Maybe if more content was built around the idea of just surviving and/or distracting enemies then certain content would last as long as the devs desired. For example, one timed event could be where the objective is merely to distract an invincible, powerful, Borg cube long enough for civilian ships/stations to properly evacuate the area. You'd need to try and keep within firing range of the Borg vessel otherwise they'll just start heading back towards the civilians. Add in a highly desirable reward and I'm sure you'll get enough people playing it.
I'm a bit on the fence over this. I PUG a lot so I've seen lots of PUGs where everyone is struggling to go over 7k, and PUGs where a DPS monster swoops in to clean the map. I think the latter is still rare. When they fix the lag that'll be even rarer since the DPS crowd will go back to the channel runs.
What is undeniable is the big gap between good and bad players. It's not even a matter of gear. Some people just don't know or care to know how to fly their ships. It's not just DPS either since I've been in runs with good DPS players fail miserably because they don't think.
playing easy missions and asking if they are too easy....have you considered playing diffeerent difficulty?
Thing is....if I play PvEs, I want to succeed - even in a PUG game, not just getting People in from the 50k channel.
Yes, it is incredibly easy doing more than 10k dps and still surviving most PvEs - even with White weapons and consoles. However, I recently did a ISA where I was the only one doing more than 3k dps. And borg aren't that stupid- they shoot the one dealing most damage. I took about 70% of all hits...after I died I left the Group. We'd have failed anyway.
So, yes, in a good Team most PVEs on normal are very eaysy, and on advanced still easy if in a good Team - and I have seen Videos of People soloing (even on elite I think). But making it more difficult will still pose a Problem to many of the Players out there.
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
I don't know if this counts, but as soon as I upgraded to the pathfinder I managed to solo 4/4 of the Borg red alert. But as soon as the big boss entered there was no way for me to defeat it without a team. So having any group is better than having none at all.
"Great men are not peacemakers, Great men are conquerors!" - Captain Archer" "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway #Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
No the game is not too easy. I don't pull gazillion dps and most people don't. If you find it easy play elite difficulty and yes they should add cce already as well as elite versions of all the others. Seriously its annoying that people think just because they can kill everything fast everyone else can as well.
Stategic down tuning...if done correctly should not be noticable to anyone who isn't deep into the nuts and bolts of the game.
I've played a lot of MMOs in the past 17 or so years. I've witnessed a lot of nerfs. I've not witnessed this "strategic downtuning" that is being pushed as the answer to the problem. It's far more mythical than the magic bullet of nerfing X.
I'd love some examples to be given by the proponents of this tactic. Because for nerfs there's tons of memorable examples.
@semalda226
You make it sound like everyone using FaW as a tac is hitting 200k. Like its no big deal, and any idiot can slap on beams and FaW and do crazy numbers.
There's like 3 people who can pull off 200k+
And those that do are running in premade groups, where they try to get one person's dps as high as possible.
There might be 300-350 players on the dps boards who are +75k. Maybe 50 that are 100k+. And like 3 that are hitting 200k (in premades)
If the boards are any indication, the average dps is probably around 20-30k dps.
We need facts, not exaggeration.
Wasn't it said that, right after DR launched, you needed approximately 15k DPS for a mission like ISA? That number, 15-20k, seems ok for the average advanced mission.
The fact that there are a couple of hundred players doing 75k DPS, a couple of dozen doing even more than that and a handful of players who are able to double that number shows there's a real problem.
And yes, some of those numbers may be from pre-mades. But I've seen players in PUGS doing 80k, 90k and one time there were even two of those in the same instance. That's just absurd. Those players are able to solo an entire instance of what's supposed to be advanced content.
And to add an example of my own DPS: I had trouble doing more than 40k before the skill revamp, no matter how many plasma set bonuses I put on my ship or how much more I invested in Particle generators on another toon. Then I suddenly parsed between 55k and 60k. In one night, my top performance increased by almost 50% and I've consistently parsed well above my previous average without really making any changes.
I've got to agree with Sheldon. They should look at the new penetration skills, and probably do something about the resistance debuffing as well. It's just ridiculous to see transformers die with a generator still attached, or an end boss like the Tac cube lose a significant part of both its shields and hull points as a result of AOE and FAW spam, before anyone has made it his or her main target.
And these are not incidents I'm describing here.
Yeah 10-15k was the baseline for "success" with no optionals failed, when DR launched.
(But remember, before DR, a top DPS player was hitting 30-50k DPS)
In just over a year, that 30-50k has turned into 200k+(for the very best - and 200k+ is still a rarity with only a handful of players capable of achieving that number).
We've had a constant stream of power creep crammed down our throats.
And not only that, a large portion of the player base has had time to upgrade most/all of their gear.
It's only natural, that the queues are getting easier by the day.
And you're right, the skills revamp added to the creep even more.
I noticed it myself. Improvement of 10-15% since reskilling.
Thing is if someone spent all that Dil on upgrades and still couldn't beat adv with ease.
We'd be right back where we started with DR, people complaining that things are too hard. And that they can't get the materials needed for the upgrade system.
I get it, the power creep tsunami is out of control, I don't dispute that.
But I don't even think anything can be done about it at this point.
And I don't think it's in Cryptic's interest to do anything about it.
In fact it's how they make their money these days, by selling more, and more power.
Rather then nerfing everything (which is one option) they need to add more Elite Queues.
Norm and adv, shouldn't be very hard anyway when you think about it.
And ADV is still hard for the people struggling to hit 10k ! So we're trapped.
The Gap between players is just getting larger with each new round of power creep introduced.
And on the issue of Elite queues, they are A LOT harder then ADV, its just that people don't really play them, so they believe ADV is the gold standard of the game.
Try and take a 30k team (the approximate average DPS) into any elite queues. You will get face rolled.
Hence why there's not many callouts for them even in the DPS channel.
It's 95% Adv runs being called out.
You make it sound like everyone using FaW as a tac is hitting 200k. Like its no big deal, and any idiot can slap on beams and FaW and do crazy numbers.
There's like 3 people who can pull off 200k+
And those that do are running in premade groups, where they try to get one person's dps as high as possible.
There might be 300-350 players on the dps boards who are +75k. Maybe 50 that are 100k+. And like 3 that are hitting 200k (in premades)
If the boards are any indication, the average dps is probably around 20-30k dps.
We need facts, not exaggeration.
The fact remains that it is a certain demographic that is getting these high numbers, and some of those are fostering a rather toxic attitude towards "underperforming" individuals.
I personally have no problem with the DPS crowd at large. I have an issue with those who bash players for not believing in the almighty DPS like they do.
Being a jerk about DPS is something I don't like either Rattler.
It's uncalled for. Especially when a 50k+ player can pretty much carry any adv queue they enter (with the exception of a few that require teamwork)
@semalda226
You make it sound like everyone using FaW as a tac is hitting 200k. Like its no big deal, and any idiot can slap on beams and FaW and do crazy numbers.
There's like 3 people who can pull off 200k+
And those that do are running in premade groups, where they try to get one person's dps as high as possible.
There might be 300-350 players on the dps boards who are +75k. Maybe 50 that are 100k+. And like 3 that are hitting 200k (in premades)
If the boards are any indication, the average dps is probably around 20-30k dps.
We need facts, not exaggeration.
So what exactly is the top sci DPS again? Look, semlda is one of the top sci DPS folks. When the best of the best sci is doing less the half of BFAW...there is an issue. Now I do grant that sci does have the control aspects as well. But seriously most sci players don't pull anywhere near 80k. Hell most don't even pull 20k when they actively try. BFAW will get you 20k with just the basics and not idiot piloting. Cannons need some specialized gear and GOOD piloting to reach that. Sci needs expensive gear, specialized build knoweldge AND GOOD PILOTING. That really stacks things against sci in PvE. Oh and god help you if you try to do a sci hybrid ship....
Top Sci, last I looked was approx. 125 - 150k can't remember exactly, but the boards display Captain type. So you can check for yourself if you want an exact number. I'm just going off memory here.
And Sem's 80k is very respectable, in fact, that's probably in the top 10% of all sci's in the game.
All I was saying is, let's not exaggerate the potency of FaW, because that will only cause more players who may not know any better to run towards it.
Last thing we need is more stale FaW players.
@semalda226
You make it sound like everyone using FaW as a tac is hitting 200k. Like its no big deal, and any idiot can slap on beams and FaW and do crazy numbers.
There's like 3 people who can pull off 200k+
And those that do are running in premade groups, where they try to get one person's dps as high as possible.
There might be 300-350 players on the dps boards who are +75k. Maybe 50 that are 100k+. And like 3 that are hitting 200k (in premades)
If the boards are any indication, the average dps is probably around 20-30k dps.
We need facts, not exaggeration.
So what exactly is the top sci DPS again? Look, semlda is one of the top sci DPS folks. When the best of the best sci is doing less the half of BFAW...there is an issue. Now I do grant that sci does have the control aspects as well. But seriously most sci players don't pull anywhere near 80k. Hell most don't even pull 20k when they actively try. BFAW will get you 20k with just the basics and not idiot piloting. Cannons need some specialized gear and GOOD piloting to reach that. Sci needs expensive gear, specialized build knoweldge AND GOOD PILOTING. That really stacks things against sci in PvE. Oh and god help you if you try to do a sci hybrid ship....
Top Sci, last I looked was approx. 125 - 150k can't remember exactly, but the boards display Captain type. So you can check for yourself if you want an exact number. I'm just going off memory here.
And Sem's 80k is very respectable, in fact, that's probably in the top 10% of all sci's in the game.
All I was saying is, let's not exaggerate the potency of FaW, because that will only cause more players who may not know any better to run towards it.
Last thing we need is more stale FaW players.
Top Sci right now is 175k more or less. Last I checked, out of all the 100k+ Sci players, only 2 are non-FAW. Then again, there are only 15 or so 100k sci players I think. It's been a while since I've looked though.
Personally for the CCA if someone wants to come in and rek that entity for me on easy mode, have at it. Dalies done faster. Works for me.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
It's still possible to get killed in CE advanced if you're not watching what you're doing. The developers are constantly working on the mechanics. They're putting in things that make the game mechanics more understandable and balanced. We see that certain groups in CE advanced can take down the entity in three to four minutes, but we don't see that two or three of the ten players in that three minute run are doing over 60% - 70% of the overall damage because of their spec and equipment. The rest are grinding through it. Have to admit that everyone was complaining about BFAW and they addressed it, bringing cannons back up to par. I actually have a beam boat and got rid of BFAW and now use Beam Overload primarily, focusing on single targets rather than multiple...and my DPS is better. So, they are addressing things. Still recalling the early days in the all new Delta Quadrant, scenarios taking 15 to 20 minutes to grind down the hull point monster enemies. Not good! And although we all slogged through that...those are unpleasant memories. Tripling the hull and shield points for enemies isn't the answer. If anything, I would start giving enemies powers that have the ability to inflict a great deal of damage on occasion...and if you're napping...BOOM! I generally survive a CE advanced run, but sometimes...I blow up...and in my own head, that wasn't a good run.
I kind of think the solution from Cryptic's pov is to just let the dil exchange go to 500 instead of worrying about 30 second cca.
And how would that fix anything? That would price the majority of the F2P people out of the C-Store. Only the people with disposable income would be able to buy ships, and they'd be able to afford making mk XIV gold everything already.
The reason I say this is because up until this year they had been very proactive in keeping a fair market rate. I think when the research lab holding barely moved the needle they saw the writing on the wall. Since then we have seen a virtually endless stream of exchange busting sales and events. I think the rationale is that if people have to play 3 missions to get the same value that they used to from 1 then Cryptic is coming out ahead. I would say the ONLY way to stop the climb to 500 now would be to lower the refining cap to 4000 or maybe even 2000. But that would cause way too much blowback so the solution is just to sit back and watch.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I hear more hatred and bad attitude from the "anti-dps'er" crowd than I actually hear from the top end of the DPS curve. Like normal, the minority of a (dps) group is taken as the whole, should the minority of players who are not high dps scoring be considered the whole for that group too?
The biggest reason why CCA goes the quickest is that it is highly susceptible to Kinetic/Torpedo and sci/AOE's, and players have caught on to it. My group was wiping out CCA in well under two minutes during last years event. If I go into a PUG, and a fair number of guys are using decent torp/sci builds , the run easily goes twice as fast as one where everyone is beam FAWing.
Reigning in (A) the raw power creep and (B) the collection of individually questionable tools into unquestionably out-of-scale combos IS evolution. So yeah, bring on the evolution!
No, it's not. Evolution is about keeping the successful and weeding out the unsuccessful, so what you're saying is the exact opposite of evolution.
Players getting ever more powerful is one of the primary goals of RPGs. Cryptic is just unwilling to "evolve" the opposing forces to keep up with the players, leading to the game having all the challenge level of Superman vs purse-snatcher.
Power selling, power creep, and complete disregard for baseline game balance and player progression.
I don't know how other MMOs do it, and perhaps this is a totally wrong suggestion, but I'd start a game by keeping PvP in perfect balance at all times, so that every ability and team strategy is accounted for, and only then proceed to tweak NPC values and AI on a dynamic moving scale to match both player and team capability.
It would also contain random encounters made by having a few variations in mission objectives interact with each other unpredictably resulting in near-endless scenarios even on the same exact map to which player strategy would have to account for and adjust to on the go. It would be a team game (MMO) where strategy and skill are necessary.
Mission rewards would also be equalized, so that those preferring to play on Normal difficulty would get the 'same' as on higher levels in the sense of risk of failure vs larger reward on higher difficulty settings. Within each difficulty, enemies would also scale to team composition and team strategy, just as a real PvP team would, by bringing in more appropriate reinforcements or engaging in more tactics such as a sudden group ambush, etc.
Something should have been done about game balance, but hasn't, and things have been getting worse with immunities, temporary hit points, instant healing, damage output vs player hull/resists, 'magic' NPCs, that I think it's well beyond the point of fixing.
Devs: Provide the option to Turn OFF full screen flashes from enemy ship explosions
· ♥ · ◦.¸¸. ◦'¯`·. (Ɏ) V A N U _ S O V E R E I G N T Y (Ɏ) .·´¯'◦.¸¸. ◦ · ♡ ·
«» \▼/ T E R R A N ¦ R E P U B L I C \▼/ «»
﴾﴿ ₪ṩ ||| N A N I T E S Y S T E M S : B L A C K | O P S ||| ₪ṩ ﴾﴿
In Team Fortress 2, some people look down on Snipers using the Sydney Sleeper because you cannot headshot with it. "Its an excuse to body shoot. No skill." What they don't understand is that while I can't headshot with the Sleeper, Any enemies I don't kill will have a Jarate effect on them, granting minicrits to my teammates. That's supporting the team.
I just play a Medic. There's never enough of us around. I've had people praise the TF2 Gods when I popped in and started healing everyone.
Everyone seems to love us Medics (and I have 10 times the amount of time logged in as Medics against every other class combined) but nobody wants to play them!
Snip- We see that certain groups in CE advanced can take down the entity in three to four minutes, but we don't see that two or three of the ten players in that three minute run are doing over 60% - 70% of the overall damage because of their spec and equipment. The rest are grinding through it. -Snip
I don't know how other MMOs do it, and perhaps this is a totally wrong suggestion, but I'd start a game by keeping PvP in perfect balance at all times, so that every ability and team strategy is accounted for, and only then proceed to tweak NPC values and AI on a dynamic moving scale to match both player and team capability.
Might as well start by making pigs fly. There is no such thing as perfect balance. That way lies a neverending juggling act of nerfs and buffs to prevent the metagame from stabilizing.
I don't know how other MMOs do it, and perhaps this is a totally wrong suggestion, but I'd start a game by keeping PvP in perfect balance at all times, so that every ability and team strategy is accounted for, and only then proceed to tweak NPC values and AI on a dynamic moving scale to match both player and team capability.
Might as well start by making pigs fly. There is no such thing as perfect balance. That way lies a neverending juggling act of nerfs and buffs to prevent the metagame from stabilizing.
I play 2 other pure PvP games (soon to be 3 in a year), and granted they aren't MMOs, but they are perfectly balanced. Two of these are developed by those who actually play the game they made. "Perfect" meaning every effort was made to ensure any variation won't result in an unfair advantage consistently to the point where it's wrong to do anything but that.
Here's a concrete example: LR (sniper) used to be a little too powerful against light armor. I capitalized on that gameplay strategy to great effect by practicing heavily with it, and then so did others. It's damage was reduced, and then its firing mode changed in a very unfair and awkward way. Devs took notice of our feedback on the forums, and gave it its original firing mode plus its new firing mode so we have options. Its performance now feels balanced, and falls in line with all other weapons.
Sports also strive towards balance in the sense of outlining the parameters and doing their best to make sure competitors adhere to them. Is it perfect? No, but it's an effort towards maintaining balance and providing for good competition.
Devs: Provide the option to Turn OFF full screen flashes from enemy ship explosions
· ♥ · ◦.¸¸. ◦'¯`·. (Ɏ) V A N U _ S O V E R E I G N T Y (Ɏ) .·´¯'◦.¸¸. ◦ · ♡ ·
«» \▼/ T E R R A N ¦ R E P U B L I C \▼/ «»
﴾﴿ ₪ṩ ||| N A N I T E S Y S T E M S : B L A C K | O P S ||| ₪ṩ ﴾﴿
I heard that on this week's Tribbles in Ecstasy podcast they discuss some balance issues (like the FAW meta, Plasma Explosions and more) with a dev. Looking forward to that coming out.
Power selling, power creep, and complete disregard for baseline game balance and player progression.
Power selling is the business model for this game and it is part of the core of what keeps the lights on. Even more than keep the lights on, it's what helps this game turn profit and it's unlikely they're going to change that as 6 years of data shows that power selling is the meat and potatoes of what makes them money. I can't fault them for that. Not in the least.
Power creep is part of the ongoing lifecycle of an MMO. It's built into the way these games work. STO's power creep oddly enough (due mainly to the math Cryptic uses which they catch a lot of flak for from the community at times, but in the big picture when compared to power creep in other games shows to be remarkably contained) has been a bit of a mild incline over the years. But it's still needed for a game to move forward or present the illusion of moving forward.
They don't disregard game balance and player progression. They're just trying to manage it against design goals that don't always align with player desires. Like the traits revamp. That was a very negatively received update to that system. But the choices were made as part of a long term vision the development team had for future traits and the evolution of the game and its progression. The players just didn't like the choice and let the devs know. It was an unpopular choice and both sides of that discussion had a lot of valid points, but it was a choice made based on player progression.
I don't know how other MMOs do it,
Surprisingly other MMOs do a lot of the same things at varying degrees. The genre of MMO and F2P MMOs at that, have their staples, cliches and archetypes.
and perhaps this is a totally wrong suggestion, but I'd start a game by keeping PvP in perfect balance at all times, so that every ability and team strategy is accounted for, and only then proceed to tweak NPC values and AI on a dynamic moving scale to match both player and team capability.
While that's a noble goal, you need to put that in an accounting and finances context. This game and many MMOs are not PVP driven. (A few are, but Cryptic doesn't make any of those). So PVP isn't driving the cash flow, putting that level of attention and resources on that vertical might not be the best use of your company's resources.
And when it comes to PVP, there's quite a few very popular games out there in other genres that already dominate that playerbase/demographic.
Is it worth the resources to chase after something that is a small slice of your current playerbase and which you are already behind the leaders in chasing new player converts?
Mission rewards would also be equalized, so that those preferring to play on Normal difficulty would get the 'same' as on higher levels in the sense of risk of failure vs larger reward on higher difficulty settings. Within each difficulty, enemies would also scale to team composition and team strategy, just as a real PvP team would, by bringing in more appropriate reinforcements or engaging in more tactics such as a sudden group ambush, etc.
The MMO cliche is the dragon raid. But the one constant in this genre has always been ... the hardest content gives the best rewards. Oddly STO and all other Cryptic Games eschew this model quite well. Their best rewards come from other sources, either time gates or resource expenditure (with some of those resources being easier to get if you spend real life money). And this model works surprisingly well for them.
But the age old standard is, you want the super duper sword of awesomeness? ONLY big-bad-breath-dragon in the lair of Takes-an-hour-just-to-get-to-him drops that item. You need 10, 20 or 40 of your closest friends to help you slog through that lair to fight and defeat that boss. And THEN he MIGHT drop that sword. If he DOES, then you and the other 10, 20 or 40 people need to figure out a way to award that sword.
Dragon Kill Points!
So coming from that staple, the way things happen in STO is conversely far more equalized than most people give the game credit for. You want the best gear? Right now it's just a time and resource sink. You need Mk XVII epic quality Antiproton Whatevs with [PEN] or [DMG] or [CrtD] on it, you craft it. Random number generator may give you the mods you want. Then you upgrade it. Random number generator can get you lucky on the rarity upgrades. And level upgrades are a finite and measured resource sink. The game devs even give a rotating window of when the upgrading is half price! It costs in-game resources (credits, dilithium, crafting materials) to do this. But it's ALL under your own control. You don't have to raid with 10, 20 or 40 other people to do it. You don't have to kill the same boss 10, 20 or 40 times to get him to drop that item you want when you need it.
As MMOs go, STO makes its top level gear far more equitably available than a LOT of other MMOs. They also make it much easier to acquire if you sink real life dollars into their system.
I'm not here to defend Cryptic's development team. They've made their decisions and they can defend them on their own. I will however, offer some insight and perspective on how this game fits into the larger genre of MMOs and point out that in terms of the longest standing complaints people have against the "system" ... Cryptic's taken a different route. They do make design decisions that are somewhat unique and radical when compared to the standard MMO. A lot of it I've disagreed with over the years. Some of it I've championed. That's just a matter of personal taste. But they have consistently stuck to their decisions and their core design values the entire time. I will give them credit for sticking to their guns.
I know I'm new here but I wonder if " downwards adjustments" to just the tactical class in group missions might not increase both teamwork and make all roles more desirable..
I know I'm new here but I wonder if " downwards adjustments" to just the tactical class in group missions might not increase both teamwork and make all roles more desirable..
Well, that is one of the major underlying issues at play here.
A lot of people are unhappy with the amount of damage buffs a Tac captain has at his disposal.
Its been a frequent complaint here over the years.
And with all the power creep, it just magnifies the problem.
I don't know how other MMOs do it, and perhaps this is a totally wrong suggestion, but I'd start a game by keeping PvP in perfect balance at all times, so that every ability and team strategy is accounted for, and only then proceed to tweak NPC values and AI on a dynamic moving scale to match both player and team capability.
Might as well start by making pigs fly. There is no such thing as perfect balance. That way lies a neverending juggling act of nerfs and buffs to prevent the metagame from stabilizing.
I play 2 other pure PvP games (soon to be 3 in a year), and granted they aren't MMOs, but they are perfectly balanced. Two of these are developed by those who actually play the game they made. "Perfect" meaning every effort was made to ensure any variation won't result in an unfair advantage consistently to the point where it's wrong to do anything but that.
Here's a concrete example: LR (sniper) used to be a little too powerful against light armor. I capitalized on that gameplay strategy to great effect by practicing heavily with it, and then so did others. It's damage was reduced, and then its firing mode changed in a very unfair and awkward way. Devs took notice of our feedback on the forums, and gave it its original firing mode plus its new firing mode so we have options. Its performance now feels balanced, and falls in line with all other weapons.
As I said: "neverending juggling act of nerfs and buffs to prevent the metagame from stabilizing."
That may be all well and true for some shooter game, but one of the primary goals of RPG gameplay is to gain an advantage. To make progress. To earn more and better stuff, that improves your performance, allows you to do more. If the new stuff "falls in line with" all the old stuff, it's more or less pointless to play at all.
STO is just missing the part where the improved performance allows you to do more, because all the content old and new is so easy there are no higher challenges to overcome.
when unfortunately, I'm in the same stf than 1 or 2 or more dpsers, I park my ship somewhere and I wait for the rewards. Because these kinds of stfs are terribly boring, and i'm tired to see the competition between the dpsers.
there is a proverb which talks about people, who try to compensate an unlucky gift of the nature; by competion, big cars etc etc. So each time, when I do a stf with dpsers; I think at this proverb.
About the difficulty; yes it is too easy for a minority, who destroys the pleasure of the majority. BUT, this is not their fault; cryptic gave them the tools and the possiblity to do that.
about the ground stfs or battlezone. with the spam of all the iconian TRIBBLE; even the ground missions are became boring and annoying.
I don't know how other MMOs do it, and perhaps this is a totally wrong suggestion, but I'd start a game by keeping PvP in perfect balance at all times, so that every ability and team strategy is accounted for, and only then proceed to tweak NPC values and AI on a dynamic moving scale to match both player and team capability.
Might as well start by making pigs fly. There is no such thing as perfect balance. That way lies a neverending juggling act of nerfs and buffs to prevent the metagame from stabilizing.
I play 2 other pure PvP games (soon to be 3 in a year), and granted they aren't MMOs, but they are perfectly balanced. Two of these are developed by those who actually play the game they made. "Perfect" meaning every effort was made to ensure any variation won't result in an unfair advantage consistently to the point where it's wrong to do anything but that.
Here's a concrete example: LR (sniper) used to be a little too powerful against light armor. I capitalized on that gameplay strategy to great effect by practicing heavily with it, and then so did others. It's damage was reduced, and then its firing mode changed in a very unfair and awkward way. Devs took notice of our feedback on the forums, and gave it its original firing mode plus its new firing mode so we have options. Its performance now feels balanced, and falls in line with all other weapons.
As I said: "neverending juggling act of nerfs and buffs to prevent the metagame from stabilizing."
That may be all well and true for some shooter game, but one of the primary goals of RPG gameplay is to gain an advantage. To make progress. To earn more and better stuff, that improves your performance, allows you to do more. If the new stuff "falls in line with" all the old stuff, it's more or less pointless to play at all.
STO is just missing the part where the improved performance allows you to do more, because all the content old and new is so easy there are no higher challenges to overcome.
Yeah, but in MMO terms all "higher challenges" really means is needing X DPS to kill the enemies fast enough.
As for "balanced pvp", I've never heard of a game that had a continual stream of new stuff where PvP could be said to be balanced.
Comments
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
What is undeniable is the big gap between good and bad players. It's not even a matter of gear. Some people just don't know or care to know how to fly their ships. It's not just DPS either since I've been in runs with good DPS players fail miserably because they don't think.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Thing is....if I play PvEs, I want to succeed - even in a PUG game, not just getting People in from the 50k channel.
Yes, it is incredibly easy doing more than 10k dps and still surviving most PvEs - even with White weapons and consoles. However, I recently did a ISA where I was the only one doing more than 3k dps. And borg aren't that stupid- they shoot the one dealing most damage. I took about 70% of all hits...after I died I left the Group. We'd have failed anyway.
So, yes, in a good Team most PVEs on normal are very eaysy, and on advanced still easy if in a good Team - and I have seen Videos of People soloing (even on elite I think). But making it more difficult will still pose a Problem to many of the Players out there.
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
"When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway
#Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
I've played a lot of MMOs in the past 17 or so years. I've witnessed a lot of nerfs. I've not witnessed this "strategic downtuning" that is being pushed as the answer to the problem. It's far more mythical than the magic bullet of nerfing X.
I'd love some examples to be given by the proponents of this tactic. Because for nerfs there's tons of memorable examples.
Yeah 10-15k was the baseline for "success" with no optionals failed, when DR launched.
(But remember, before DR, a top DPS player was hitting 30-50k DPS)
In just over a year, that 30-50k has turned into 200k+(for the very best - and 200k+ is still a rarity with only a handful of players capable of achieving that number).
We've had a constant stream of power creep crammed down our throats.
And not only that, a large portion of the player base has had time to upgrade most/all of their gear.
It's only natural, that the queues are getting easier by the day.
And you're right, the skills revamp added to the creep even more.
I noticed it myself. Improvement of 10-15% since reskilling.
Thing is if someone spent all that Dil on upgrades and still couldn't beat adv with ease.
We'd be right back where we started with DR, people complaining that things are too hard. And that they can't get the materials needed for the upgrade system.
I get it, the power creep tsunami is out of control, I don't dispute that.
But I don't even think anything can be done about it at this point.
And I don't think it's in Cryptic's interest to do anything about it.
In fact it's how they make their money these days, by selling more, and more power.
Rather then nerfing everything (which is one option) they need to add more Elite Queues.
Norm and adv, shouldn't be very hard anyway when you think about it.
And ADV is still hard for the people struggling to hit 10k ! So we're trapped.
The Gap between players is just getting larger with each new round of power creep introduced.
And on the issue of Elite queues, they are A LOT harder then ADV, its just that people don't really play them, so they believe ADV is the gold standard of the game.
Try and take a 30k team (the approximate average DPS) into any elite queues. You will get face rolled.
Hence why there's not many callouts for them even in the DPS channel.
It's 95% Adv runs being called out.
Being a jerk about DPS is something I don't like either Rattler.
It's uncalled for. Especially when a 50k+ player can pretty much carry any adv queue they enter (with the exception of a few that require teamwork)
Top Sci, last I looked was approx. 125 - 150k can't remember exactly, but the boards display Captain type. So you can check for yourself if you want an exact number. I'm just going off memory here.
And Sem's 80k is very respectable, in fact, that's probably in the top 10% of all sci's in the game.
All I was saying is, let's not exaggerate the potency of FaW, because that will only cause more players who may not know any better to run towards it.
Last thing we need is more stale FaW players.
Top Sci right now is 175k more or less. Last I checked, out of all the 100k+ Sci players, only 2 are non-FAW. Then again, there are only 15 or so 100k sci players I think. It's been a while since I've looked though.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
The reason I say this is because up until this year they had been very proactive in keeping a fair market rate. I think when the research lab holding barely moved the needle they saw the writing on the wall. Since then we have seen a virtually endless stream of exchange busting sales and events. I think the rationale is that if people have to play 3 missions to get the same value that they used to from 1 then Cryptic is coming out ahead. I would say the ONLY way to stop the climb to 500 now would be to lower the refining cap to 4000 or maybe even 2000. But that would cause way too much blowback so the solution is just to sit back and watch.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I hear more hatred and bad attitude from the "anti-dps'er" crowd than I actually hear from the top end of the DPS curve. Like normal, the minority of a (dps) group is taken as the whole, should the minority of players who are not high dps scoring be considered the whole for that group too?
The biggest reason why CCA goes the quickest is that it is highly susceptible to Kinetic/Torpedo and sci/AOE's, and players have caught on to it. My group was wiping out CCA in well under two minutes during last years event. If I go into a PUG, and a fair number of guys are using decent torp/sci builds , the run easily goes twice as fast as one where everyone is beam FAWing.
Players getting ever more powerful is one of the primary goals of RPGs. Cryptic is just unwilling to "evolve" the opposing forces to keep up with the players, leading to the game having all the challenge level of Superman vs purse-snatcher.
I don't know how other MMOs do it, and perhaps this is a totally wrong suggestion, but I'd start a game by keeping PvP in perfect balance at all times, so that every ability and team strategy is accounted for, and only then proceed to tweak NPC values and AI on a dynamic moving scale to match both player and team capability.
It would also contain random encounters made by having a few variations in mission objectives interact with each other unpredictably resulting in near-endless scenarios even on the same exact map to which player strategy would have to account for and adjust to on the go. It would be a team game (MMO) where strategy and skill are necessary.
Mission rewards would also be equalized, so that those preferring to play on Normal difficulty would get the 'same' as on higher levels in the sense of risk of failure vs larger reward on higher difficulty settings. Within each difficulty, enemies would also scale to team composition and team strategy, just as a real PvP team would, by bringing in more appropriate reinforcements or engaging in more tactics such as a sudden group ambush, etc.
Something should have been done about game balance, but hasn't, and things have been getting worse with immunities, temporary hit points, instant healing, damage output vs player hull/resists, 'magic' NPCs, that I think it's well beyond the point of fixing.
I just play a Medic. There's never enough of us around. I've had people praise the TF2 Gods when I popped in and started healing everyone.
Everyone seems to love us Medics (and I have 10 times the amount of time logged in as Medics against every other class combined) but nobody wants to play them!
Great observation sir.
I play 2 other pure PvP games (soon to be 3 in a year), and granted they aren't MMOs, but they are perfectly balanced. Two of these are developed by those who actually play the game they made. "Perfect" meaning every effort was made to ensure any variation won't result in an unfair advantage consistently to the point where it's wrong to do anything but that.
Here's a concrete example: LR (sniper) used to be a little too powerful against light armor. I capitalized on that gameplay strategy to great effect by practicing heavily with it, and then so did others. It's damage was reduced, and then its firing mode changed in a very unfair and awkward way. Devs took notice of our feedback on the forums, and gave it its original firing mode plus its new firing mode so we have options. Its performance now feels balanced, and falls in line with all other weapons.
Sports also strive towards balance in the sense of outlining the parameters and doing their best to make sure competitors adhere to them. Is it perfect? No, but it's an effort towards maintaining balance and providing for good competition.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Power selling is the business model for this game and it is part of the core of what keeps the lights on. Even more than keep the lights on, it's what helps this game turn profit and it's unlikely they're going to change that as 6 years of data shows that power selling is the meat and potatoes of what makes them money. I can't fault them for that. Not in the least.
Power creep is part of the ongoing lifecycle of an MMO. It's built into the way these games work. STO's power creep oddly enough (due mainly to the math Cryptic uses which they catch a lot of flak for from the community at times, but in the big picture when compared to power creep in other games shows to be remarkably contained) has been a bit of a mild incline over the years. But it's still needed for a game to move forward or present the illusion of moving forward.
They don't disregard game balance and player progression. They're just trying to manage it against design goals that don't always align with player desires. Like the traits revamp. That was a very negatively received update to that system. But the choices were made as part of a long term vision the development team had for future traits and the evolution of the game and its progression. The players just didn't like the choice and let the devs know. It was an unpopular choice and both sides of that discussion had a lot of valid points, but it was a choice made based on player progression.
Surprisingly other MMOs do a lot of the same things at varying degrees. The genre of MMO and F2P MMOs at that, have their staples, cliches and archetypes.
While that's a noble goal, you need to put that in an accounting and finances context. This game and many MMOs are not PVP driven. (A few are, but Cryptic doesn't make any of those). So PVP isn't driving the cash flow, putting that level of attention and resources on that vertical might not be the best use of your company's resources.
And when it comes to PVP, there's quite a few very popular games out there in other genres that already dominate that playerbase/demographic.
Is it worth the resources to chase after something that is a small slice of your current playerbase and which you are already behind the leaders in chasing new player converts?
The MMO cliche is the dragon raid. But the one constant in this genre has always been ... the hardest content gives the best rewards. Oddly STO and all other Cryptic Games eschew this model quite well. Their best rewards come from other sources, either time gates or resource expenditure (with some of those resources being easier to get if you spend real life money). And this model works surprisingly well for them.
But the age old standard is, you want the super duper sword of awesomeness? ONLY big-bad-breath-dragon in the lair of Takes-an-hour-just-to-get-to-him drops that item. You need 10, 20 or 40 of your closest friends to help you slog through that lair to fight and defeat that boss. And THEN he MIGHT drop that sword. If he DOES, then you and the other 10, 20 or 40 people need to figure out a way to award that sword.
Dragon Kill Points!
So coming from that staple, the way things happen in STO is conversely far more equalized than most people give the game credit for. You want the best gear? Right now it's just a time and resource sink. You need Mk XVII epic quality Antiproton Whatevs with [PEN] or [DMG] or [CrtD] on it, you craft it. Random number generator may give you the mods you want. Then you upgrade it. Random number generator can get you lucky on the rarity upgrades. And level upgrades are a finite and measured resource sink. The game devs even give a rotating window of when the upgrading is half price! It costs in-game resources (credits, dilithium, crafting materials) to do this. But it's ALL under your own control. You don't have to raid with 10, 20 or 40 other people to do it. You don't have to kill the same boss 10, 20 or 40 times to get him to drop that item you want when you need it.
As MMOs go, STO makes its top level gear far more equitably available than a LOT of other MMOs. They also make it much easier to acquire if you sink real life dollars into their system.
I'm not here to defend Cryptic's development team. They've made their decisions and they can defend them on their own. I will however, offer some insight and perspective on how this game fits into the larger genre of MMOs and point out that in terms of the longest standing complaints people have against the "system" ... Cryptic's taken a different route. They do make design decisions that are somewhat unique and radical when compared to the standard MMO. A lot of it I've disagreed with over the years. Some of it I've championed. That's just a matter of personal taste. But they have consistently stuck to their decisions and their core design values the entire time. I will give them credit for sticking to their guns.
Well, that is one of the major underlying issues at play here.
A lot of people are unhappy with the amount of damage buffs a Tac captain has at his disposal.
Its been a frequent complaint here over the years.
And with all the power creep, it just magnifies the problem.
That may be all well and true for some shooter game, but one of the primary goals of RPG gameplay is to gain an advantage. To make progress. To earn more and better stuff, that improves your performance, allows you to do more. If the new stuff "falls in line with" all the old stuff, it's more or less pointless to play at all.
STO is just missing the part where the improved performance allows you to do more, because all the content old and new is so easy there are no higher challenges to overcome.
there is a proverb which talks about people, who try to compensate an unlucky gift of the nature; by competion, big cars etc etc. So each time, when I do a stf with dpsers; I think at this proverb.
About the difficulty; yes it is too easy for a minority, who destroys the pleasure of the majority. BUT, this is not their fault; cryptic gave them the tools and the possiblity to do that.
about the ground stfs or battlezone. with the spam of all the iconian TRIBBLE; even the ground missions are became boring and annoying.
As for "balanced pvp", I've never heard of a game that had a continual stream of new stuff where PvP could be said to be balanced.
My character Tsin'xing