distinct "Pay(Grind) 2 Win" feel and the onslaught of... negative commentary... on how my "usually" 13k sustained DPS on a big target build is "fail" for Advanced content...
(and for those who see me parse at like 6k, yeah, I know that I'd be a lot closer to that 13k if I did silly things like stay around the transformer instead of heading over to GW a Nanite Train and then get killed / run to shed aggro or elect to "neglect" some aspect of my build to get higher engine power...)
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]
As a side note, my PvP build for my t5u defiant clocks about 10-15k on ISA, last time I checked. No cheese, no gimmicks, no kemocite, FAW or sprd3.
The plasmonic leech is the only lockbox console it has but I also carry the cloak console so I don't get a massive benefit from the leech.
However it can demolish the tac cube on its own, the gate and out-tank some cruisers out there.
In PvP land, however, there is a big trade off.
My build lacks the ability to 1shot people or overpower other escorts and this leads to very hairy situations that 'I myself' have to work around and compensate for.
But with the "canyon" created by the imbalanced state of powercreep equipment combined with abilities/traits/immunities that haven't been balanced tested there isn't a trade off, there's no consequence for putting everything into maximum DPS. It's why PvP is inhospitable and PvE boring.
There's no strategy and involved in STO now. That is the problem.
While i agree that power creep has gone off the charts, really look at e30 ernest's post, better/more elite content for top geared dps players.
Nerfs aren't needed, they especially need to keep their gruby hands off of sci from now on, more content for those top lvl players is better than nerfs.
Taking things away from players in your video game is almost always a very very bad idea.
So let me get this straight. You've essentially given the PvP stamp-of-approval for running the absolute best console in the game, save for torp builds, but everything else is a gimmick?
And that $60 dollar may be why they might have a stronger character/ship than you. They just invested more time, effort, learning, research and money into their gaming. You said it yourself, you do not have time for it... and by all means then do not force yourself to playing the game and putting effort and resources into the game that you do not feel comfortable with. At the same time, do not ask the players who actually do that to play and invest in this game at the same level as you. I am not saying that their level is higher and yours is lower. Your levels of gaming are just different and perhaps just respect and accept that.
It is like going to the gym and seeing all the fit and strong looking men and women in there, and realizing that you yourself do not have the time, energy, resources and knowledge to do what they do... so instead you want to force the gym to reduce the amount of weights, limit how they can exercise and limit the number of hours they can exercise so that everyone is on equal platform.
Do you even see the flawed idea there? Narrowing the gap or even removing the gap entirely (if it were possible) would practically make everyone "good" as you point it out. At least on a mechanical level as far as equipment, traits and abilities goes etc. Right now we have a variety of builds and distinct differences (even if some builds are more favored than others) because the gap is as wide as it is.
I am mostly shrugging at these threads and I will tell you why. Despite the few exceptions I have yet to see somebody from this DPS minority to really speak up about these issues. Yeah, they may not want to indiscriminate themselves but the point is. So far it's just one perspective and I consider this level of feedback perhaps a bit entitled and spoiled. It's not wrong and it's not stupid. Is it constructive criticism? Sometimes and sometimes not, but more often I personally see it more as plain complaining and whining than good arguments. Some of the things to get more "DPS"... and yes that is what we are talking about now, is not so difficult to achieve. I have posted some very decent and easy-to-get builds that I think can do more than people perhaps initially thought or expected. It just takes one to get off one's butt.
I see players post here asking for advice and help, and do you know why? It is because they acknowledge that they may not have enough knowledge to achieve a better build with the least resources invested, so instead they turn to the forums because they have are hungry for that knowledge. They want to learn and they did so because they got off their butts. If they have more questions they return. If they want things faster than what their time allows they may spend some money. Whatever they did and whichever way they chose to walk they nonetheless took that extra step and that is all what may be needed.
When I see players not being able to destroy things as fast and as efficient as I do... I do not care. I may giggle but it is not to make fun of them. It is because I know I was there once and to see how far I have pushed my own interest in this game to this level and see these results is rewarding. I don't complain or whine because these low DPS players are allowed to play that way and they are allowed to learn. Everyone has been there and everyone will be there. In the same way I hope that people will allow me to play the way I want in the way the game allows without complaining that I have learned too much, invested too much effort, time and knowledge, and spent too much money in this game. That's like a big slap in the face and I find it disrespectful and a lack of humility.
If you find that some members of the DPS community disrespect your way and your level of gaming then you should do what you would do in real life. You tell them to treat you the way they want to be treated. You tell them to back off in a civil way and accept that you are where you are because you are either learning or because you just want to be there and like it. Or you just ignore their comments altogether. I honestly don't even read the chat and parsing info that some people may post. I think people would feel so much more healthy playing STO if they just ignored the bad things that people say and just play the game the way they want, and didn't pay so much attention to all the differences in builds.
@sonsofcain Seeing as everyone either carries a plasmonic leech or uses immunities and zhal and I don't, the leech barely factors into it as I'm a console down anyway because of the cloak console (t5u defiant). Not only that everyone uses CritD/Pen weapons with EPtW2/3 or A2B and I still use an Accx3 DBB and 2 fleet DHCs.
I'm not even going to mention the sci spam that's regularly thrown around in PvP that makes my build useless.
While i understand what your trying to get at here, A) The console you mention will never happen unless Cryptic can sell it for profit on the Z-store.
I dont.
Neither are PVP'ers.
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Higher than yours.
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This ... this is almost a completely different issue. If this is what you find to be fun, nothing in this thread really will help you find more of that. What you're looking for, however, can be achieved. In fact it can be achieved in the queues right now. Or with friends and fleetmates. What you need is an ALTS-only queue. You're looking to fly with undergeared alts.
This makes a lot more sense. And is something I really think you could and/or should start a channel and even a forum movement to capitalize on.
Many people have undergeared alts. And many people have some issues about what to do with them. Because by the very nature of them being undergeared alts, they don't put the same amount of time into the gear/build/performance. You run into theme builds more. You definitely run into lower DPS, and people flying builds/ship combinations that aren't powered by muscle memory.
I ran an ISA last night on my romulan in a pilot warbird. We failed both optionals. I didn't parse it, but the DPS for everyone was strange and had to be poor overall. The weird thing about it was, there was coordination of a sort. The spheres were kept away from the transformer. And people even seemed to be working under the 10% rule to an extent.
But in the second transformer, some spheres leaked through. And because the damage was split between spheres and the objectives, we failed the second optional by about 10 seconds.
Still the way this fight went, you would have loved it. It was intense. From go.
If that's what you're looking for, then BV and adjusting the NPCs and all of that, won't get you the action you crave. You need to fly with people in less optimized setups. And that's out there already. There are a ton of people running with undergeared alts. I think if you were to work with some people to set up a channel like Star Trek Battles, but for undergeared alts, you might find more instances of the kind of intense crazy fights you crave. You're looking to fly in bad PUGs to up your action and intensity. And that's out there. Less so after 11.5 unfortunately. But it is out there. In fact much of what you're pushing forward in this thread is likely to have the opposite effect as it further differentiates players based on DPS metrics and you're trying to tap into the much more chaotic randomness of PUGging.
One of the reasons many of us still PUG frequently is because you get those random few where everything goes wrong. And that can be very very fun.
You also however do have to consider the impact that adding several sets of additional calculations to each queue would have, remember that to carry out these calculations correctly the server may be required to handle the data in a different manner to satisfy it's own logic protocols than you or I would if applying this to a tabletop game.
The next hurdle to implementation would be to consider how many alterations to the code would be required - remember it may not be as simple to implement as just adding an instruction to "handicap" each player, this could in theory run to several hundred lines of code which would need altered, debugged and corrected before it even was ready to test. You would then have to consider where the data was held, I doubt that there would be sufficient physical RAM to hold the required data for each player and to maintain other game functions so we would be looking at virtual RAM which introduces a whole plethora of IO requests to the hard drive.
Whilst not dismissing the idea, I would caution that stating that there would be no direct interactions with other parts of the game does not equate to will not have an impact on them. The additional calculations and IO interactions would undoubtedly have some impact in terms of CPU time and drive access which would affect other parts of the game - remember that unlike a tabletop game where you have the luxury of making your calculations before each turn for example, the server has to do everything almost simultaneously.
Also being able to inflict damage that's twice the HP of a cruiser is a bit much.
To respond to the commentary aimed at me:
1. "Game vs Gym" is a flawed comparison. A game should be "reasonably" fun for as many people as theoretically possible to choose to play, while Gym - and by extension exercise, is an activity that should be performed by everyone in one, way, shape, or form for health benefits, despite the "fun" factor they may find in it...
2. Same commentary about "PuGging vs Premade" applies to "e-peeners" as well, especially if their "intent" is to drop or AFK at the first sign of "unfavorable conditions"...
Now, to the "remaining" commentary - which is obviously directed more at the heart of this thread:
I'll ask one simple question:
How is "play the way you want to play" supported with "look into the forums to the specific build(s) listed, find the one that best fits your playstyle and budgets (time or financial), and use it - nothing else"?
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]
But that won't be the result of the BV system. And there's no way to reliably do that type of breakdown. And that also segregates the community. And ... more to the development team's own goals, that's not really the function of elite content.
I understand what you want out of the queuing process a lot better now. And I too find a lot of excitement in PUGs that go awry. But from everything I've read thus far, there's no real way I can think of to get the queuing system to do that consistently.
Starting an Undergeared Alt channel though, can get that done much more effectively. I've got three or four I'd happily run together with folks in a channel like that.
I'm not a programmer. But I've played Cryptic games long enough to have quite a lot of firsthand experience with how their queues work and this seems like some coding and programming that doesn't fit anything they've ever done. Bort or Taco would be able to speak to this directly, but just working off of my experience with all of the company's games that I've played, I just don't see them being able to provide that level of player segragation.
It's still a segregation. And that does contradict some of your goals and commentary. I'm not trying to split hairs here either. It's kind of a core issue from what I've read.
In an MMO it's about tiered progression. All content ages in MMOs. And gets easier for players as powercreep or mudflation takes place. The dragon boss raid that debuts in 2016 and is super hard for your guild to finish and win, gets progressively easier as you do it more often. 1- Your guild gets used to the encounter and devises a strategy that works. 2- As you repeatedly defeat it with that winning strategy it becomes muscle memory for the group to defeat it. And 3- With each victory, the encounter rewards players with treasure. Each time you win more and more of your team get built up with those rewards. And eventually the encounter gets put on "farm mode" because everyone has geared up, learned to beat it with their eyes closed, and is currently moving on to other challenges.
Cryptic games are historically bad at implementing this type of tiered progression. But this game has a lot of those elements. It has reward system that takes progression to work through. (The reputations, and the resource cost for those items ... so like Iconian 4pc set is considered for a lot of builds, Best in Class ... or getting Lobi items, Very expensive or rare DOFFs, getting items from your fleet stores ... all of this requires time, effort and resources, and that is the progression path).
This is the root of powercreep. ISA is a perfect example. It's 5 years and change old in a 6 year game. That's more than 5 years of time spent getting newer items that increase your power while the map and its contents haven't improved nearly as much as the combatants.
Most MMOs are fine leaving old content old. They create newer encounters. That are progressively harder. So in 2016, it's not a big deal if you can run ISA in minutes and bully/faceroll/pummel it with ease. The larger problem is that while the gear has mudflated and power has crept, the encounters haven't kept at the same pace.
The development team would address this by creating newer content. Newer encounters. And they do. And they have.
But you run into some of the other design limitations of this game. Normal mode, casual play, and the very architecture built into the game and its development goals. Point blank, STO isn't designed and wasn't ever intended to be designed, like Everquest or World of Warcraft. So the content wasn't really intended to be as challenging as you want it to be. And that's a goal that you are not likely to see change. It's based on the game's own 6 years of being alive, as well as some of the results you see in your poll. A lot of players do not find the same fun in what you find fun and are aggressively (as you've seen) going to argue against the ideas you have.
I don't see it working the way you intend.
First, the game's own queueing system (as mentioned above) likely can't produce the effect you need.
And second, you seek chaos and the BV system as laid out here is actually organization, order and streamlining.
Here's a horrible unmathematic example, but from the thread on what people think average player DPS is, myself and another poster shared our anecdotal evidence of the past few months. It roughly correlates in that of the 5 man ISA team, 1 player is high DPS, over 75k. 3 players are in that 20 to 50k range. And 1 player is in the less than 10k range.
Your BV system makes this popular queue pop less.
The high DPS player has to now wait 5 times as long for a queue to pop. They won't bother with the queue at that point. Waiting 5 minutes to do a run that they plan to spend less than 5 minutes running, is a waste of their time.
The 3 players in the medium range have to wait longer as well. Likely about twice as long. This is the sweet spot so now you're waiting 2 minutes to pop a queue that takes you less than 5 minutes to defeat (because at 30k each that map goes away fast). This is not challenging. Nothing has changed except the wait time.
And finally the less than 10k group now waits 5 times as long to queue for a map that just got extremely hard for them to complete. Your idea makes it a longer wait to get to content. And as you've seen by the mountain of feedback you have collected, a lot of players do not want to be faced with that kind of challenge. Those players will get very upset.
Your idea for BV is an amazing suggestion and really can go far toward segregating and differentiating the playerbase more. But if your goal is to make more exciting, chaotic, fun and dangerous battle experiences, you're not going to achieve that goal with BV.
That's fine. I would like to take a moment to point out that Star Trek Battles Channel was originally created way back when by people who wanted a more canon-like experience (Fed ships with phasers and torps like in the shows being the most obvious example). But many of those players have evolved and are doing great with their builds and their parses and their metrics. Still that channel is really popular and it started out on a similar concept, trying to group up players who didn't want to perform at the bleeding edge of DPS, but rather wanted to play the way they found fun and the long time together and teamwork got them both far more popular and extremely effective results.
You may not be able to start the Undergeared Alt channel. But I think if it does get started, it can get you the experiences you are looking for in a way that I really don't think the development team can effectively code into the way the queue system works.
Funnily enough, I tried PvPing against someone on their STB build - it looked like a load of dual plasma beams with very little interruption. Not quite canon-like for me, that's for sure.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.